TIL Verizon sets up 4G LTE passwords the old school way

Yesterday I got a Verizon 4G LTE mobile hotspot, and so far it has totally smoked the Sprint and AT&T devices I used before.

It’s an idiot proof device with one power button. Turn it on, wait for the blinky light to go solid, and you’re online. Easy! It is also very fast. Much faster than Sprint and AT&T’s service down here!

So today I went to verizon.com site and was setting up an account to keep track of my data usage. After I keyed in the mobile hotspot’s phone number, the site said it was going to send a text message to my device with a temporary login password.

Sending a text message to a mobile hotspot? A device with no LCD monitor? Wait, what?

An email that appeared as soon as I hit SUBMIT confirmed that “A temporary password from Verizon Wireless has been sent to your cell phone with number XXXX”.

Just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, I logged in to my mobile hotspot directly and checked the logs and under every sub-menu. Nothing.

I called Verizon tech support and they said sending a temporary password to my device wasn’t possible since it was so new. However they would send me a password… through postal mail… so I could complete my setup.

Um… how about emailing it to me? SMS it to the primary phone number? Authenticate my ownership through the device’s MAC address? Confirm the sim card number and device ID over the phone and issue me a new password right there and then?

The technical support was very professional, answered my bandwidth question, and answered the phone fast, so I have no complaints at all about them. As a matter of fact, Verizon has been a five star experience so far, and I don’t rate much of anything five stars. But this old school throwback has me slightly surprised.