When we learned last week that Virgin Mobile was discontinuing its $40 unlimited Broadband2Go plan, we were promised an update from the company this week. As you can see in the screenshot above, we now have answers. The plan is now $50 per month and will only work at maximum speed for the first 2.5GB. That’s quite a change from even last month, when Virgin was slowing down users who exceeded 5GB. Customers can pay $50 after they exceed their 2.5GB cap in order to restore speeds. That’s going to get expensive very quickly. It was exciting when Virgin introduced the unlimited Broadband2Go plan this past summer, as it was the cheapest and least restrictive mobile broadband plan we’d seen. But now it’s pretty ordinary — in fact, a bit less than ordinary, since the 2.5GB cap is about half the limit you see from postpaid carriers. ]]>
Posted in Virgin Mobile
Sprint HAD a Game Changing Service
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Even though Broadband2Go has No Contract- A customer should have a reasonable expectation that the service (plans) that caused a person to purchase equipment for utilizing
a service (or Product), should have some longevity of availability and use ( at the same or BETTER Pricing )!
If Virgin Broadband2go eliminates The $40.00 throttled plan (after march 15, 2011) to those locked in as per stated in their Jan 2011 “New Terms and Policies”; it will be Time to band together and file class- action
Law- suits against SPRINT/VIRGIN.
Filing whatever can be charged against VIRGIN Mobile for USING “PUMP AND DUMP” tactics,
To sell products and CRANK UP FEES.
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If the Virgin Price changes are due to the $40.00 Price of Virgin Broadband2go “unlimited” service seemingly being cheaper than the Sprint POST PAID w/ contract Service (for POSSIBLY the same speeds);
then Sprint/ Virgin should have made adjustments to service speeds insuring the highest speeds to Sprint Customers!!!
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Kinda like General Motors;
a Cadillac vs. a Chevrolet
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Both made by the same company with alot of common parts, but the cadillac is a higher tier vehicle than the chevrolet.
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Just because the chevrolet is lower priced and made with more (value) priced materials and construction, it still comes fully functional- (including an engine/ transmission and even 4 wheels and tires).
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Solution:
Sprint- FASTER fully unlimited.
Virgin Broadband2go-
slightly SLOWER max speeds unlimited still Value Priced!!! So maybe can’t watch movies flawlessly,
Oh well………
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SHAME ON YOU VIRGIN !
Gotta agree, and would be very interested in becoming involved in a class action suit. I’ve written to VM with my opinion and suggest everyone do so. I switched from a very satisfactory relationship with Millenicom in order to save about $27.50/month and still get “unlimited” access, even though I suspected that I’d get somewhat slower speed. (Which I do.) But now I’m seeing only $10/mo less than Sprint itself (which I used to have and which did not have an up-front cost like Virgin!) and for half as much broadband access. The thing that also bugs me is that it will cost me now about $200 or more up front to re-sign with Millenicom. This is total bullcrap. One thing I am happy about is that I didn’t fall for the $150 modem so I’m only out $80. But one thing I am totally unhappy about is that I convinced half a dozen mostly dubious people to sign up for Virgin: now I sure wish I had not done so.
@Addi, hey man, I am totally on your side & agree with you! This is seedy advertisement from Virgin, at best, to con potential customers into buying a product that may seem to present a very good value in the beginning, only then to use an old bait’n’switch tactic to pull the wool over your eyes for whatever internal reasons unknown. I definitely like the idea of a collective class-action lawsuit you had mentioned against Virgin for these shady deals!
When I decided to switch to prepaid a couple of months ago, I was considering Straight Talk. Until I read their t’s & c’s stating that you can’t use their unlimited plan for streaming video (and other limitations)-which I find to be a bit odd considering they have two 3G phones in their line-up. So I decided on Virgin’s Broadband2go. With these new limitations, it’s going to be a costly business to watch videos and the like. I may just as well have gone for Straight Talk’s unlimited, which at least includes talk and texting (and is cheaper) After the news of Verizon also throttling heavy users, makes you wonder if there really will ever be a no strings attached, affordable unlimited plan, that still offers extensive coverage!
