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In-Home Wireless Vs. Mobile Broadband
mklickman writes "I've been hearing more and more about mobile broadband offered by the big wireless phone providers, and for the first time came to ask myself how it compares to using a wireless router. Since my wife and I both have laptops, and we're out a lot, would it be wise and/or worth it to do away with the standard cable-modem-plus-router setup and switch over to mobile broadband with (for example) AT&T or Sprint? I'm not really concerned about the cost of the PC cards themselves; they're not much more expensive than a decent router. Also, the cost of the wireless service per month is only (roughly) ten dollars more than my current ISP is charging me. Is it a good idea?"
I have both. I have ADSL2+ at home with 802.11g wireless, and UMTS/HSDPA on the move. The ADSL2+ is faster, no question. UMTS/HSDPA is quite usable (up 2MB/s real-world speeds) and convenient because I can use it when I'm not at home.
My experience... at lease here in Australia... is that Mobile broadband works very well (remember much of our country is unpopulated desert).
May lower class people use it to get broadband at the place they rent. They dont have to involve the landlord to get an cables installed and can take it with them when they move elsewhere.
The big killer is that here is Oz mobile broadband typically comes with transfer limits in the order of 1 - 4 GBs per month. After that it gets very pricey.
So assuming its the same in the US... I would only go mobile broadband if you dont plan on downloading movies/tv shows etc over the connection.
I work for a public sector org in the UK, and we have a community team of around 30 users, each with laptops running 3G data cards to give them access to our network (via VPN) when out doing what they do. This also allows them to work from home or wherever they choose - and allowed us to free up space in their offices by removing terminals. However, we quickly encountered problems with the mobile broadband connections having signal problems; various users complained about no signal at home or in certain areas of a city, or worse, in the office. I made the decision to put in wirless access points in each of the three team offices, and set up the laptops to use these instead of the mobile broadband when the connection was found. We also set up a separate VPN that didn't dial out on the mobile broadband, that they could tie into their own wireless conncections at home - this approach was a resounding success. So to summarise...I'd use both! You have to ask yourself if you are going to be using your laptop away from home enough to justify the mobile broadband option - if your staying at home, you can't beat using a wireless set up.
...as the USB or mini-PCI device can only be attached to one device at a time. However, they are a standard, of sorts, and new domestic wifi routers that can accept a 3G device plugged into them and share it out do exist: http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/August2005/1925.htm
How are you going to share the connection? Ad-Hoc wifi?
If your primary use is for web and email then mobile broadband may be more useful assuming you have reliable cell service in all parts of your house. If you like to download much of anything I think you would be better off with the landline service still.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
First of all the announced throughput is a best case figure. You'll never see it in actual use. Inside steel and concrete buildings you're certainly not going to see those figures. It all depends on the radio reception. The speed also depends (at lest with GPRS over UMTS and EDGE/GSM) on the number of active users on a particular cell.
Second, even if the throughput is ok the latency really sucks. It takes a while from you request a web page and until it actually starts flowing in. I've worked on this tech for a number of years and it's not nearly as good as marketing wants you to believe.
TCAP-Abort
I'd say since you both do a lot of mobile computing, its probably a good idea to go with the wireless broadband option. Here's some questions to think about, however:
1. How much data transfer do you do? A buddy of mine ran into trouble with Sprint for downloading craploads of ISOs on his connection. Your mileage may vary.
2. How good is the coverage where you live? Do you personally know someone using the service you're interested in, and if so, how reliable is their connection?
3. What operating system are you using? If you're running Windows you're probably okay for compatibility, but I had a fair amount of trouble using a couple of different broadband cards under Linux. I got them working, but only after significant hackery.
Just some things to consider.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
It depends on what you will use it for. I have standard 2Mb ADSL, that's the best I can get in the rural Irish area I live. I also have a Vodafone HSDPA USB modem for my laptop for when I'm not at home. The Vodafone modem is rated at 3.6Mb but that's bullshit. When on holidays during the summer, the house I stay at is in a valley, and the Vodafone mast is at the top of one of the hills overlooking the house. I can still only get approx 1Mb connection at best, and that's the fastest connection I've found in my travels around the country. Not only that, but the latency for the Vodafone connection is huge. It's definitely not for gaming, p2p, streaming video or audio. Email and web is basically all it's good for. Also, they tend to have a relatively small monthly cap.
With the amount of time those data packets are in the air, I'd prefer mobile broadband be only for when you are actually mobile. Plus, for the heavy downloader and gamer, they already know the answer to that question.
*it's no btw*
I had a Verizon broadband card for my laptop here in the US (east coast). My experience was the it was OK (800 kbs) for web access and mail but no much more than that. The bigger problem was once you went indoors the signal quality dropped significantly, to the point it was useless. I was mostly using it indoors when traveling, it was so fustrating I cancelled the account.
Patch and compile a new kernel for your router to support attaching the (USB) modem you need, then hook it to a UPS and place the whole rig in your car. You'd need to plug in the UPS when you get home (and not forget to unplug it when you leave) but on the road you could also use the sigarette burner.
;)
That way, wherever you go, you'll always have your own WLAN, for just (roughly) $10 more per month
I have a customer in a rural area with two laptops and no available broadband service. They have two Sprint cards, because it's all they can get.
The biggest problem, other than performance -- I've seen up to 800Kbps sustained downloads, but the latency kills when surfing -- is that two cards cost twice as much as one card, which is twice as much as Comca$t would charge for broadband [6 Mbps down / 350 Kbps up] if it were available.
