rayin Report post Posted February 13, 2022 My wife has a Verizon prepaid phone, we just bought a Verizon prepaid ( no charges for stopping/starting as needed) hotspot for $79 + $40/month for 100gb per month (current special offer) Just sayin. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Viking1500 Report post Posted February 13, 2022 I'm in Georgia M2000 with T-mobile, I'm at 263gb used no slow down. Just checked got 104.95 down 78.89 up Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billaustin48 Report post Posted February 20, 2022 We were ok on Sprint ___ then went with T-Mobile and Inseego 2000 device — worked great streaming Netflix, etc. Now, with the data cap, plan is useless with the data cap—- just get the circle going around and around —— Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
faiello Report post Posted February 21, 2022 1 hour ago, billaustin48 said: We were ok on Sprint ___ then went with T-Mobile and Inseego 2000 device — worked great streaming Netflix, etc. Now, with the data cap, plan is useless with the data cap—- just get the circle going around and around —— Where are you located? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 22, 2022 On 1/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, raypesek said: Is anyone using the Calyx Institute plan? I wonder if they are going through the same thing. They list the Alcatel LinkZone 2 as their lowest plan, the Mifi 8000L as their mid-tier plan (but marked as Currently Unavailable) and the M2000 as their top-tier plan. Their Alcatel plan is cheaper than FMCA while the M2000 plan is more expensive cumulatively until you're a few years in and then it's a bit cheaper. FMCA is a flat $600 a year while Calyx is $750 in Year One and then $500 in Year 2 and later so in Year 3 you're a bit ahead in the cost with Calyx. https://calyxinstitute.org/membership/internet https://calyxinstitute.org/help/hotspot-connectivity/data-usage - Our contract with Mobile Citizen says “no throttling, suspension, or overage charges after 30GB”. We are authorized by Mobile Citizen to describe the service as “unlimited” because there is no limit to the amount of data you can use, and there never has been. We began offering this membership benefit on the 4G/LTE network in April 2016 and so far we haven’t heard of anyone being cut off for using too much data. The plan does not include off-network roaming and it is subject to any standard network management that T-Mobile may apply to commercial broadband data-only account holders. We have the FMCA hotspot and after trying to get hold of tech support about what going to happen with my M2000 I joined Calyx with the 750.00 5G plan. I have been running the side by side and the Calyx M2000 has not required a reboot in 30 days and I have to reboot the FMCA M2000 server times. I get constant readings using speed test on the Calyx one and it varies on the FMCA. One feature I really like about Calyx is you call tech support someone answered the phone. Calyx cost 750 a year (61 a month) for the first year and the second year it will cost 500 (41 a month). I will be canceling my FMCA account so I don't have to deal with the non senses and non support issues. I will end my FMCA membership and the end of this membership period. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 22, 2022 22 minutes ago, cwswine said: We have the FMCA hotspot and after trying to get hold of tech support about what going to happen with my M2000 I joined Calyx with the 750.00 5G plan. I have been running the side by side and the Calyx M2000 has not required a reboot in 30 days and I have to reboot the FMCA M2000 server times. I get constant readings using speed test on the Calyx one and it varies on the FMCA. One feature I really like about Calyx is you call tech support someone answered the phone. Calyx cost 750 a year (61 a month) for the first year and the second year it will cost 500 (41 a month). I will be canceling my FMCA account so I don't have to deal with the non senses and non support issues. I will end my FMCA membership and the end of this membership period. Thanks for the detailed observations. Odd. Your reboot experience would imply that T-Mobile is supplying different firmware versions to FMCA and to Calyx. That would be a lot of work on their part as usually Inseego supplies the firmware to the telcos. I'm wondering if your FMCA M2000 has defective hardware. If you're adventurous, you could try swapping the SIMs between them and seeing what happens. Whether the problems follow the SIM or not we'll have the answer. FMCAssist and their other benefits are worth more to me than the cost of their yearly membership so even if I do switch to Calyx (which may suffer the same consequences as FMCA from T-Mobile) I'll definitely keep my FMCA membership. We stay at the FMCA campground east of Cincinnati, OH a few times a year as we pass through the area and one night there covers the cost of my annual membership fee. