Verizon Unlimited Data Plan for Jetpacks

[docj]

3 hours ago, NDBirdman said:

I also looked at my monthly bill, it would cost 20/mo to bring my wife's to above unlimited like I have.  It gives me from what I see about the same as using the mifi.  Their site wants $45/mo to use mifi-prepaid where it would only run 20/mo extra for my wife's upgrade. 

Are you aware of the fact that MiFi's added to Verizon postpaid unlimited accounts are only permitted to have 15GB or 22GB of 4G/LTE data before the speed is reduced to <600kbps?  The prepaid plan being discussed in this thread is completely unlimited and not subject to any throttling.

[Dutch_12078]

A couple of days ago, I discovered that my grey market $5/mo unlimited 3G flashed Jetpack had finally been shut down by Verizon. It was nice for the several years it lasted, but not a big surprise when it ended. So anyway, after doing a factory reset of my 6620L, I trundled on over to the Verizon retail store in St Marys, GA and had it activated on the unlimited $70/$65 prepaid plan. The whole process took no more than perhaps 15 minutes and will make a good alternative to our AT&T Connected Car Plan where the VZW signals are stronger. A speed test at the store using my connected smartphone came back with ~12Mbps down, which is ok and would support streaming, but I was pleasantly surprised when I returned to the state park and tested at ~40Mbps down. I love the speed, but I really did prefer the $5/mo payments... 

[Al F]

On 1/24/2019 at 7:47 AM, Al F said:

In an earlier reply I stated we had the "no internet" problem on our payment date.  Now the problem is occurring more frequently.  Last Sunday we were Skyping on a group call with two computers active and about every15 minutes we got the "no internet".  POR our 6620 and it worked for another 15 minutes.

Finally yesterday, Wednesday, the Jetpack went into the no internet and I had the time to start a chat session (I had to use my Ph Hotspot) and the Tech said he made some changes which should fix the problem.  I was on the chat session for about 1.5 hours.  He also had me do a factory reset of the jetpack. 

I'll update if I get more failures.

Failed again yesterday, Friday 1/25. Powered off and on it worked OK.

[Bill Joyce]

The 5510L is a fairly old model missing many of the current LTE bands, but will probably work in most areas.  It won't work in Canada, but I suspect the prepaid plan doesn't work in Canada either.

[remoandiris]

2 hours ago, Al F said:

Failed again yesterday, Friday 1/25. Powered off and on it worked OK.

I have been having a LOT of failures on my 8800.  I think the Verizon cell signal quality where I am is just not strong enough to support my demands.  I have been using it to stream Dish On Demand shows while simultaneously surfing.  Something just gets choked.  The other night I was downloading an 8gb software update to my computer.  It failed at 0.9 gb each time I attempted the download.  At that time, all I was doing was the download.  I'll give it a shot again in a few days when I get home.  If nothing else, I'll just use the cable connection at home.

[docj]

3 hours ago, Al F said:

Failed again yesterday, Friday 1/25. Powered off and on it worked OK.

FWIW since I did a factory reset of my 7730L I haven't experienced any additional issues.  Of course, this post will probably jinx that! 😀

 

[LarryN]

I just got a phone call from my corporate Verizon store, the same store that told me there were no 8800l jetpacks coming.....that my 8800l jetpack had arrived at the store. Within minutes, the UPS guy brought the refurbished 7730. When the guy called, I told him the "1-800" people told me yesterday that the 8800L would no longer be available.

Talk about confusion. I also found out I cannot get the travel pass on any pre-paid account. Looks like am going to use my ATT iphone as a hotspot in the Bahamas in March.

What to do, what to do......I am actually willing to go buy the 8800L and keep this 7730 on the shelf if that thing does not work. I told the guy that there were reports of the 8800L "dropping out". He looked up something on his computer that mentioned "if you change the password, issues like this can happen" (sorry but I paraphrase). So, sez me, it is best to keep the default password? Yes, sez him.

Advice? Thanks in advance.

[remoandiris]

3 hours ago, LarryN said:

 I told the guy that there were reports of the 8800L "dropping out". He looked up something on his computer that mentioned "if you change the password, issues like this can happen" (sorry but I paraphrase). So, sez me, it is best to keep the default password? Yes, sez him.

Advice? Thanks in advance.

I have not changed the password and my 8800 STILL has drop outs.  