I'm using a usb HSDPA modem supplied by '3', in the UK. The system in question is a laptop running XP. In Swansea (a small city in South Wales), I get most of the promised 3.6 Mbps bandwidth. Ten miles West down the road, towards the more rural end of Wales, I can only get a 57.6kbps GPRS connection. I can't comment on latency as I've not used it for gaming. Download limit on my contract is 7Gb per month, which is a bit lame but acceptable. The modem software is big and ugly but works. The only real worry I have is that I'm accustomed to running my Windows and Linux boxen behind a decent, external, firewall. I've not tried to get this working via Linux yet.
The announced traffic on a usb mobile connection here in Portugal looks like (UMTS 256kb.) The devices somehow announce UMTS connections 3.6gb) when there is only gprs. Anyhow measurements through bandwidth measuring services usually show up speeds not faster then 256kb. The companies here get away with it by announcing the speed as 'up to'. So when you complain they just say 'bad luck'. I must add to that that the fixed ADSL does more ore less the same. Most people are even connected below there promised plan. That is if you order f.i. a 4Mb plan they hook you up to actually a 2Mb connection. If by any chance you are one of the few that know his stuff and you complain they just say your phone line will not support the speed and offer to set your plan back to a lower speed. I know this because it happened to me twice and I also observed it with customers of mine. Imagine having a 8Mb connection trying to upgrade to 16 and being set back to 4. If I hadn't complained they would have just charged me for 16Mb plan. And then they have the nerv to tell me my line doesn't support higher speeds then 4Mb. :-) Yes I keep smiling what else can I do?
I have been using ATT (Baton Rouge) and speeds are much lower than they advertise. surprise! surprise! ATT speeds suck when you on highways or cities where they have just edge service. Verizon on the other hand has better throughput rates but verizon is costlier than ATT($20 something) and they have an "Download Limit". VZ would disconnect you if are a heavy user. I am not sure about sprint but I have heard so many horror stories about their billing practices.
If you go with ATT you probably have to buy an antennae to boost your signal. You are better off having the cheapest plan for your Cable/DSL service in addition to you mobile broadband card.
A coulpe of points that you should look into (including the fine print):
:)
- Is there a data limit on the connection you're looking at (X GB/week, month, anything?).
- Is there an issue with encrypted traffic (some ISPs/Telcos will throttle or cut encrypted traffic to fight P2P, which will also impede your VPN)
- Will you have the coverage that you need, and will the coverage also extend to all the rooms in your house?
- How important is connectivity to you? (For me personally, I need to have at least one place where I can be 100% certain to be able to login through my VPN to my job) Does the roaming wireless fail often, or not? (This also relates to point 3)
- Assuming you're looking into this for work also, are you allowed to use relatively open wireless networks (I know that I'm not, since I work in the financial world)
I personally would keep the static line, despite the extra cost, just to have a 'base' to go to when things don't work elsewhere. This also gives me the possibility to log onto my home server and retrieve/store important data through my own VPN.
Lots of things to think about
On a totally unrelated note: Why do I have 10 (and not 5) moderator points??
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Your home wireless is a LAN. Your wireless broadband means you're out on the WAN. You'll still want to keep your LAN, so make sure your wireless router still works when not connected to the ISP. (I had a Netgear router that didn't do so well as an access point without WAN connected).
Next I suspect that your wireless has less bandwidth? If so you could be giving up large file downloads.
Finally, wireless is always the better technology for portability and convenience, but physical cables are much more reliable and not prone to interference and dropouts in the same way wireless is.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Mobile broadband in the US and UK are plagued by invisible bandwidth caps on the "unlimited" accounts. This makes mobile broadband difficult to justify especially in this day and age where multimedia-over-internet seems to be the norm. Until the wireless companies employ a more affordable model, it makes no sense for a non-business funded user to subscribe.
I have Sprint's wireless broadband service specifically for use on the road. It's advertised as a 1.5Mbps connection and I consistently get download speeds of about 150KB/s (1.2 Mbps) and upload speeds of about 20-30KB/s in the Washington DC metro area.
I've also driven from Washington DC to Florida while playing internet radio and I had a minimum of dial-up speeds 95-99% of the time. I had broadband speeds about 75%+ of the time. The commute involved a 800 mile drive down I-95 and I was surprised at the broadband speeds at some seriously remote looking gas stops. (I would notice the drop from broadband speeds to dialup speeds because the connection wouldn't be able to keep up with the minimum of 10-20kb/s to keep the song buffered)
Also, Sprint has no usage limits and their terms: Verizon offers the same service, but will disconnect/warn/etc you if you use whatever they consider "excessive" bandwidth. Verizon's usage policy specifically prohibits medium bandwidth / long term use, such as IP-telephony, constant webcam transmission, etc. Sprint doesn't prohibit these things in their terms of service. I've read many anecdotal reports of people downloading alot (over 50GB/month off the top of my head) without being disconnected.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
It depends on your Internet habits. Do you do peer to peer? Then forget it. Verizon says they have an "unlimited" plan, but they've been known to whack high usage individuals. Sprint is better about that, but large usage does attract their attention. If you are interested in mobile broadband in the US, those are really your only two choices. The GSM providers (AT&T & T-Mobile) just don't have the bandwidth. So if you want speed, you gotta use a CDMA carrier. I can tell you from personal experience that my Sprint card pulls 1.5mbs in a lot of places. However, it should be noted that speed is completely dependent on how far away you are from the tower (taking into account obstructions) and how many people are on. So, if you're far away from the tower and there's a ton of people in the area using it regularly, that's also a good reason not to get mobile broadband.