These new pricing changes are ridiculous,
i barely bought my usb modem 2 months ago because I thought I was getting a good deal but know feel blindsided by these ridiculous rates.
I signed up for the $40 unlimited plan last November and it was reasonably fast running about 600k at first but by Christmas it had slowed down to just 56k and became totally useless. I never renewed it again so I’m stuck with an $80 USB device I can’t use anymore! Something should be done about those crooks and their consumer fraud bait n switch false advertising. The CEO sould be thrown in jail for fraud and theft!
BTW, Razzi, it was too slow to steam video on it at it’s best and it certainly won’t work now.
This is a disappointing–and confusing– turn of events. Last year, I ditched my wireless contract and decided to go exclusively with the unlimited VM month-to-month plan. I’m not a heavy downloader; I don’t stream netflicks or tons of music but I do like to check out a few videos on you tube, news web sites, etc. (Video streaming, by the way, has never been that great on Virgin. For me, it’s almost always choppy/slow and actual speeds rarely reach 3mb/sec.) The confusing part of this concerns the way they will deal with customers who bought the old 40 dollar unlimited plan. If I understand correctly, FOR THE TIME BEING, (“until further notice . . .”), we will be permitted to renew the $40 plan each month. The difference is that speeds will deteriorate if we exceed a 5GB limit/month. In the mean time, they are charging new customers 10 dollars more for half of that data limit. The 40 dollar plan is not even available to them. I fully expect that Virgin will eventually phase out old customers, as well, by ‘announcing’ that the 40 dollar/5GB plan is defunct for everyone. If that happens, then their ‘bait and switch’ tactics will be obvious to anyone who tried to make sure that they signed up for the most expensive plan before Feb 15 so that they could be grandfathered into the cheapest plan with the highest data limit. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, as I write this, Congress is caving in to the telecommunications lobby. They are in the process of voting to rescind the FCC’s already-meager power to regulate and police this industry. After all, government regulation of any kind acts as a needless barrier to innovation and entrepreneurship, right? Net traffic is a real problem. But does anyone really believe that these companies will invest in efforts to improve the technology in order to solve that problem? I doubt it.
i bought the wireless router mifi for school so my gf and i could both be on and run a printer wirelessly. mainly because it was the cheapest by ten bucks a month, i didnt mind the upfront costs, i was going to outright buy my router and wifi router if i got comcast anyway…
first it was the 5gb cap a month. i cant tell you how many times the internet has been so choppy i failed an EXAM for my college classes because of this in the past month… i cant tell you how many times this router has “wigged out” and not wanted to get online. when i do want to watch my netflix on wii 3/4th the time it wont even connect and the other 1/4th the time my movie gets stopped 85 millions times.
whenever i go to reload my plan it always cuts my service off… will never make a smooth transition. with all these new changes i am going to switch to regular old comcast for $50 a month and just hook up my own router to the cable router. i have important reasons for owning internet… and who wants a 0 on a college algebra final or wondering how many times your teacher is going to believe you that your “internet connection” went.
with all these changes happening so suddenly who knows what they will do next…. im waiting for them to up my 25 a mo plan next for my cell phone that i barely use. ….i used to recommend VM Broadband 2 go to everybody now I will tell everybody the exact opposite…!!! PLEASE DO NOT GET THIS PRODUCT…. WITHIN 2 MO THEYVE CHANGED ALMOST EVERY ASPECT OF THEIR SERVICE
NOT ALL Straight Talk phones operate on Verizon network!! As I found out the hard way. I had one phone for my son which I had no complaints. I purchased one for my daughter. Phones were side by side one had great service the other had NO service!!! Found out my daughter’s phone is running of AT&T which has minimal coverage in my area! Straight Talk customer service is a joke!!
