So I finally upgraded after 17 months of the BB Storm -- with oem 148 OS nonetheless! -- (was up for upgrade since March!). So far I really love the Galaxy Nexus and the 4G speeds. Of course I am aware of many of the issues, hopefully none enough to warrant a return. Mine is pretty nice so far, but I can't wait to try a custom kernel/rom...

I was luckily grandfathered in with unlimited data + I added on unlimited mobile hotspot.

But I can't get mobile hotspot or usb tethering to work in cdma only mode

Is this a feature of Verizon's plan or maybe a GNex issue (software or hardware?). Is it really only 4G mobile hotspot, meaning you don't get it on 3G? This might be a deal breaker for me b/c I need tethering when on the road in 3G areas...

Any ideas? I wrote VZW an email, so will post their reply when I get it. They have been good about responding in the past.

 

Just got off the phone with a vzw tech. He suggested swapping the phone at the store for another new one. Which I really hate to get into that phone swapping cycle...

I just unlocked the phone, so don't know if that has anything to do with it.... But I got mobile hotspot working on 3G now. I also got USB Tethering to work, at least on ubuntu Lucid (I still can't get he WinXP MTP drivers working). Thank God for dual boot!

More likely the radio issues where switching form 3G to 4G and vice versa is problematic. I might have not given it enough time before. It seems that I have to wait 30s-1min when changing data/network settings on the device for the connection to 'settle'.

Unlimited data:
My data and tethering/hotspot plan is actually unlimited (vzw has confirmed this, it's little known, and for good reason). I have read about others in the same position, with 30-100+ GB in a few days. Some have been 'optimized' i.e. throttled for such excessive use. I don't see myself doing more than 1GB a day really, I'd probably be fine with the 12GB plan if I had to take a cap. It seems tethering and mobile data no longer have different "caps" (I used to have unlimited mobile plus 5GB tethering on my BB). If you buy a data plan with mobile hotspot, say 7GB, then you can use 1GB for mobile and 6GB hotspot or 7GB mobile and 1GB hotspot. At least, this is what VZW has told me (I wrote email and they called back). However, I was grandfathered in unlimited and pay the $30 hotspot add-on (which is added on to my unlimited data).

However... you never know... I am definitely scared about getting hit by verizon with a bunch of charges!!! But it all seems to be working!