The relative price you mentioned of mobile broadband vs cable confuses me. You are either getting colossally ripped off for cable broadband or you are not pricing unlimited plans for your mobile broadband cards. Normally, unlimited plans are around $50/mo. Get it. Trust me. I've got a friend at Sprint who's got stories of peoples' laptops getting trojaned and winding up with a $2000 bill in the mail for bandwidth overage. And I'm assuming that you and your wife are each getting a separate plan.
Or let's say you've got an excellent signal and ridiculous speeds at your house, are not a warez monkey, and you want to share a single card between you and your wife. Well, you can get a broadband router which takes PCMCIA mobile broadband cards. I picked this Airlink 101 at Fry's for $80. It's got an Ethernet switch and is an 802.11b/g access point. Only problem is if one of you goes on a trip and takes the card the other will have to steal the neighbors' WiFi.
-R
To make it quick: I wouldn't recommend the switch.
I have been using a swiss provider's HSPA network for several months now and am not quite satisfied. The latency is bad (500~2000 ms ping rtt compared to 10-30 ms via ADSL1), availability isn't that great (often I can only get mediocre GPRS/EDGE speeds around 80-150 kbps) and the price's definately higher than a landline.
On the other hand, when HSPA works, it's great. An RTT of somewhere around 300 ms is possible and a sustained transfer rate of around 1 mbps is realistic (most of the network's 1.8 mbps HSDPA, being upgraded to 3.6; so I expect 2 mbps real bandwidth in the near future). Also, I've got this nice subscription where you pay a monthly flat fee (some 20% of an average 3 mbps landline or 2 GB WWan plan) plus a small fee per day of usage (some 7% of said landline or 2 GB WWan plan). Whenever possible I'll use public WLans and my private VPN server, limiting my WWan use to some 5-10 days per month.
I use Verizon's EVDO and am not very satisfied. I uses two mac laptops (ppc and x86) and suddenly started seeing a ton of kernel panics, where I had got years without trouble. The connection client is really lame. Also lame is the 5GB limit for the "unlimited plan". At least now they will not disconnect you if you hit 5GB in one month. They will "just" limit your througput. I'm out in NH and the service is come and go as with the verizon voice coverage. In San Fran, the coverage and usage was excellent. I used it on trains going through tunnels without trouble. It's annoying to have this adapter hanging off the side of the laptop all the time. Also, once in a while the network flays on "re-registering" and it locks me out of the system for 3-6 hours while the network thinks that I am trying to connect from two machines at the same time. They say that it is only for standard web browsing only. I haven't tried skype, but ssh, irc, and all http(s) all work fine. This sumer, I will also be getting a DSL or Cable link, cause I can't take this much longer as my only connection. Sometimes at my house, I get 3 "bars" and other times I go hours with none. I wish this client would log signal strength so I could see if there is some pattern to the outages. Tech support has been responsive, nice, and more friendly than most. Still, it is easy to run past their knowledge of how the network works. Over all rating: so-so
Disclaimer - I work for a company manufacturing 2G,3G,etc + datacards.
The most important thing you need to ask yourself is what is the intended use for these cards.
If you are surfing the net, skyping, watching UTube etc, then the wireless datacards (current generation) offer enough bandwidth to give a very comfortable feeling (comparable with cable).
If you are a very heavy net user, looking to have max speeds, then maybe you should be thinking about a more dedicated solution.
As to the actual speeds you will get, this all depends on the carrier and your location. ie 7,2MBps is the current "rated" download speed for the current generation of technology, but that is reduced if you are uploading at the same time. (ie it is approx 7,2Mbps shared for upload/download - NOT really, but it is close enough to make this comparision). Also, the datarate will depend on if the carrier has deployed a network in your area. If not, you will be dialed down to highest rated speed in the area (typically EDGE). Edge is ok for surfing normal pages, but you will get some lag if you are doing large downloads, etc.
The really nice thing about 2G/3G datacards is the flexibility. No matter where you go, where you are in the world you, once you can get a standard mobile phone connection, you have access to your internet/emails etc. Personally, this is fantastic for people "on the go".
Other thing to be cautious of - check to see if your service is "per Mbit" or flat fee per month. If you are paying "per Mbit", then you can be big bills if you are not carefull. The "flat fee per month" version is excellent if you can get it.
Overall, I love these cards, but be carefull of what you sign up for.
I use vodafone for wireless broadband but in a pinch I also use my MDA as a connection, both give me realworld observed speeds in London of 1.4-1.6mb/sec.
Short version:
IF all you do with your online time is low bw stuff, get the umts/grps dongle. you'll be pretty happy with it. ( at home you can get a small server to share the connection wireless )
IF you want to game or p2p, or vpn to work, forget it.
Maybe reception/service is better where you live, try it first anyways.
Hub Magazine in Canada has a decent article in this month's edition - The format is kinda nasty (Bitmap for Web viewing - eww) - but the content gives a breakdown of canadian providers. Basically, you are looking at high latency with less than advertised speeds across the board, but you can connect anywhere your cellphone can.
I'm using Alltel mobile broadband. There are no monthly caps on data. I get around an 800 or so connection - usually downloads a bit over a 100kbs, uploads around 20kbs. I have it because there is no dsl option - although honestly I so despise AT&T I'd rather keep it even if they offered dsl. The latency isn't that bad - I can do online gaming. But it depends on the service availability in your area. I'm literally 1/4 mile from the tower, so my service rocks. If you run a lost of uptime critical services It isn't the best choice - I'll warn. It's still a ppp connection - it will drop off a couple times a day. It's a non issue for me - but if your running a server it would be a problem.
Here in South Korea, mobile broadband is plentiful and included in all cell phone packages for a very low fee. My cell phone downloads at speeds of between 200-300kb/sec, and allows me to choose between dozens of streaming video channels that broadcast twenty-four hours a day. If you were to run a Blackberry on this network, browsing the internet and downloading data would work like a charm.
