I bought a jetpack in the beginning of September. It worked fine for about a week, then it started having issues. I could connect to the jetpack normally, and it would show the device was connected. I could also go to the jetpack admin page on my device, and the About section would show it was connected to the internet. However, I would not have any internet access on my device. I tried connecting as many different devices as I could (Pixel 3, iPhone, Mac, Linux laptop), all had the same behavior.
I reached out to Verizon multiple times for help. First, they used our insurance policy to just send me a brand new jetpack. I tried it using the the same SIM card as the old jetpack, and it still didn’t work. I reached out to Verizon again. After walking through the basic trouble shooting steps (which I had already done on my own many times), they decided to send me a new SIM card.
After I got the new SIM card and called into to go through the activation process, the jetpack worked again. A week later, the jetpack stopped working again, with the same behavior as before. I did not make any changes to my plan or anything. It was just working one day, then not working the next day, even with 3 bars of service.
I reached out to Verizon once again, very frustrated with the device. After some extremely redundant back and forth with a frontline agent, I was able to get on a call with a Tier 2 tech. Because my devices were connecting fine to the jetpack, and the jetpack had signal, he basically denied that there could be a problem with their device. Then, he asked me to try changing the password. Once I did, and the jetpack restarted, it was working again. I was shocked and asked him why this worked. He had no idea, he just said he'd heard of it being an issue before.
About once a week, for three weeks, I would experience the same connectivity issue. Each time, I would reset my password and the jetpack would work again. Today, I experienced the issue again, and this time resetting the password did not work. I tried factory reset, changing the network name, changing the password multiple times, all the basic trouble shooting steps, and nothing worked.
I am now back to square zero. I spent over 100 dollars to buy this device. I am paying monthly for the data for it. Yet it has only been usable for a small portion of the time I’ve had it.
I have not been able to get any help beyond basic customer service and troubleshooting. Because Verizon doesn't seem to have any system that tracks an incident to resolution, or any channel for raising a legitimate technical issue beyond the scope of user error or confusion, I need to waste hours of time on the chat or phone reexplaining myself each time the issue resurfaces.
TL;DR
My experience since getting my jetpack has been nothing but a headache. There seems to be some technical issue with these devices, or at least mine in particular, which Verizon refuses to acknowledge or even investigate. I have put a lot of time and energy into trying to correct this issue, but have yet to be even taken seriously by Verizon -- and thus have been reduced to writing a whiny forum post about it.
Verizon, please make this right.