I was planning on getting vm “broadband. The federal trade commision does not consider broadband to be broadband if the speed is under 5mb/sec. (ftc.gov). Also the last published article on internet use per person (which was outdated at publication) stated that per person, they use at least 15.36 gigs a month and that the article is outdated already. (googlenews). Anyway, I have been shafted by almost every company there is (Mellinicom worked great so I bought 2 devices after 8 months and then this just limited my speed by 1/2 as instead of 1.5 mb/ I now only had .75 mb per device. Anyway, they shut off my devices with no warning and said that they will only let me have the 5mb package as supposably sprint won’t upgrade their tower here. So now I’m out both cost for the devices.
I went and got “texas broadband” still 1.5mb tops and having to pay $129./mo for stuff thats not even considered broadband by ftc standards. Eventually this quit working as their was a tree that grew up across the road blocking my signal. Next I went to Airplexus which they claimed “there is no limits to downloads/etc” only to have my plan downgraded to 42KB/sec and even called them every day for 4 months thinking they would raise my plan and told them I specifically asked before I signed up and they told me “no donwnload limits”. They later told me that they didn’t think when they said this and they don’t offer this.
Next on to sprint. I called sprint and they told me I could get an unlimited device for like $69/mo. I bought it, within 3 1/2 days they cut it off and said my bill was $618. I told them there is no way as I was sold an unlimited plan and even had a co worker verify this. They didn’t care and said industry standard was 5Gb/mo regardless of what they told me.
Ok so now they send my to many collection agencies even though they lied to me in the beginning.
Looked into hugnes net, same 5gb cap per month. Looked into wild blue, same thing.
Clear advertised lots last year that by the end of 2010, they would have Texas covered in 4g wimax. I try to get it still, they give me excuses why I can’t. I ask them about their commercials and why they say this, they just give me escuses.
At&T uverse advertised last year “available in these markets” & “available in all markets end of summer 2010”. I try to get service many times, they say “not available in your area.
I call ftc.gov now and request papers to file complaints against companies.
They lie and rip me off and not give me broadband.
Ftc doesn’t consider broandband to be broadband unless its 5mb/sec or higher so turn all these companies advertising broadband in because by gov standards, they are lying.
Where is wimax?
WELL WELL WELL Surprise what a bunch of crooks & incompetent service staff. I purchase the usb device and the $40.00 per month on January 5, 2011. I tested the Virgin system and decided to purchase 2 more sets of $40.00 per month cards. Then I found out that they were going to slow speed users that go over the 5 GB per month. This I find very difficult to accept it’s like being robbed of your hard earned money. I did exceed in January the 5gig limit and found that I was slowed down substantially even before the February 14th deadline. In fact I checked on the 5th of February and again on the 6th of February to see if they started the download counter at zero. Well they did not I started the new month at 1/2gig. So not only are they a bunch of crooks but they also steal download & upload gigabytes. Now they have the 2.5 gig limit for those that are not on the $40.00 well if they do not reset their counter they will hit the 2.5 gig pretty fast. Now about the service which really sucks. I contacted them to try and resolve an issue using the devise on my other laptop which had windows xp pro operating system. The usb device indicated that it would try to connect but the Virgin Server did not accept the attempt to log onto the server. I asked them if they had a special device driver for the xp pro operating system. Well they asked me to take the computer to a service tech to have it fixed. There was nothing wrong with my system and I informed him that I was a service tech. He insisted that I should still take it to a tech well I blew my stack. This company should not be in this business they are totally inept in providing an end-user/customer with appropriate support. These so called tech support at Virgin read a tailored made script and do not try to deviate from it. So Virgin Mobile you are history after my last $40.00 and I want a refund for the usb unit that I had to purchase to get this lousy access and service.
Holy cow!! I JUST bought the $40 plan less than 3 weeks ago and find this out!?! It was working great the first week, now I cant play internet radio, watch even one single youtube.com video or play a game on facebook. I bought the usb for $80 thinking this is perfect as I move around alot and have my trusty laptop with me at all times.
I DEFINITELY will be interested in the class action suit!!!
Total blatant ripoff.