Unfortunately, service like this will most likely be unavailable in countries like the United States for quite a long time. Korea is an extremely small country with modern infrastructure in place, which is what makes all of this possible. The geography of the United States means more towers will have to be built in more places to handle the traffic loads, and it might require a massive infrastructure overhaul on a nationwide scale (unless they only planned this service in major American cities and not... Montana).
If you can have access to anything like what I have here, but in an American city, I'd say it was substantially better than a home wireless set up. By leaps and bounds as well as in terms of privacy.
Also for the gamers out here, this is also a horrible idea. Way to much latency to play any online games on this type of network, but for the normal people out their it maybe viable..
I have a landline ADSL with 1 ISP plus HSDPA cellular broadband with all (3) cellular ISPs that operate here. Cellular broadband is not supposed to replace landline broadband, it is simply for when you are out or whenever the landline isn't working. The latency of cellular access is too high compared to landline, the signal indoors is often poor (but you can use signal boosters), and many times even if one day you have signal after a few days you may find that the signal is gone because tower locations change often and not only that but the connection quality is also dependent on how many people connect near your tower. Not only that, but some cellular ISPs do not give you a real IP, or force you to use their proxy server (easily bypassed though) or even force you to use only their own software (also easily bypassed if you flash the firmware of your router or if you use a free OS such as Debian).
Thus the perfect solution is to have both. If you can't pay for both, then the answer depends on how many hours of the day you are out. If you stay indoors only when you sleep, then certainly cellular boradband is the answer. But if you do stay indoors more than 3-4 hours of your awake life, then you shouldn't easily cancel the landline.
what's the security like?
like say on evdo
if i open an ftp clear text password, it is natively encrypted by the protocol? or did i just hand everyone my ftp password?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
tee hee
if ya ever examine the HTML produced by MS/Word you can throw out about 95% of the trash that thing generates
I wouldn't be that dismissive without using it for a while.
I'm a heavy user of wireless broadband - mostly because it is free for me, but I can tell you that unless you are a heavy downloader you will do fine with it. I use it for general browsing/email/system updates/VPN to work/linux cd images, etc, without any real issues. There are times when reception isn't the best - lowering your speed a bit, but it is generally good enough for all those things above.
As someone else mentioned, if you have a developed network at home then it probably doesn't make as much sense, but if you have a laptop and you need access at various different places it is definitely worth it.
This is from an Australian viewpoint by the way.
I can give feed back on my own experience here in Singapore. I just switched to mobile broadband with M1. For 22sing$ a month (about 10 euros, 15 usd) I get:
- 6 month contract only
- 512kbps in / 384kbps out, the cheapest plan, but I don't need more. They also have 1.8 and 3.6mbps.
- Really unlimited traffic (no ridiculous monthly cap like in some countries)
- A free 3.5g usb modem (Huawei e220) working fine on my Linux Thinkpad. But then I have to swap the simcard between phone and modem...
The very good thing is that I don't need my expensive voice plan anymore. Now I'm using VOIP on my N95 and it's almost free to call everywhere in the world with cheap prepaid minutes from Gizmo, or Pfingo. The sound quality is OK, comparable with normal gsm. But I had to use a low bandwidth codec (G729) between the Nokia N95 and my Asterisk server. It seems the 3G connection didn't provide enough bandwitdh for "uncompressed" G711, and I got poor results (5s lag) most of the time with G711. But G729 is perfect.
I got local Singapore phone number from Pfingo (http://www.pfingo.com) so people can call me from real phones. Here they even have a range of numbers dedicated to VOIP (+653xxxxxxx). And these are real numbers, reachable from other phones, unlike unassigned/invalid numbers used by providers sometime. For my friends and family in France I bought a +33 number from Gizmo. Both numbers rings my mobile and fix phone at home (Siemens S450 IP, also connected to my Asterisk server)
For normal Internet use (ie web, mail, IM) 3G is fine, but it's true that it feels slower and more laggy than my cable access at home. But on the other side I can connect from anywhere and it's ok with me to sacrifice a bit of speed for that! Personally, I think it's good to keep both mobile broadband and DSL/cable for heavy downloads.
An Internet router has a wireless interface, such as bluetooth. In addition, it may have wired and other forms of wireless interfaces (such as 802.11g).
When another wireless (bluetooth) device is nearby, the router will automatically use that interface of that nearby device for Internet connectivity.
For example, I have a small network at home, connected together with this router. As soon as one (or more) of my bluetooth cell phone with Internet connectivity comes near by, my router automatically pairs with it, and uses its internet connectivity. The result is my home network automatically gets internet connectivity. There is no need for me to have wired internet service at my house.
Optionally, the router shapes and manages traffic that traverses the internet-side of the router.
I had Cingular for wireless broadband, and it worked great. For about a month. Then, connections would be dropped after five minutes. And the speed dropped, by a lot. And the phone company's support group: worthless. I spent two days on and off with them, replaced the hardware and spoke with people all the way up to the infrastructure guys. At the end of it all, they decided that, because they couldn't keep it working, it was unsupported.
We were using bluetooth to connect through a phone from a Mac. You may say that this was less than an optimal situation, but it worked great initially. I was seeing very close to DSL speed (I live near a tower), it worked with my Linux boxes when we travelled, and worked great from the local tavern. Then, AT&T took over, and it just went south quick.
Having wireless broadband changed the way I use my work laptop. I highly recommend it for traveling. For home use however, if all you do on the web is email, instant messaging, surfing, and the occasional download, then yes, wireless broadband will be okay. If you do more, games, video, massive downloads, file sharing, then your going to wish you'd kept the land line.
