Visible 30 day test

[warthogbill]

Nearly a month ago I switched to Visible.  I took my own IPHONE SE into the program.  I switched from Straighttalk using an android phone on Verizon towers. 

I live in Las Vegas for the winters. I'm retired military and spend some time on Nellis AFB ( NE of Las Vegas). I noticed the Visible wasn't giving me the service I was used to on Straighttalk while at the base. I decided to test Visible against straighttalk.

My wife and I both have Iphone SE's.  Yesterday we were both at the base and I was getting an intermittent 1 bar LTE while my wife had full bars LTE.  I could get no data - she got data immediately ( youtube, netflix, gmail and web search).

This was not in any way a scientific study.  BUT, I'll be switching back to straighttalk in a few days.

 

[Cajunwolf]

I've been looking into Togo-Roadlink. It was recommended by a friend who lives and works on the road, and his internet access is critical. I found a useful review here. You might find this interesting. This is the first video I've watched from this guy, but he looks professional and has product backing. It's not cheap, but to me, it's not about cheap, I've got to have fast, reliable internet. If it's good, and works, I'll pay for it, if not, I drop it like a hot potato.



I'd like your feedback if you have the time.

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

I've been using Visible for a few months now. It has worked well for me as long as a verizon 4G LTE tower is close by and there isn't a lot of people in the area using that tower. I'm pretty far out there in Bear Valley california and I got 4 bars, but 1000 ft up the mountain its more like 1-2 bars or bust. There is a single tower nearby which can get overloaded and slow down.

In places with several verizon lte towers nearby it works really well. Im willing to give up the absolute middle of no where, 2g/3g connectivity for unlimited hotspot as I like to play video games and watch videos. They haven't even throttled my hotspot to 5mbps like they said they would which is cool. YMMV though.

I'm surprised to hear about las vegas area, I go to reno often and it is 70mbps down and full bars anywhere I go. I had assumed vegas would be similar. I do know that on my old ATT i didn't have signal my entire trip through nevada once I got north of vegas up until I hit reno, which surprised me a bit. Made for some interesting navigation when my gps lost my route.

 

[eflyersteve]

Yeah, I had to cancel mine as just about everywhere I used it I got horrible download speeds even with a strong signal.  Sometimes less than 0.1mbps.  If I was in a rural area with low tower usage (I'm guessing) I could get semi decent speeds.  I found that I had better coverage with at&t and T-Mobile though.

 

[SheketEchad]

I've been looking into Togo-Roadlink. It was recommended by a friend who lives and works on the road, and his internet access is critical. I found a useful review here. You might find this interesting. This is the first video I've watched from this guy, but he looks professional and has product backing. It's not cheap, but to me, it's not about cheap, I've got to have fast, reliable internet. If it's good, and works, I'll pay for it, if not, I drop it like a hot potato.



I'd like your feedback if you have the time.

Thanks for the info on Togo.  I'll keep an eye out.  That's pricey for the little device, although the unlimited plan via AT&T (ugh) is a good deal. I MUST have wi-fi as I work from my van while I am on the road on a normal business schedule.  So far my Verizon hotspot has not let me down but I'd like an alternate carrier to have as a back up just in case.

 

[crofter]

I have both visible and verizon. I like visible better for call quality, and the data is free. Where I am down to one bar with visible, I am also down to one bar with verizon. I am staying with visible as long as it stays cheap.    ~crofter

 

[B and C]

I've hit too many dead zones with the MVNO's so I will stick with native verizon and AT&T.

 

[SheketEchad]

Channeling HDR: What is MVNO?

 

[B and C]

Sorry. It has been brought up a lot and I made that bad ass***tion.

MVNO = Mobile Virtual Network Operator. They don't own any towers and lease wireless capacity from a native provider and can't roam onto networks that the native operators have deals with.

 

[Firtree]

MVNO = Mobile Virtual Network Operator.  They don't own any towers and lease wireless capacity from a native provider and can't roam onto networks that the native operators have deals with.