Total Ripoff. DL average speeds went from 270 kps to 13 kps after they throttled back. Suggest everyone file a complaint with the FCC and push for a class action suit.
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I Don’t stream massive videos,
Probably average speeds of 500kps- 650kps the couple times I have run a speedtest. Though sometimes POSSIBLY due to web-servers have been as low as 45kps downloading Software updates.
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I have Wondered about PADDING USAGE COUNTERS by Sprint/Virgin
(and other companies) Thus hitting the LIMIT (caps) FASTER than actual use.
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We will see how long the $40.00
unlimited plan remains available for those existing customers on the plan.
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It is TOO BAD THEY ARE GETTING GREEDY!
BY GETTING GREEDY, THEY ARE CHASING AWAY CUSTOMERS!!!, and Hurting any chance of Company Survival.
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They HAD the CHANCE to
corner Wireless Internet Service, BUT CAVED -IN and fell in with the competition.
(as stated above the term BROADBAND would indicate FASTER SPEEDS) But It
still allows flexible wireless availability of internet service.
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I WAS On Fire for the BROADBAND2GO
service ($40.00 unlimited) when it was announced back in Aug 2010.
I Told several people about it and
now (also) have STOPPED TELLING Anyone
About Broadband2go (other than the CAVEAT to BEWARE) because of Their
TACTICS and Lack of Stability regarding
TERMS and Policies and Pricing.
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What a crock of SH#T!! I spent $80 on the device simply for the fact that the service was 100% unlimited!! No limits whatsoever. Now a huge bait and switch flip flop! They hooked me, took my $80, and now they are trying to run me off by throwing a cap on there service.
I’d be in on a class action suit, just let me know.
We had the same experience as some others here. We had great service with Sprint for over two years. We never had any problems and they provided great service. Then, we decided to switch to Virgin to save $20 a month. Now, Virgin has totally cheated thousands of users by pulling this bull. I want my money back – plus I want compensation to cover the cost of getting back onto a true unlimited plan. Please file this suit.
yup,, been on $40 for 4 months now,..
starting 2 weeks ago,.. d/l speeds
down to 35k,, consistently.. and havent
even reached 5g yet,.. switching to
Millenicom and hope to unload the old
MC760 on ebay before word gets out)..
shame on you Branson….
oops,.. sorry Mr.Branson,. Sprint
bought and kept the virgin mobile name
for $483 million in 2009,..hmm
Count me in on a class action lawsuit! Since Virgin switched to its “not really unlimited” $40 a month plan I’ve had SSL certificate issues and no web pages that will load (except of course the VM account page)… all the while, my little connection manager keeps ticking – to the tune of 20mb used without every being able to get to anything online! Cust. Svc. is beyond a joke, the lines are jammed for the last four days, and today I finally get through, only to find out that my call has been rerouted to their cell phone division — which apologizes and reroutes me back to the broadband hold queue. Really??? Arggghhhh. Enough is enough.
I agree, I paid for the mifi card specifically for the unlimited bandwidth, now no longer with sprint, and now screwed. I am in on a class action lawsuit.
Totally agree we need to band together and file law suit so people who bought the service before the changes get “gradfathered” into promised rates. Like many others on this site, I purchased plan a few ago and got blind-sided by the 5 gig limit. I especially hate the speed restriction after 5 gigs, etc. We should be able to sue for paying us all back for the modem and 2-3 months of service, etc. What a crock of **i* like one person said. Does anyone know if a class action suit has been filed yet?
I am in on a class action. 2 months I have had service.(Sorry bought service ;never did have it). Bought for the unlimited 40 a month plan. Might have been unlimited if you could connect and then they switch to a throttle back after 5 gigs! Yeah count me in on a class action. I haven’t been able to work on my website now for couple months as each time I would get on and do some work it would disconnect.(lol) They finally replaced my MiFi because the other didn’t work (bad antenna) gave me couple extra days said that was all they could do. Class Action Im In !
Works fine for me. Speeds aren’t hot, but you’re paying $40 for a “standby” seat. If there’s a lot of fliers, your speed would get taken down for the big spenders. You’re paying for convenience.