I have Sprint EVD0, and I really like it. (I signed up for the all you can eat service, so I don't have to worry about being nickeled and dimed to death.) It is not as fast as my home (Cable modem) service, but I can routinely get 250 Kbps streaming video, generally get 500 Kbps video, and occasionally get 1 Mbps video. I generally use it in hotels, for example, instead of the typical $ 10 / day hotel Internet charge, and I also use it around the house in places where the WIFI is sketchy.
Would I give up my Cable Internet ? If I didn't run a SOHO with heavy data transfer needs, I might. Your needs might vary, so you might consider it. (Another issue is that it would really take 2 accounts, one for me, one for the house, and since the prices are comparable the second account might as well be wireline.)
It still isn't that fast. You are much better off with a decent wired broadband and wireless router.
A friend has 3g data, it's useless, he bitched about it constantly
Although wireless internet be it WCDMA, GSM, whatever is functional for email, browsing etc for games/VoIP it's total rubbish because ping times are often around 600ms.
If all you want is internet access, the mobile broadband sounds nice. But you'll still need in-home connectivity (e.g., wires, lan, etc.) to do some pretty common tasks.
Your monitor is staring at you.
My next door neighbor gave up on configuring VISTA on his brand new laptop so he brought it over and asked me to do it. He also had a device about the size of a small cellphone with TWO usb connectors. His laptop has only three USB connectors and he had an optical mouse in the third. The installation of the wireless was straight forward and simple. Insert the CD and run setup.exe. When the installation app tells you to do so, insert the wireless USB connectors. A monitor panel appears. Click the big round green button marked "disconnected" and in a few sections it is marked "Connected" and the graph starts displaying download speeds versus time.
Good News:
The Alltel satellite wireless gives my neighbor the ability to connect to the Internet from ANYWHERE within the satellite's footprint in the Northern Hemisphere at no extra charge. He and his wife were going to visit relatives in Idaho in a couple months and I cautioned him about satellite shadows as he drives through the mountains in that region. He should expect to lose the connection when a mountain blocks the line of sight to the satellite, unless it picks up a reflection from the side of the mountain on the opposite side of the valley between them.
The wireless was receiving well from inside my house and at times reached very close to the 1.8MB download speed. For most websites it was just as fast as my RR 10MB broadband. However, when I went to sites heavy with graphics or with a video the difference became obvious. But, if I weren't into downloads of Linux ISOs and development tools the 1.8MB would be fast enough for most things.
The bad news:
With the satellite wireless attached he can't use any other USB devices unless he gets a USB port extender.
The wireless device comes only with Windows or Mac installation software, and I didn't get an opportunity to see if I could connect to it using any of my Linux tools.
It cost them $172 to buy the "package", sans, installation, and their monthly bill will be $62. I pay $85 for 70 channels of cable TV and a 10MB Internet connection, but my connection is stuck at home. Alltel allows only one connection at a time, but I'm sure some Windows guru can activate an IPFORWARD type service to allow other laptops to connect via an Ethernet cable.
Unplug it without doing the "safely remove hardware" and you could damage the device.
Concerning VISTA:
Although VISTA was "pre-installed" it wasn't configured. The configuration process was much too complicated for my neighbor to accomplish, which is why he gave up and asked if I would do it for him. VISTA's menu structure was much too confusing to be of much help for him. The date and time were wrong and he had no clue about how to set it. The "security" feature which asks permission to run EVERY application (including windows apps, at least for the first time) is annoying and useless. He would have no clue about which program should be allowed to run and which shouldn't. It's like having no security at all and its only purpose is to get Microsoft off the hook for being responsible for the inevitable infections.
I deactivated Norton, IFC and "Defender", and installed FireFox, ThunderBird, AGV and ZoneAlarm. I removed the demoware and trialware (including Office 2007) and installed OpenOffice. I cleaned up his screen and rebooted.
With all the apps that "call home" removed and the desktop cleaned up his VISTA installation started responding fairly well. Not as fast as my PCLinuxOS on a 3GHz CPU with 2GB of RAM, but his Acer dual core 64 2MHz CPUs with 2GB of RAM running VISTA was acceptably fast.... IF it can remain so.
My last words to him were "DON'T EVER RUN IE7 and DON'T EVER RUN OUTLOOK".
Oh, did I mention that it crashed once while running IE7 (which was forced by a hardwired call from Miro) and locked up once during the required reboot following the removal of one of the demoware apps. On the subsequent reboot it defaulted to the "Run Windows normally" option and appeared to come up and run fine for the rest of the session.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Yes: If I am going to be travelling a lot and plan to use the mobile broadband primarily while traveling, why yes, it is indeed a good option especially given that in India we do not have too many places where I can reliably plug in my laptop physically but where WiFi connection appears more secure.
No: Within our offices, we had a difficult time with the PC cards and the funny "antennas" the vendors gave us. There appeared to be some problem always with the alignment of the antennas and it became so much of a hassle we shifted to wired broadband completely within our office.
You might ask whether the antenna issues did not creep up while travelling...they did, but the alternatives available for me while on travel were much less palatable! So I still use the mobile broadband while on travel, but plug my laptop into the cable broadband when in office...
Hope this helps...
I have Verizon Wireless mobile broadband. It's ok for light work, but they throttle downloads back. The longer the download, the slower it gets throttled back to. Seems to encourage light use only.
NOT A CABLE MODEM REPLACEMENT, NOT EVEN A DSL REPLACEMENT.
www.millenicom.com offers a usb device + unlimited bandwidth for us$50/month. I am seeing 1.5 mb connections/downloads in a rural area with no dsl or cable.
