Cricket Mobile Broadband rip off, scam, etc internet, Internet

BEWARE!   If you've ever considered the idea of purchasing cricket mobile broadband, don't do it!   The service is a complete rip off.

Unfortunately, there is no real high speed internet availability where I live, so I decided to look at other options.  There are satellite internet services out there, but I was not about to commit to a long term contract.

 A couple of months ago I decided to give Cricket mobile broadband a go.
 I purchased one of their modems from walmart, and a $45 top up card..... which would have supposedly given me "unlimited" mobile broadband internet access for 30 days.

First of all, the cricket modem was a huge hassle to set up.  When you purchase the cricket mobile usb , you are required to call a Cricket representative to set up your new account.   Their call station is located in India, not surprisingly.  None of these companies want to employ people from this country anymore...they outsource the jobs.   Another strike against the greedy cricket.

I spoke to one of their reps, and I could barely understand what he was saying.  After tinkering with the modem settings after more than an hour (and speaking to two cricket reps from India), I finally got the thing to work.

As I began to surf the internet, I noticed that images on the websites I visited were fuzzy and degraded.  Apparently, when you surf via the cricket broadband modem,  by default your internet connection is filtered through a proxy accelerator, which is designed to degrade image files,  to make the pages load faster. It also helps cricket save on bandwidth, of course.  

I called up cricket broadband to voice my complaint about their shoddy service, and in that call the person I spoke to denied that Cricket routed their user's connections through a proxy server.  That person was obviously lying or didn't know what she was talking about, because all the images on every website I visited were completely degraded by a proxy accelerator.   I asked the cricket representative if there was any way I could turn off the acceleration.  I was told that this was not possible.  

I decided to return the cricket modem to walmart for a refund.  However, I was out of $45 for the top up card.   It was non-refundable.  

Avoid cricket mobile broadband!  I'm currently using Virgin Mobile broadband, and while they are more expensive than cricket, at least the service is much, much better.   At least I'm now off dial up at home.