I was this close to switching to Clearwire Clear Spot. I found out I’d be paying $45 a month for something I can get for $38 with a coupon for top-up – clear’s speeds are no better and subject to throttling. I’m not all against throttling. Some ports deserve to be throttled like P2P, as well as bad websites like hackers, porn, online large file storage (that’s where illegal movie copies come from), and gambling. All that garbage has to be put out of business.
i had virgin mobile broadband2go about a year ago excellent speed i could watch youtube videos i just brought a new one about a week ago i haven’t been able to watch not 1 youtube video i think thats bad for business the speed is like dial up yes i want in on the lawsuit.
check out broadband blue originallly got it for home but use it for van too, 600 dollars to setup though including antenna for car, but 90 dollars a month and truly unlimited.
can’t watch videos. speed sucks,constantly varies.where can i sign for class action suite?
Does anyone know if there is a lawsuit started? They are actually throttling me all the time, even the day that I re-up. Also now, they are just halting instead of slowing down service. They keep saying, “Oh…You must have a virus” BULLSHIT!
Lets go with the class action! I hate these lying a-holes!!
I’ve had virgin mobile for 2 years now and only because of the no contractual deal but more importantly because of being able to take it wherever I go. Their service sucks and always have. My first month was extremely and they were trying to get convince me that it was my laptop which was brand new. After proving that to them their excuse was that my usb was defective. I had to send in the usb for a new one. That didn’t help, then they said it was a coverage issue but I made the purchase based on the coverage of their service. They also like to say that I have to be close to a window. So I always keep my laptop close to a window for usage. That hasn’t changed it at all. Now that sprint has taken over for the data it is even worse. My unlimited plan now has a cap and my internet connection is always going DORMANT. Their tech support isn’t really tech support. A supervisor informed me today that they don’t do anything technical and can’t do anything technical on their end. So all of the times I have to call about extremely slow connections and their tech support says that they’re “resetting the signal” etc. they’re really not doing anything. Their customer service is a scam in itself. So I’m not far from a sprint tower and I have 3g sprint for my phont yet my internet connection gets an F on a ping test and the speed is going 20kb downloading and 20kb uploading. I can’t watch anything on youtube because it takes forever to load. Streaming a movies as someone else stated is definitely out of the question. Another thing to not do is to leave your pc/laptop running with the internet on. Though you’re not transmitting data by downloading or uploading anything there’s still a way for them to clock megabytes. I restarted my plan and accidentally left my laptop on for a few hours. Nothing was being downloaded or uploaded and my connection was disconnected but when I logged in the next day it shows 2gb of data used up. This was less than 14 hours of purchase. Their service is so slow that it’s impossible to use that much data in that time period especially while my laptop is asleep and their service is going dormant. The only thing I’m always told to do to help is to reprogram modem or to pay 40 bucks to restart the service again. If the cap of 5gb hasn’t been reached then I’m just told to reprogram modem. I think that this company takes advantage of the fact that there aren’t many options anymore for internet/data services because everything has been monopolized. So they’ll continue to make money off of everyone unless we as customers put our foot down!
Another thing their are falsely advertising 3g speeds. If a 5 minute video on youtube is between 5-10mb and their speeds are supposed to be 3g (500kb/s+) then why does it take 30 minutes to load 20-30 seconds of a video on youtube?
Enough of us have solid claims and should look into a class action suit against Virgin mobile (parent company) and Sprint (takeover company). Sprint too because they’re listed on their site as being source of the data connection and someone did mention that it has been taken over by sprint in 2009. Since Sprint isn’t calling Virgin Mobile Sprint but is the active owner yet there’s a separation of companies then they both should get slapped with a suit.
I would also like to add that there’s information on filing a class suit against sprint for their 4g service false advertisings as well. How is it that they can advertise for 4g data services through virgin mobile broadband2go but they can’t even provide those services for sprint customers and we have to pay extra for 4g data but majority of us can only get 3g.