[Bill Joyce]

Yesterday I went through Verizon chat and have an 8800L being shipped to me, even though it was marked out of stock for prepaid, and am signed up for the prepaid plan.  Startup, taxes and the first month, which is at the full $70 since the person could not set up my autopay, was just over $292.  Once I get the prepaid plan going I will adjust my postpaid plan.

[Second Chance]

19 hours ago, remoandiris said:

I have not changed the password and my 8800 STILL has drop outs.  

I changed the password in ours and haven't noticed any issues.

1 hour ago, Bill Joyce said:

Yesterday I went through Verizon chat and have an 8800L being shipped to me, even though it was marked out of stock for prepaid, and am signed up for the prepaid plan.  Startup, taxes and the first month, which is at the full $70 since the person could not set up my autopay, was just over $292.  Once I get the prepaid plan going I will adjust my postpaid plan.

Hmmm... walked into a Verizon store week before last and bought one off the shelf. The salesperson replaced our old JetPack (which was having power issues) with the 8800 on our prepaid plan in about three minutes - same $50/month with discounts.

Rob

[edatlanta]

On 1/15/2019 at 6:19 AM, edatlanta said:

I have my second auto renewal coming up at the end of the month so we shall see.  I didn't notice any interruption on my first one last month.  I was a little concerned of interruption on the first one, but was surprised.  Maybe it will be third time is the charm?

My postpaid 8800L was auto renewed last night.  If there was any interruption in service I didn't know it.  It was working normally when I went to bed and was working normally this morning.  I did check the online site and it has auto renewed.  All is good ..... for now.

 

[edatlanta]

On 1/28/2019 at 8:36 AM, edatlanta said:

My postpaid 8800L was auto renewed last night.  If there was any interruption in service I didn't know it.  It was working normally when I went to bed and was working normally this morning.  I did check the online site and it has auto renewed.  All is good ..... for now.

 

I just checked my credit card that this service is billed on and they processed the monthly payment at 11:10pm on the last day.

[Dutch_12078]

I'm thinking about upgrading to an 8800, but the issues I'm seeing reported here and other forums are giving me pause to pull the trigger just yet. My 6620L has been online 24/7 since it was activated at a VZW store last Friday with no drop outs of any sort even while moving from Georgia to Florida.

[nscaler2]

Well it is my auto renew day and my 8800 is dropping me about every 2 hours.  Its' screen says it is connected to the internet, but my computer and phone says connected with no internet.  Have had the 8800 for 2 months now.  This is the first time it has done this.  Will a factory reset fix this?  If so do I have to reinstate the account?  THIA for any advise.

[Big5er]

2 hours ago, nscaler2 said:

Well it is my auto renew day and my 8800 is dropping me about every 2 hours.  Its' screen says it is connected to the internet, but my computer and phone says connected with no internet.  Have had the 8800 for 2 months now.  This is the first time it has done this.  Will a factory reset fix this?  If so do I have to reinstate the account?  THIA for any advise.

Let me know how this goes. I know what hell I went through to get mine fixed when it did the same thing. Are you a heavy downloader? They tried to tell me I had exceeded the "fair usage amount", which wasn't possible. They eventually got mine fixed but it took me almost 2 weeks, a replacement jetpack and finally 1 kid with some above average intelligence. 

Edited February 16, 2019 by Big5er

[nscaler2]

6 hours ago, Big5er said:

Let me know how this goes. I know what hell I went through to get mine fixed when it did the same thing. Are you a heavy downloader? They tried to tell me I had exceeded the "fair usage amount", which wasn't possible. They eventually got mine fixed but it took me almost 2 weeks, a replacement jetpack and finally 1 kid with some above average intelligence. 

Since I posted last I have had to reboot the MIFI 2 times.  I guess you could say we are heavy users, we went thru 103 gb this month.  Two Phones a computer and a tablet and some netflix  went thru this thing this month.  Actually that is less than last month and we didn't have this kind of trouble last month.  I see that my payment went thru just a few minutes ago.  Will see if this calms down for a while.  Interesting thing, after I reboot the MIFI it see a signal strength of -65db with a signal to noise ratio of 16 db.  That is quite good.  But after a while it falls off to -93 db and a SNR of 5 or 6.  Don't know what is going on there.  It acts like it is loosing a couple of its' 4 antennae inside, or its radio fluctuates.  Don't know, just brain storming. 

Edited February 17, 2019 by nscaler2

[remoandiris]

My 8800 hasn't worked right since I bought it in December.  I "think" there is some type of software conflict between my old and new account.  It chokes at unpredictable times, usually while streaming a TV show via Dish On Demand.