I've got Sprint's mobile, and I love it. But then, I'm in a rural area and NOTHING else works. Satellite is a joke - unless you ONLY do web surfing and email. Anything with encryption is PAINFUL (including online banking). With Sprint, I get varying download speeds (I'm getting 860Kb now, but sometimes I get less). Anyway, I've got several computers in the house (I've got at least 2 running full time, plus a laptop). So, I'm SHARING the mobile connection using an EVDO Router (mine's from D-Link, but Linksys makes one, too). I plug the mobile card into the router, and the router provides Wi-Fi and LAN connection to my network of computers. Aside from the obvious cost savings, the difference is that communication between computers on the network is easier and faster, and sharing printers and other devices is possible. Try sharing a printer across the internet - you can do it, but it's not easy. If you have separate cards for each laptop, you might as well be in different countries. Communication between computers on Mobile broadband works the same between computers whether they're 6 feet or 600 miles apart.
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-1009-6004489.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It really depends on the reception that you can get in your home. The only way to know for sure is to try it. I'm pretty sure that all the service providers have a 15-30 day trial period in which you can cancel without huge fees.
Get one, try it, then decide.
I have mobile broadband in Australia through 3 mobile. Maybe this post will help someone else in my shitty situation.
The connection I got was a lifesaver because I had locked myself into a 6 month lease on a flat and found out the complex was on a RIM and/or a pair gain system (from a quick google seems this is mostly an Australian problem?). Every company I contacted told me this precluded me from getting ADSL, and there was no cable in this area.
And yes, I had asked the owner if I could get ADSL at the property first. "Sure" was, of course, his answer.
I can survive connecting at 48.8Kbps or so for a few months, I thought. Then I hooked up my trusty 56.6Kbps modem to find out because of the RIM (or pair gain) I could only connect at 28.8Kbps max. On a good day. And in the week I persisted, there weren't many good days.
Long story short; I wanted a no-contract broadband(ish) connection, with no cancellation fee and with minimum outlay for hardware as I was going to move the hell away from the place as soon as the lease was up.
My solution was to buy a mobile phone that did UMTS and get a no-contract broadband plan with 3 mobile. Yep, I could have splashed out for an HSDPA enabled phone, or even 'modem', but all these options were $200+, and I'm a poor student. Boo hoo for me.
I picked up an LG 8138 that had the common non-working microphone problem for $10. This would only do a theoretical 384/128Kpbs, but that beat the hell out of 28.8Kbps. The no-contract plan I got with 3 mobile was $49/month for 4GB upload and download combined, with no cancellation fee. Yes, in other countries this would be considered akin to consumer rape, but in Australia it wasn't *too* bad. My other reasoning was that I sure as hell wouldn't be downloading 4GB on the other connection.
Observations after 2 months of usage? Forget online gaming, the latency is just too high and packet loss is a constant problem. Also, you ain't gonna crank up your favourite *nix and act as any kind of a server. Ok, maybe an NTP server.
However for browsing, email, IM and the occasional youtube video (and yes, some porn goddamit) it has been a real saviour.
I almost always get the maximum 384Kbps download and 128Kpbs upload, which has amazed me as it seems there is little-to-no overhead. I've learned to be more selective in what I download, as well as how to best take advantage of friends, family and the account I get at university to download bits and pieces.
The things to watch out for are usage fees over the 4GB limit are charged at $0.10/MB. I use NetMeter to monitor my usage, as well as the 3 mobile web site. NetMeter is preferred as the website takes up to 48 hours to update. NetMeter is always spot on with the measurements.
The main thing to watch out for is to make sure the phone is on manual network selection, and select only the 3G network, as the 'roaming' charges when 3G isn't available (in my case only ever happened intermittently due to high wind) are $1.65/MB. Yep, that's right $1.65/MB or $1689.60/GB. Remember the rape analogy?
Other than those caveats it suffices, and will easily keep me happy until I move. I spoke to other residents in the complex who had been using 28.8Kbps and less connections for years and turned them onto what I was doing. 6 other people are now experiencing the internet at close to what they should be and are very grateful. Of course their palms are getting a little hairy.
While a wireless modem gives you an unparallelled degree of freedom, download speeds are still lacking. So, while it's a great compliment to regular technology it's not yet ready for prime.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
I use EVDO - I get ~ 1Mb/s while in motion (working on a train). Last I checked there was only one provider around here with a flat rate plan. Although Telus's EVDO network is fine for surfing and email it's got a bunch of ridiculous port blocks. For example you can't use RDP and I've had zero luck getting VPN to work on either the client device or using it as a tethered modem. So I end up "rolling my own" VPN by tunneling RDP over SSH.
So in this case your utility function would have to value mobility over a more restricted network and 1Mb speeds at five-years ago's prices.
First off, if you have access to any of the higher speed broadbands (FIOS or even 6/10mbps cable) then performance will clearly be better with the landline broadband.
That said, I had EvDO via Verizon on my 6700 which I tethered to my laptops. Now performance varied considerably depending on location and quality of service. But at my home was near a highway we had excellent signal quality.
EvDO Broadband Wireless actually outperformed my DSL connections at times. However, it was not as consistent. I found the DSL performance to be much more consistent in load times. I only had basic DSL 700kbps. Where at my EVDO could burst to 1mbps+, though more often than not I was getting around 400kbps.
I hope you find this analysis useful.
***
Lastly, for performance testing I used the following site. It's a photography site. I did so because I could I could load numerous differing pages and compare without caching images (by going to different image categories, etc).
http://www.dpchallenge.com/
I think on a straight file-download wireless broadband will be fairly slower. So you must also consider what type of work you are doing.
