Ugh, cell phone companies
Jan. 11th, 2010 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoGary got antsy and went and signed a contract with Verizon for 3G/EVDO service. His brother was here at New Year's with a laptop and a similar connection that apparently worked. That overrode all my cautious advice, I guess.
So they gave him a USB modem (USB760) and 5GB per month for $60 a month on a 24 month contract. I have no idea how fast he'll eat that up, but I suspect if he starts diddling with Google Earth and you-boob it won't take long. The instructions for installing the thing stink. The specs are nonexistent. Linux is not only unsupported, but not even mentioned. Likewise, connection sharing, unless possibly if you buy a wireless router (we do not use wi-fi in the house and I don't want to start.)
Worse, if he is connected via Verizon with this thing, any activity on the local ethernet LAN by my PC seems to cause it to disconnect from Verizon. I suspect this has to do with the way his Windows XP was configured for ICS using an ordinary dialup modem, but who knows. Microsoft is singularly obtuse about these things.
Since the USB760 is essentially a cell phone, and has provisions for sending and receiving text or connecting a voice handset of some sort. it seems at least possible that ICS could be activated for it by linking Windows' own dial up networking to the 3G modem in the device, and bypassing Verizon's VZAccess software (which is brain dead anyway) but I'm not sure how to begin. As for borrowing the device and connecting it to my Linux workstation, that's probably hopeless in the extreme.
He's got three days in which he can cancel and get a full refund, and 30 days in which he can cancel by paying $70. After that the impossible cell phone contract kicks in and we're stuck with the thing for two years.
I'm irritated because it only gets one bar out of four for signal strength. Even my cheap VM cell phone gets two here. I have no idea whether he could have done better with Sprint/Nextel or AT&T, and neither does he. Sigh.
So they gave him a USB modem (USB760) and 5GB per month for $60 a month on a 24 month contract. I have no idea how fast he'll eat that up, but I suspect if he starts diddling with Google Earth and you-boob it won't take long. The instructions for installing the thing stink. The specs are nonexistent. Linux is not only unsupported, but not even mentioned. Likewise, connection sharing, unless possibly if you buy a wireless router (we do not use wi-fi in the house and I don't want to start.)
Worse, if he is connected via Verizon with this thing, any activity on the local ethernet LAN by my PC seems to cause it to disconnect from Verizon. I suspect this has to do with the way his Windows XP was configured for ICS using an ordinary dialup modem, but who knows. Microsoft is singularly obtuse about these things.
Since the USB760 is essentially a cell phone, and has provisions for sending and receiving text or connecting a voice handset of some sort. it seems at least possible that ICS could be activated for it by linking Windows' own dial up networking to the 3G modem in the device, and bypassing Verizon's VZAccess software (which is brain dead anyway) but I'm not sure how to begin. As for borrowing the device and connecting it to my Linux workstation, that's probably hopeless in the extreme.
He's got three days in which he can cancel and get a full refund, and 30 days in which he can cancel by paying $70. After that the impossible cell phone contract kicks in and we're stuck with the thing for two years.
I'm irritated because it only gets one bar out of four for signal strength. Even my cheap VM cell phone gets two here. I have no idea whether he could have done better with Sprint/Nextel or AT&T, and neither does he. Sigh.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-12 02:07 pm (UTC)Cell phone companies are regulated but only at a minimal level. Their contracts are draconian, their rates are outrageous, and their sales tactics abominable. Figuring out exactly what you are buying is made as difficult as possible, and believing what the salesperson tells you is suicide. The contracts are all but unintelligible to anyone but a supreme court justice (if even to them) and they invariably have ironclad cancellation clauses that try to make you liable for large sums of money even if the service is terminated at the provider's end, as for instance if their towers are all blown down by storms.