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 23, 2022 On 2/22/2022 at 8:42 AM, raypesek said: Thanks for the detailed observations. Odd. Your reboot experience would imply that T-Mobile is supplying different firmware versions to FMCA and to Calyx. That would be a lot of work on their part as usually Inseego supplies the firmware to the telcos. I'm wondering if your FMCA M2000 has defective hardware. If you're adventurous, you could try swapping the SIMs between them and seeing what happens. Whether the problems follow the SIM or not we'll have the answer. FMCAssist and their other benefits are worth more to me than the cost of their yearly membership so even if I do switch to Calyx (which may suffer the same consequences as FMCA from T-Mobile) I'll definitely keep my FMCA membership. We stay at the FMCA campground east of Cincinnati, OH a few times a year as we pass through the area and one night there covers the cost of my annual membership fee. To me it doesn't make any difference since FMCA wants the M2000 back and going to give me some 4G hotspot as a replacement. People say that 5G is rare but my experience has been that most sites I have been I had a 5G signal including the site I spend the 3 plus months at in the winter. My M2000 still has the Sprint sim so could be the difference between performance of the hotspot. I still like the option of having a tech support number that someone answers the phone. Not sure how they will respond to problem, I just called to ask a question. I also tried the web based support and got a email back within a couple of hours. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rossboyer Report post Posted February 23, 2022 From what I have read is that 4g is faster for data, but 5g will go through walls and some obstructions better. Who knows? 40 years we were happy with 8track tapes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manholt Report post Posted February 23, 2022 Ross, lol. 🤣 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hermanmullins Report post Posted February 23, 2022 2 hours ago, rossboyer said: we were happy with 8 track tapes. WERE, if I remember you still have Frankie Lane on 8 track in your coach.😁 Herman Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 23, 2022 2 hours ago, rossboyer said: From what I have read is that 4g is faster for data, but 5g will go through walls and some obstructions better. Who knows? 40 years we were happy with 8track tapes. On your 4G how many sites on Speedtest did you get 500? Right now I getting over 300 on speed test using M2000 showing 5G connection. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rossboyer Report post Posted February 23, 2022 No, but location, location, location. T-Mobile is non-existent here. AT&T is marginal, but Verizon is acceptable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 23, 2022 1 hour ago, rossboyer said: No, but location, location, location. T-Mobile is non-existent here. AT&T is marginal, but Verizon is acceptable. I'm at Rincon West in Tucson AZ within the city limits and getting 0.5 to 1.5 today on Verizon today and 80 to 160 on AT&T phone but T-Mobile from Calyx is getting between 250 and 300 on Speedtest.com Yep so it is location, location, locations. In the last 6 month I have not had Verizon or ATT out preform T-Mobile . Since the merger T-Mobile is getting better and better and they are not the T-Mobile of the past. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 23, 2022 (edited) I ordered the new hotspot last Friday the 18th because the battery in my Mifi 8000L swelled up, again, and popped the back cover off, again. Then the hotspot later went into a continuous reboot so I had to pull the battery. The battery is now held in place with a tie wrap. The replacement hotspot was waiting at the campground office today, the 23rd, and it was shipped to FL from TX, which is pretty good. When I opened the box I found I did not get the Alcatel Linkzone 2! Woo Hoo! I got a Franklin T9? The Franklin R910 was what I got originally a couple of years ago and I almost canceled the service because it was so bad. Then I got the Mifi 8000L as a replacement and all was well. So I figure I'll give the T9 chance. I just switched over. Specs from the Calyx Institute: https://calyxinstitute.org/franklin-t9 The Franklin T9 mobile hotspot supports all possible T-Mobile/Sprint 4G bands, including T-Mobile's extended range bands and the bands formerly used by Sprint. In comparison to the LINKZONE 2, it has shorter battery life and does not have the ability to charge other devices. Running speedtest.net on side by side laptops showed no real advantage of one over the other. Downloads ranged from 05. M/bps to 3 M/bps with about the same upload speeds. Ping times were good on one and bad on the other and then reversed. Ray Edited February 23, 2022 by raypesek Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 23, 2022 Man, this thing is a real screamer! Or makes me want to scream. Or something. