tl;dr: If you're in the market for reliable internet at a reasonable price, look elsewhere. This applies to their 4G Wireless internet service only, as I have never tested their other service offerings.
My wife and I initially signed up for Vtel Wireless after closing on a new home located in a relatively remote area of northern Vermont. Working from home as a Server Administrator, I needed to find reasonably fast, reliable internet for accessing VPN networks and remote desktops, and making internet calls through a VoIP. After lots of research, we decided to go with VTel Wireless, and their 4G internet offering.
The initial install and purchase of the outdoor unit cost $500. A bit steep, but that's to be expected when an outdoor antenna is needed. I was initially told that due to my location, the strongest available antenna was to be installed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. With the initial BandLuxe antenna, my service was down nearly every day. Power Cycling the router would help some of the time, but the majority of the time I would need to call tech support and they would do what they refer to as a "forced reattach" of my service. This pattern continued for a few weeks, until they finally sent a technician out to replace the unit with a more powerful one.
I was at this time assured that my antenna would be replaced with a more directional unit, the Yagi. I was just returning home when I passed the technician on the road. We both stopped and he said the issue had been taken care of and that he was receiving a strong signal. I thanked him and continued home. To my surprise, the antenna had not been changed. It was the same BandLuxe wide angle receiver. I was a bit concerned to see the same unit, but hopeful that he had found and fixed an issue nonetheless.
My internet went down about 10 minutes into testing, and required a call to support to issue a forced reattach before it started working again. The pattern of frequent outages continued. Defeated, I contacted Andrea Spaans, the tech representative manager that I had been dealing with, and told her about my continued troubles. She apologized again, stating that the technician had been instructed to replace the unit with the Yagi, and wasn't sure why it hadn't been done. At this time she scheduled yet another appointment for a new tech to replace the unit.
About a week later the new tech and new antenna arrived. He was much more knowledgeable and and said that the first antenna wasn't pointing at the proper tower. He installed the Yagi and was on his way.
This whole ordeal took nearly two months, and about 3 dozen calls to tech support before it was finally resolved.
Months later, we again ran into issues with the router. It would crash and internet would go down. This took roughly a month to resolve, which finally ended up being a firmware issue. Tech support ended up sending me a replacement router, with updated firmware files. While I am happy that they were able to provide me with a solution, and I highly recommend and commend Jeff Moore's efforts in diagnosing the problem, it was definitely discouraging after all the issues we had already faced with their service.
Currently, we are operational on the new router, and new antenna. It's worth mentioning that we still see 3-6 outages per week, all remedied by a quick power cycle. Power-cycling has become a standard procedure for our household. While I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone, I will, for now, be keeping their service, until a more viable option appears. DSL has yet to reach my residence, and while there are other available 4G providers, I do not wish to risk another headache like the one this company has given me. Please also keep in mind that this review is based on their 4G Wireless service offering only, as I have never tested their phone service or fiber networks. read more