****
Lastly, I am a web developer. Using Verizon's Wireless EVDO Broadband I was able to travel from Connecticut to Maryland while having internet access nearly the entire time. Sometimes I would drop to the slower connection but I was truly surprised that most of the time I had a EVDO signal.
From what I gather, no other carrier provides quite the broadband coverage. And don't compare the "offered in 120 markets" bologne. As carriers consider different areas different markets. And while one might consider San Francisco area a single market another carrier will count it as three. So be sure to check the actual coverage maps.
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- The Saj
I did this for a while using a Verizon USB720 (USB dongle, Evdo Rev A). I live in the suburbs of Nashville, TN so service is a little spotty around my home. It takes a little effort to find just the right "sweet spot" to get a good signal to it. I ended up purchasing a Kyocera wireless router that was designed just for the purpose of sharing a mobile broadband card. The Kyocera (made by D-link, so there are D-link variants out there too) has slots to plug in your Express Card or USB modems. Once you set it up, you simply plug in your modem and power it up. A minute later, you have access to multiple computers. It is kind of buggy, but it's nice to have. It even came with a cigarette lighter plug so that it can be used in your vehicle. Plug it all in, toss it on the dash, and you've got internet access just about anywhere.
:)
The service was expensive ($59.99 per month), and wasn't the fastest thing around, but it was the best offering that I could get in the sticks (until the local cable company get their act together). If I put the WAP in just the right place, I could get 900Kbits down / 256 Kbits up, and the latency is slow if you're a gamer, but totally reasonable if you're a more basic user (~80 ms).
When my cable company had an offer for both 5Mbit / 512Kbit cable AND basic TV for $19.99 per month for a year, needless to say I signed up for that.
Still got the mobile stuff though. Comes in handy! The mobile WAP was great when a storm knocked out power at work in the city. I even plugged our four Vonage lines in to it. Conversations were a little laggy, but we still were able to make and receive calls. It sure beat the hell out of having nothing and being dead in the water!
If you're a casual user that needs mobile access more than anything it's great. If you are heavy in to gaming or downloading music or videos, leave that to dsl or cable.
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
I use a wireless router at home and the broadband card when I'm on the road and I've found that the broadband card's performance differs based on location. I live in Tampa, FL. and when I'm downtown the speeds are impressive, but travel 15 miles outside of the city and it staggers. So, if you find yourself mostly located in areas with great cell coverage you will be fine, otherwise I'd be hesitant to drop your home service provider...
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!!
A device that I find VERY useful is the Kyocera KR1 Router. I use it with a Sprint EVDO card when I am at home. The KR1 allows more than one user to surf the web using the Sprint Card, by supplying WiFi and 4 Wired connections as well as firewalling. It would be a good solution for traveling couples too so that two or more laptops can share a single EVDO card/monthly fee.
It is aslo a very useful device for trade shows where multiple computers need to access the internet. Add a High Gain antenna to the Sprint EVDO card and you can extend/improve the connectivity by a few bars. It works quite well for casual surfing, almost good enough that I am considering dumping the DSL line.
Well, I have AT&T. I have an HTC TyTN which is a 3G phone which allows me to "tether" via bluetooth to my Macbook Pro. I must admit that the convenience factor is wonderful. For example, I sat recently on a 4 hour layover at Newark airport. Of course, they have "for charge" wireless which sucks, but I just turned on my Internet sharing, attached to the network from my Mac and I was able to sit there sending and receiving email, chatting with family and friends on IM... all that sort of stuff. However, it was only a GPRS/EDGE connection so the experience when browsing the web was sort of sad and pathetic. I'm just glad I block flash and ads in my Firefox or I would've been livid at the time it took to load pages. Or bored.
However, even at best the 3G connection is only "acceptable". If you're using it for email and/or IM it's probably more than acceptable (IMAP or POP3). Web-based email with lots of ads and flash crap (Yahoo) is going to drive you nuts. Web-based mail with mostly text-based stuff (Gmail) is going to be MUCH more workable, but is still going to be slow. So long as you're not going to be downloading software updates, you'll be fine. I even make a habit of shutting down iTunes before I hook up to my phone network because if there's an updated podcast it's going to try to download it (I subscribe to several) and you'll be wondering what the hell happened to your connection speed for fifteen minutes until you realize what's happening (yes, I've done that).
For home, though I have to say I like having my cable-modem connection with my G-wireless (and a wired connection when I want to backup to my server). Although St. Louis (where I live) has excellent 3G coverage, it's still not a patch on having a 5Mb/s connection at home to download my software updates and stuff. Besides, even on the best 3G connection sometimes the "DNS Lookup Delay" can be annoying... and even worse is the latency when you're hitting websites.
So the answer? It depends what you want to do with it. If you have a system you control EVERY aspect (like when it downloads updates and such) then give it a shot... but use it as an augmentation of a high-speed connection at home, not a replacement. If you don't know when a system will be downloading updates (Mac, Windows) then you might find yourself blaming a connection for slow response when it's actually your OS silently downloading something in the background. I know enough about Mac OS to be able to jump around and know when it's doing something I don't want... but most users don't.
YMMV.
probably too late to get a response but I dont understand. Right now I pay $80 for wildblue satellite at 1.5mb speed. Would using my cellphone's wireless be less expensive or better latency wise? i ping at over 1000ms most of the time. Id certainly rather have a wireless i can use anywhere if the speeds are roughly the same im going to have bad latency either way cause cable/dsl dont run out here.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
I prefer a broadband connection at home and a combination of T-Mobile's hotspot service and free wifi for when I'm out. If you're a T-Mo customer and don't need everywhere connectivity, it's a nice solution. T-Mobile's Hotspot service is available at Starbucks, Borders Books, Kinkos and a lot of Airports for an extra $20/month in the US. They also have roaming agreements in Europe with companies like Vodafone Orange.
