Service degradation with Mifi 2200/early termination fee

We use our Mifi to provide Internet access to my rural house that is about five miles from the nearest DSL connection. The Mifi replaced HughesNet in February 2011 -- and we've been very pleased with the service up until this month. We pretty consistently had about 2.85 - 3 Mbps download speeds. We have the 10GB plan.

On May 8 we noticed my previously decent connection is now worse than HughesNet. When we can connect and we can only connect one device at a time, it's very slow (0.06 Mbps download/0.09 Mbps upload according to Speedtest.net). We're well under our usage limit for the month.

We noticed some work going on at two local towers and waited it out.

Last Tuesday (May 22), since it appears the work on the towers is over and one of my neighbors said their Verizon cell phones were completely down for two days, I called Customer Service and worked with them and their script for two hours before the genuinely trying-to-be-helpful woman on the other end said she'd have to submit a ticket to technical support to have someone come out to my house. They would call me. I'm still waiting for that call.

Last night I took the mifi and my iPad about 25 miles down the road to see if maybe it was the mifi. On the side of the road, near a couple cell towers (don't know if they were Verizon), I was able to get 1.85 Mbps download speed. Not wonderful, but better than HughesNet on a good day.

Do I have any option to get any money back for service they are NOT providing?
Can I get any kind of break on the early termination fee if I have to cancel because Verizon is unable/unwilling to fix the problem with their tower? (I live in a sparsely populated area--so they don't have hundreds of customers screaming about it.)
What is the early termination fee for a Mifi 2200? (I've looked all over the website and am unable to find it).

Thanks for your advice.

Accepted answers

borax_lil

I cancelled my Verizon today. I'm paying $95 for my ETF -- evidently it is only a $5/month reduction with the $175-level ETF devices. I'm not happy about that.

The Exede service is very good. The best part is that the speeds are about the same as Verizon (about 3 Mbps when it was working well), but the data limit on their midrange plan is 27GB. That plan is costing me $70/month.

My 10 GB a month with Verizon cost me $65/month (I had a discount through work), but it would have normally been $80.

With the Exede, I did qualify for a rural federal program under the Recovery Act that paid all my upfront installation costs and equipment leasing fees.

I am seriously considering moving to Exede's highest plan - about 8 Mbps. It is about $120/month with 60 GB of service.

If you are in the West, rural and looking for Internet service because your Verizon wireless has crapped out -- I recommend Exede.

All comments

John_Getzke

Hello,

To answer your questions:

1. There are no options for a "refund" on your service.

2. Yes. Call them up and mention you wish to leave for service related reasons. VZW should be leniant and atleast offer you a discount if not cover the entire fee.

3. ETF $175.00 for these devices. The ETF is pro-rated for each month of service you used the device. I believe the ETF is reduced $10.00 per month.

Service related problems are hard to argue. Either the service is good enough in your area or it is not. Sometimes there is seasonal interferance that naturally goes away and comes back over time, its not always worth it to wait it out. Some users are successful with antennas and amplifiers to improve the signal strength. Conducting a site survey should give you some confidence in a decision to invest in that equiptment before you buy.

Site Survey:

http://3gstore.com/page/13_will_an_antenna_help_me.html

borax_lil

Thanks for your advice.

Although my HughesNet experience was awful towards the end, I've been investigating WildBlue's new Exede service (there is a government program for people like me who live out in the boonies that seems very intriguing -- no upfront equipment costs/faster/much greater data allowance).

If I don't hear from Verizon technical support before the WildBlue installers show up, I'll probably just cancel my Verizon service.

If you're right about the $10/month reduction, I'm looking at $15 or $30 for a ETF (so glad this isn't one of the $350 ETF devices). That is doable, but I'll see if Verizon will waive the fee or give me a discount.

The whole thing is annoying because we had really great service up until the beginning of May. I'm not sure what happened, but there was a Verizon outage in the area at about that time that affected a lot of people.

borax_lil

I cancelled my Verizon today. I'm paying $95 for my ETF -- evidently it is only a $5/month reduction with the $175-level ETF devices. I'm not happy about that.

My 10 GB a month with Verizon cost me $65/month (I had a discount through work), but it would have normally been $80.

With the Exede, I did qualify for a rural federal program under the Recovery Act that paid all my upfront installation costs and equipment leasing fees.

I am seriously considering moving to Exede's highest plan - about 8 Mbps. It is about $120/month with 60 GB of service.

If you are in the West, rural and looking for Internet service because your Verizon wireless has crapped out -- I recommend Exede.

commonsense101

good for you. mifi isn't ment as a sole source for home internet. glad you found an internet service for your needs

John_Getzke

Thanks for the confirmation on the ETF's as well. Now we know the ETF is prorated $5/mo instead of $10/mo.