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 23, 2022 27 minutes ago, raypesek said: Man, this thing is a real screamer! Or makes me want to scream. Or something. Not to make you feel bad but here is my Caylx M2000 5G connection today. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sstgermain Report post Posted February 23, 2022 Here is my blazing internet Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 24, 2022 So I manually triggered a Check for Software Update on the T9 because the firmware was from mid-2020. An update was found and now I'm updated to April 2021. That's great T-Mobile tech work there, shipping out devices with old firmware. Nothing important in the release notes. Ignore those security updates. Smart battery and charging enhancements Enhanced security and device statistics/ reporting features Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Viking1500 Report post Posted February 24, 2022 (edited) M2000 with t-mobile sim Edited February 24, 2022 by Viking1500 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cwswine Report post Posted February 24, 2022 On 2/22/2022 at 8:42 AM, raypesek said: Thanks for the detailed observations. Odd. Your reboot experience would imply that T-Mobile is supplying different firmware versions to FMCA and to Calyx. That would be a lot of work on their part as usually Inseego supplies the firmware to the telcos. My I did a little research on the subject of Sprint and T-Mobile firmware difference and found that INSEEGO provides hotspot upgrades to the the various cell providers and it is the the cell provides authorize the upgrade of their devices. My Caylx is using a new firmware than the FMCA M2000 and that could be because my FMCA is still on Sprint which we know is going away. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 24, 2022 We got 16.1 M/bps download at midnight last night and 0.60 M/bps at noon today with the new T-Mobile Franklin T9. Oh, well, what's a 100X change in speed between friends? And whoever would have thought that Sprint would be faster than T-Mobile in a major metropolitan area? Not me. We've experienced more buffering with Netflix in the last 20 hours since I changed from the Sprint hotspot to the T-Mobile hotspot than we experienced in the last two months in the same spot. Because we've had zero buffering before the change. Mama is not happy... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kampingkris Report post Posted February 24, 2022 Hmm. I ended up with the alcatel to replace the older hotspot. I did log in and change it to 5g... so we shall see... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted February 25, 2022 An Alcatel LinkZone 2has 5G capability? Not according to its specs. Where did you find that setting? We're changing cities next week so if this is not noticeably better I'll bid it a fond goodbye. The hotspot on my Verizon phone is good for 0.6 M/bps and it costs me nothing extra each month. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Ray Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
faiello Report post Posted March 3, 2022 So after 2 months of no tracking of my use on my mifi8000 today I see it showing status of usage for this month. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raypesek Report post Posted March 3, 2022 On 2/23/2022 at 3:40 PM, rossboyer said: No, but location, location, location. T-Mobile is non-existent here. AT&T is marginal, but Verizon is acceptable. To further prove your point, we moved from Bradenton, FL where we got roughly 3 - 5 M/bps with the Sprint Mifi 8000L. With the T-Mobile replacement Franklin T9 hotspot we usually got well under 1 M/bps during the day. We're now in Crystal River, FL. This campground was kind of a dead spot for Sprint and we usually got 1 - 2 M/bps here, but the coverage matched the Sprint map well so we knew it would be weak. But Netflix etc. still worked with very occasional buffering. With the T-Mobile T9 hotspot here in Crystal River we're consistently getting 16 - 20 M/bps anytime during the day and we're almost in the same spot as last year. Unfortunately next year we'll be in Bradenton for all three months because they changed to a 3-month minimum for 2023. So now I need to decide whether to keep the FMCA plan or upgrade to the Calyx M2000 plan (which obviously could change by a year from now). FMCA for Year 1 = 50 *12 or $600 + the $40 one-time device rental for a total of $640 FMCA for Year 2 = $600 Calyx for Year 1 = $750 Calyx for Year 2 = $500 So after Year 2 Calyx currently is ahead on price a bit with a more capable device, currently. Decisions, decisions... Ray Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
