Cricket USB UM100 Broadband Wireless Modem Review.

By Paul | Nov 25, 2008

The UM100c is No Longer Available, Please check out the Cricket A600 Modem Review Or the UM185 Broadband modem. The UM185 modem might be a replacement to the UM100.

After a full week of playing around with this USB wireless, I wanted to talk about it. So let’s break it down into pieces.

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Installation – The installation of the USB was not to difficult. I did have to do some more steps than this: Install the Software, then hooked up the USB device to the USB port.
Manual Activated the Broadband – For some reason in my area they had several people have problems with the broadband activation. So I had to activate it manually!!

After that all went well, I was on the internet just a cruising along. I did however wonder why I was getting such a slow response speed. When I went traveling I thought I would share some of my local results with you to better show you my speed. All these test were done at

Please see an updated post on how to get even more speed from the broad band modem.
This speed is not the true speed for the broad band modem.

The Percentages over the results are showing you just what my signal strength was when I was doing the test. Two of the 4 were traveling on the highway and the other two were stationary. I also know that my speed will vary along with signal strength, I know I have to be a mile or less from a tower to get 100%.

*Update* 12/21/08

In my other post I talk about why I didn’t get the speed I expected, but after I did the activation I went to normal Mobile Broadband speeds. I also now have been using the USB Modem for my main internet without any or much problems. I know I can’t play any major online games but I can at least have the internet with me were ever I go. As long as you stay in the coverage area, you should be in good shape. . Like I Said I’ve used it in my area for over a 1 month and with the small little problem, the speed has been really dependable and I haven’t had any major issue with connectivity. I’ve been using this modem as my main internet and have not seen any major internet and have not seen any of the cap come my way. I think they won’t mind to much as long as you don’t ABUSE the internet, for example don’t use it for bittorrent downloads and you should be fine!!

Update 12/24/2008
I also did travel with my laptop to another city, and I got to say it was really good and how it did when I went from one city to another. Check out the report here.
According to some post and forum talks around the the internet they are talking about the soft cap of 5 Gigabytes but that seems to not be so important right now. After all, they have to make money some how. I will update as necessary when I find anything else out.

update 1/01/09

I also did a video and uploaded it to youtube using the broadband connection. I had no problem uploading this video to Youtube. I’ve embedded it in this web page. See it on the bottom:

I also bought the A600 Cricket modem and I absolutely love this modem because of the things you can do with it.

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nukemdomis

The broadband service is not that bad. Being able to take it anywhere and install on multiple computers makes it a great choice for a second connection to the Internet.

Phun

Enjoyed the commentary and video. I've been pleased with their voice service and have been wanting to get the mobile broadband. I live less than a mile away from a tower btw, so I hope to get some good speeds!

cricketiscrap

DO NOT GET CRICKET!

I wanted a less expensive broadband option than Comcast so I tried Cricket. The Internet service was extremely slow (slower than I remember dial-up being).

So I wanted to cancel. I looked around their website for 20-odd minutes and made several calls in order to cancel. NOTHING. Gee, is their website/phone number designed to NOT facilitate cancellation???

Finally I got into the signup area (after a hold of about 5 minutes). By then I was so pissed I was quite rude to the girl on the phone. She canceled my service.

Now I have a $35 return fee and the $25 signup fee is gone. Next they will examine the returned modem for "damage". The back is a little scratched (probably designed to scratch easily), so I bet they will screw me on that.

Laforge129

Now Let me think about this? 50 Kilobytes a Second compared to 500 Kilobytes a Second with A600 Modem and the Um100 Modem, Which is Faster?

I don't mean to sound off but a Dial up can only go a maximum of 53k and all my test showed me I can get easily 500k a second with the Modems. so it is 10x faster than Dial up.

Although this could be a coverage area problem and you were on the tip of the coverage area with very little service that could of slowed you down. If that was the case I would of suggested the Antennas to get you a little more speed.

I am However quite happy with my Cricket Broad band And Am using it now!! ;) So in truthfulness it comes down to the person, Cricket Broad Band isn't going to satisfy everyone.