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November 7, 2010 - Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go USB Modem, the Ovation MC760 manufactured by Novatel Wireless, is a handy little tool for getting online with your laptop or netbook on the go. With Virgin Mobile's new service plans offering unlimited data access for $40 a month with no contract, the $79.99 USB modem can be a great deal -- if you can get decent coverage from the Sprint 3G network, that is.

Setup and Use

Using the Ovation MC760, which is just a tad thicker than typical USB flash drives, is a cinch, because it's plug and play. The first time you connect the USB modem to your computer, the Virgin Mobile connection program will automatically be installed and you'll be taken to the Virgin Mobile website where you can see your account set up and balance. The connection program shows you how much data you've used or are using, but that's really only an issue for folks on the low price tier ($10 for 100MB that expires in 10 days; enough for 5 hours of web browsing or 10,000 emails without attachments, according to Virgin Mobile). Most people will probably want to be on the $40/month unlimited broadband plan -- one of the few mobile data plans available today that isn't capped.

Features

The USB modem works with PCs and Macs, has a green LED indicator, and also can double as a USB flash drive that reads microSD cards. Additional features include VPN capability, Novatel Wireless' NovaSpeed technology for enhancing simultaneous upload and download performance, and an external antenna connector.

Speed and Reliability

Unfortunately, although Virgin Mobile offers excellent service value and the device has a neat 2-in-1 feature my experience with the Ovation MC760 running on the Sprint network (Virgin Mobile is a Sprint subsidiary) was less than optimal. Though I had excellent signal strength and the coverage maps show I'm in an area (NYC suburbs) with good 3G coverage, Web pages took really long to load and often timed out. True, I'm used to 25MB speeds at home from Verizon FiOS, but it wasn't just a case of having to adjust for lower speed levels. The Virgin Mobile site says average downlink speeds on the service are 600 to 1400 Kbps (or 0.6 to 1.4 Mbps), but testing the modem speed at speedtest.net showed only a 0.11 Mbps download speed and 0.28 Mbps upload. Meanwhile, the speedtest on my Android device (T-Mobile network) showed 1.7 Mbps download and 0.53 Mbps upload results.

I also tested the Ovation USB modem on two other laptops, just in case, as well as in three different locations beyond my home, all with the same results.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Despite the poor results I got from the Ovation MC760, I would still recommend it to others as a great deal -- provided you test it out in the locations where you'd use the USB modem the most. Virgin Mobile does offer a 30-day guarantee (full refund within 30 days of purchase) and no annual contract, so you could try out the service for $10 to see if it will work in your area.

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