docj

There's now a thread on IRV2 about the same issue: http://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/pre-paid-verizon-jetpack-out-of-data-426706.html#post4589977

That's very similar to the behavior I observed.

Well, mine won't work without one and attached is a post from VZW customer support stating that it's not designed to work without one. Maybe the firmware was changed in more recent versions of the device.

My 7730L was "very unhappy" when I tried running it without a battery. Did you employ any hacks to get it to operate without one?

My battery did go bad several months ago and I bought an OEM replacement on Amazon. The problems I reported all went away the day after the renewal "anniversary". I still think that had something to do with it.

Thanks for the info. If I have to go that route I'll remember to ask for "the deal of the day!" 😀

I have a 7730L, not an 8800, and the 7730's not supposed to have that problem! It never did before, but previously I didn't rely on it the way we do now. It's possible that the problem always existed but I wasn't trying to use ~150GB a month off of it.

Please don't say that! It's out of warranty and I don't want to pay $200 for a new 8800! 😪

Interesting. My "issues" continued throughout the renewal day despite the fact that my online account stated that payment had been received for the next month, etc. What was odd was that when these outages occurred the Jetpack's display screen was totally normal and showed that I had an LTE connection. But none of the devices on my internal network could access the internet until I rebooted the Jetpack. Of course it could have been a local Verizon issue, but my phones didn't seem to be having any problems. I'll see if it reoccurs next month.

I discovered an interesting behavior with my unlimited Jetpack plan today. This is the my monthly "anniversary" day and I have the plan set up for automatic payment in order to get the $5 discount. But, at around noon, the Jetpack stopped connecting to the internet even though neither its display or its online admin screen indicated there was an problem. I power-cycled it and it began working normally. My assumption is that the prepaid plans function as stand-alone "blocks" of usage and, therefore, there is no way to "slide" from one month's usage to the next without a reboot. I'd be interested to see if others experience this same issue. You'd probably never notice it if you turn off your Jetpack when not using it. I don't bother to do that; I have its charger set to cycle on and off so it doesn't overcharge the battery but I see no reason to shut off the device itself.

Do you have a phone that is also on the Verizon network? Have you thought to measure the phone's download speed at the same time you're having issues with the Jetpack? If the phone is on a postpaid plan, like most are, then that would help determine if the download speed issue is related to it being a prepaid plan or if the network is seriously overloaded, in general.

Have you measured the download speed in the midnight to 5 am time period? If you're being limited because of network congestion, it shouldn't be evident at that time of day. The few slowdowns I've had with my prepaid plan have all been of limited duration.

You're right, it's on my 7730L also. You learn something new every day! My comments stand, that a SNR of 1dB is horrible and is likely the cause of poor download speed.

I'm sure you realize that the signal strength is completely independent of the plan your using. Are you measuring the RSRP and SNR on the Jetpack or on your phone? I have an app on my phone that will give me that info but I don't know of a way to get it from the Jetpack itself. All that notwithstanding, what you are reporting is a very poor SNR ratio. It's no wonder that your download speeds are poor; the system can barely distinguish signals from the surrounding noise! I'm not sure your slow download speeds have anything to do with the prepaid plan. Have you tried measuring download speed with the phone itself?

I also got caught in MD a couple of years ago (it was at night and I saw the camera lights flash) and never received a bill.

We got hit in one of Verizon's early sweeps in which they closed accounts that were judged to have "excessive usage". What's ironic is that in those days ~60-80GB/mo was considered excessive. Last month I used >125GB on my unlimited prepaid Verizon Jetpack account.

The Terms of Service (TOS) of the grandfathered Verizon plans do not permit tethering or hotspot use without paying an extra fee for it. I know because I did have one for several years and had decided that paying Verizon ~$30/mo for hotspot usage was worth to avoid risking cancellation. But my plan got cancelled anyway! But I doubt the TOS has changed.

Since my phones are on Verizon postpaid accounts, if the prepaid throughput drops too much I switch to the phone's hotspot. The 15GB/phone/month is more than enough to get me through the slow periods on the prepaid plan, at least so far.

The TV in our casita (at our place in TX) is a 43" 4K Samsung. Even when watching a 1080p DirecTV channel, it has a decidedly better picture than does the 40" Samsung HDTV in the MH.

With all due respect, I don't think that any currently available AT&T "unlimited" hotspot plan provides for more than 15GB of LTE data before slowing the device down to 128kps. I presume you are aware of that. If you want a truly unlimited hotspot option you may wish to consider the new Verizon prepaid hotspot plan for $70/mo with a $5/mo credit for automatic payment.

Our largest TV is a 43". On that the 720p picture is just fine IMHO.

This is what appears in the small print on my account; notice that the circled text refers to Full HD streaming and HD-quality streaming but uses 780p and 720p as the resolution. It is true that 720p is a form of HD video.

Speed test sites each use their own algorithm to rapidly test and calculate the results. It's not all that surprising to see variations between their reported speeds Furthermore, there are minute to minute variations in a cellular carrier's effective speed so the fact that I didn't do these tests simultaneously means that some differences result from normal variance. As for whether there are other explanations, the "small print" in my online terms and conditions for my prepaid unlimited plan clearly states that streaming is limited to 720p. On forums and Facebook, some people had challenged this and were claiming that they were getting 1080p resolution. Since I don't know of a way to obtain resolution from a video directly, this was the best way I could think of to try to measure the actual streaming speed. I'm not an expert in this. I posted it with the hope that someone more knowledgeable than I am might provide a more complete explanation.

Because I'm a "techie" and have nothing better to do this morning (it's cold and overcast in south TX), I just ran back to back speedtests using several well-known test sites. What I was after was validation or disproof of the contention that the new Verizon unlimited prepaid plan limits streaming to 720p.Here are the speed test engines I used and their respective measured download speeds:Fast.com 9.5 MbpsSpeedtest.net 23.4MbpsTestMy.net 18.3MbpsSpeedofMe 22.6MbpsNote that there is reasonable consistency between all the tests except Fast.com which was developed by Netflix and, presumably, provides a measure of how good your internet connection is for streaming video.To test that assumption I then switched to my Verizon Pixel's hotspot and repeated the tests:Fast.com 30MbpsSpeedtest.net 21.8MbpsTestMy.net 25.7MbpsSpeedofMe 29.58MbpsNotice that Fast.com is no longer an outlier, in fact, it's showing the fastest measured speed in the group. This rather large difference leads me to believe that Fast.com'ssured speed is being constrained by a restriction on streaming resolution and, hence, speed. I don't know enough about how "streaming" is detected compared to other data uses, but there seems to be a difference and it is very repeatable.As for the fact that the average speed measured using the phone hotspot is significantly faster than with the hotspot on the prepaid plan, I assume there are two explanations, both of which may have some validity. First of all, my Pixel 2XL is a relatively new device which may be inherently faster when used as a hotspot than my 7730l Jetpack. In addition, it may be that Verizon doesn't give the prepaid plan full access to maximum network speed even when it isn't being used for streaming. Either or both of these could contribute to the measured differences. Joel (AKA docj)

We own property in TX but retain our SD residency. We are not employed in TX nor have we done anything else to compromise our SD domicile status. Owning property doesn't constitute an intent to become a resident. If you have the means you can own homes in as many states as you wish, but you're still a resident of just one of them.