When I bought the 8800, someone at Verizon changed the device's phone number to my OLD device's number.  I think THAT act is the root of the problem, despite Verizon saying it isn't.  

My 8800, on the prepaid unlimited account, shows a renewal date on the 10th of each month (date old acct renewed) and a data limit of 10240 gb.  My acct is NOT an auto renewal, and ends on the 22d of each month, as well as being unlimited!!

Next week I'm taking it to my local Verizon store and requesting a replacement device.  The new sim card they gave me last week did nothing to solve the problem.  The person at the store told me I'll have to leave the device since it is prepaid until the replacement device comes in.  Good thing I don't need it for 2 weeks.

[Big5er]

And they will want to replace it with a refurb. I wasn't happy about that at all. I moaned and whined so they refunded half the price of my new one and I took the refurb. Which didn't fix the issue anyway. They will not tell you what that "fair usage" amount is but it appears that if you exceed it Verizon is the one flipping the switch on and off. It is not a hardware issue. 

[Al F]

This last week (Thursday) I figured out how to consistently recreate the "no internet" problem with my 6620 JetPac.  My JetPac is also showing the "10240 data usage" figure which never changes.  No indication on the JetPac if the 10240 figure is bytes, Mbytes or Gbytes.  

I figured out that the problem occurs when I reach 860MB of data. Note this is bytes not bits of data, as some download speed tests or data monitoring apps display "bits" as in small "b" instead of Bytes with a large "B". 

I use www.testmy.net for download test as it allows me to specify a download size of 200MB.  Consistently on the 5th download, I get the "no internet".  Sometimes the JetPac just stops sending data to the computer and then takes several minutes before the "no internet" to show up. 

I determined the 860MB of data from the "Networx" app on my computer used to monitor the data in and out of the computer.  Networx used to be free, but now is a fee only app.  Great little app for monitoring data.  

This week I will start a chat session with Verizon to try to get this fixed. 

Edited February 17, 2019 by Al F

[nscaler2]

On 2/16/2019 at 1:49 PM, Big5er said:

Let me know how this goes. I know what hell I went through to get mine fixed when it did the same thing. Are you a heavy downloader? They tried to tell me I had exceeded the "fair usage amount", which wasn't possible. They eventually got mine fixed but it took me almost 2 weeks, a replacement jetpack and finally 1 kid with some above average intelligence. 

Well one day after renewal of the plan, everything is peachy again.  No drops no troubles.  This indicates that it is a problem with Verizon, not a hardware problem.  Verizon is messing with us on the day of our renewal.  For what reason, I don't know.

Edited February 18, 2019 by nscaler2

[docj]

On 2/17/2019 at 5:20 AM, Al F said:

I figured out that the problem occurs when I reach 860MB of data.

Do mean 860MB from the start of a new monthly contract?  Or, 860MB in any one "session"?  We're definitely not having any such limit.

Edited February 18, 2019 by docj

[Al F]

16 minutes ago, docj said:

Do mean 860MB from the start of a new monthly contract?  Or, 860MB in any one "session"?  We're definitely not having any such limit.

860MB in any one session.

[Technomadia]

We've been tracking these ongoing issues with the prepaid plans - and they seem related to the recent enforcement of the 720p video throttling. Some older accounts (ie. started before the end of last year) are most prone to these drop-outs. 

The recommended fix at present time seems to be having Verizon activate you a new line of service. 

Here's our article tracking the issue, with some other possible solutions:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/reported-issues-verizon-prepaid-unlimited-jetpack-plans-acting-wonky/

[remoandiris]

6 hours ago, Technomadia said:

The recommended fix at present time seems to be having Verizon activate you a new line of service. 

Here's our article tracking the issue, with some other possible solutions:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/reported-issues-verizon-prepaid-unlimited-jetpack-plans-acting-wonky/

VERY helpful post and article.  Printing it out and taking it with me when I go to the Verizon store.

[docj]

6 hours ago, Technomadia said:

We've been tracking these ongoing issues with the prepaid plans - and they seem related to the recent enforcement of the 720p video throttling. Some older accounts (ie. started before the end of last year) are most prone to these drop-outs. 

The recommended fix at present time seems to be having Verizon activate you a new line of service. 

 

My unlimited account was initiated on 11/8 only a couple of days after the plan was announced.  I don't seem to have as many problems as some folks here,  but I do consistently have some issues on the day before or the day of my renewal.  So far I haven't done anything but reboot my 7730L when this happens.

Joel (AKA docj)