But don’t All Prepaid and MVNOs have the same coverage for that network?

Visible is a prepaid and something like StraightTalk on Verizon is prepaid. Don’t they both have the same coverage? 
So unless you pay the really big bucks for PostPaid plans you don’t get roaming on any network (Verizon, ATT etc).
correct?

 

[B and C]

If you don't have verizon from verizon (AT&T the same) with a plan (post pay/contract), prepaid with any provider will not roam onto other networks. This is one of the reasons verison (and AT&T) have such good coverage because of their deals with other providers (and costs more). If you are never going to go anywhere where there aren't verizon (AT&T) owned towers, no worries.

I tried straight talk (verizon MVNO) once while my wife had verizon postpaid (a plan). I would try to make a call and would be asked to enter credit card info to place a call while she could just call without any additional fuss (roaming). When we got back, I changed to a verizon plan. So I was stuck in a two year plan but could upgrade as new plans came out and a new 2 year contract. So what? I either got more data or a cheaper price. You don't have to buy a new phone each time either. I was going to use them regardless. Sometimes not so great when camping with others that have a prepaid or MVNO plan though. They always want to mooch which cuts down the bandwidth that is available for me.

There are no magic bullets for price if you want coverage like is shown on the coverage maps. This is one of those pay more to get more things. Cheaper is not always better. If you don't always want or need coverage, prepaid is probably the way to go. Just go in with your eyes open.

Edit to add: I have both AT&T and verizon and am very rarely without coverage.

 

[crofter]

 don’t get roaming on any network (Verizon, ATT etc).

I recently drove from Oregon to Arizona. I had no problem with access or data speed anywhere I had signal. There are a few places in Oregon with no cell coverage, and I did not have coverage there with verizon or visible (as expected). Everywhere else I was able to use the service no problem.     ~crofter

 

[MotorVation]

I've been with Visible since last March. I'm in Tampa Bay with about 3 million other people so there are a lot of towers here. No problems or complaints with the service. I have the Visible R2 phone and it's not the greatest, but it's excellent as a hot spot. I've never had an issue with streaming

 

[66788]

I've had my Visible R2 for a week now.  In Southern Oregon I'm getting 640K download and 1.5 mb upload data speeds.  Pretty pathetic stats, but my high dollar Verizon Samsung Galaxy on Verizon Unlimited only gets 1.6 mb download speeds.

Even with the piss poor speed, it still streams Amazon and You Tube video just fine.  I usually download Amazon Prime videos at the highest definition to watch later.

I'm keeping Visible and ditching Verizon.

 

[RogerD]

I have been using visible for about a little over 2 months. So far I'm averaging 300-350 GB data use per month. I have typically been getting around 17 Mbps download speeds during the day and have seen speeds as high as 50 Mbps in the evening. Uploads speeds are typically between 5-9 Mbps/day, have seen as high as 20 Mbps/evening.

 

[Gypsy Freedom]

good info folks, thanks for sharing your results

 

[[email protected]]

Op, I am new to mifi and a new Visible customer. My problem is that I am having problems getting my mifi to link up to my Kindle Fire tablet. Can any of you folks give me a 1, 2 ,3, set of instructions. I could really use the help. I am a good mechanic, but I am a computer illiterate. Haha. Jeff.

 

[Fivealive]

Op, I am new to mifi and a new Visible customer. My problem is that I am having problems getting my mifi to link up to my Kindle Fire tablet. Can any of you folks give me a 1, 2 ,3, set of instructions. I could really use the help. I am a good mechanic, but I am a computer illiterate. Haha. Jeff.

Start by using the word hotspot in place of mifi, you are confusing people.  Mifi is usually referring to a dedicated hotspot like a jetpack.  On your phone go to settings, network & internet, hotspot & tehtering, wifi hotspot, toggle it on.  To change the pw click advanced and type in a pw.  You can also change the hotspot name to whatever you like.  Then on the kindle fire, go to settings, network, wifi, and find your hotspot name on the list, then click it and type in the PW.