There are also a number of places, like Panera and many public libraries, that have free wifi for those times when you a) just can't stomach another carmel machiatto, or b) can't find one. Try a wifi locator to find places in your city. I just found out all the Hooters here in Texas have free wifi. Why am I not surprised. ;-)
With the recent announcement that AT&T is taking over the hotspots at Starbucks ADSL from AT&T will give you free access at Starbucks, that is if you can live with AT&T and their supposed monitoring agreement with the NSA. If you're a T-Mo customer you'll still be able to use Starbucks since they just announced that an agreement with AT&T that lets their customers continue to use the Starbucks hotspots.
You said you and your wife are out a lot. If you have a choice as to where you're out to, then keep the broadband at home. If you're a consultant who's in a different office or hotel every day of the week, then the 3G cards makes more sense. I still wouldn't sacrifice the home broadband either way.
Don't get an EVDO card. Get a bluetooth dongle and a phone that supports Bluetooth DUN.
I use Millenicom (www.acun.com), which resells Sprint service, but for a lower monthly rate and no contract. So the monthly cost is essentially the same as cable modem. I have found it to be an acceptable replacement in my apartment in the Boston area, with about 1mbps down/500kbps up and 80ms ping to a nearby server. Of course, you can pick it up and go wherever you like, and you don't have to wait around for the cable guy and his exposed coin slot.
Skype and X forwarding are both usable on this connection, although starting up emacs on the latter takes a few minutes. I don't do any P2P stuff, but AFAIK there have been no reports of people getting kicked out for bandwidth overusage like on Verizon...Sprint has been losing customers like a sieve recently. In fact, Millenicom explicitly advertises the service as a replacement for wired broadband.
The modem you get is a USB stick that plugs directly into a PC. It's about the same size as a USB 802.11 adapter, which is somewhat larger than your typical memory stick. The modem also has a GPS receiver built-in. To share the connection with my laptop, I have the PC hooked up to an 802.11 router (with the router function turned of so that it is effectively a switch) and ICS turned on in Windows. Other options for 802.11 are (1) buying a dedicated wireless router that takes the USB stick directly (Millenicom will sell you one for $150), (2) setting up a software AP, or (3) roughing it with an ad hoc network. I tried #3 for a few days, but I found that cross-manufacturer compatibility for secure ad hoc networks seems to be miserable.
The wrinkles: (1) to get this kind of speed, you have to be in an area not just with Sprint coverage, but with EVDO Rev. A coverage. Areas with only EVDO Rel. 0 or, worse, 1xRTT coverage will see considerably worse throughput AND latency. (2) The speed you get presumably depends on the proximity and business of nearby cell towers - of course this principle holds for cable modem as well. (3) The quality of the connection is significantly affected by severe weather. (4) You have to do some ridiculous hacks (e.g. put your mouse over a secret sweet spot in the software and type a secret code) to change your "Home Agent" and ensure your traffic is routed through the nearest possible server - the procedure for this is easily Googlable.
So, overall, there are tradeoffs, but I am satisfied with the service as a replacement for wired broadband. The Millenicom service seems to be strictly better than Sprint's branded service, and I would especially advise against going on a 2-year contract right now since Sprint is supposed to roll out their WiMAX service in metropolitan areas later this year. A lot more information can be found on the broadbandreports.com forums
Depends on how good your local broadband service is. This probably wouldn't hold a candle to the 15Mbit cable internet offered in my area.
I draw analogy to my phone. Many people today only have cell phones and have dispensed with hard wired ones. I have a cell phone but I'm not ready to give up my land lines. I work on the phone. While coverage for cell phones at the house is *usually* good, quality isn't consistently good. For the sake of others, in particular my customers, a quiet quality line is mandatory. Also There are many days where I'll spend hours on the phone and cell phone batteries aren't up to the task. More importantly cell phone batteries aren't up to the thankfully few outage situation that require 1-10 hour bridge sessions. Also a wired land line phone offers more quality options: better speaker phones, bigger buttons and dedicated function buttons, cordless options, amplified headsets, two ear head sets, robust headsets that can take constant use for years, etc.
Granted not everyone needs this, and that's why some have eliminated the monthly bill for land lines.
Take that analogy to wired vs. mobile ISP service. Based on the comments so far, wired ISP service + WIFI offers more consistently higher speed service than mobile. The number of routers and their features available are very diverse for wired service. Network configurations behind those routers are also very flexible. For example I use a router to get to the ISP and an access point in a better local for WIFI. The telcos and cable service providers are, in my opinion, a much tighter race for your $20-30/mo. They offer extra services that might appeal to some.
Anyway I agree with most of the other comments. The economics of wired ISP+WIFI compared to Mobile are going to be very subjective to the usage of individual users. For example how many people or systems are you trying to support? A single person might not see much incremental cost. If you already have Mobile service then dropping the cost of wired ISP makes even more sense.
The technical viability of Mobile over wired ISP+WIFI is also very subjective to your home location and your vendors network. My great analogy for this is pager coverage. My company four years ago was very committed to Skytel paging plans. So much so that even though I had a text messaging plan, was forced to get a Skytel Pager. However... I spend the majority of my time working from home in the basement and at home in general. Though I'm in a built up suburb of Cleveland, my home sat in a hole in the Skytel network. A half mile any direction and paging was reliable. But not at my house. My company finally had to admit that for me, mobile service text messaging was a better solution. Meanwhile others on my team find that Skytel coverage is better for their neighborhoods.
I have wireless broadband though Verizon, as I can get no other form of broadband where I am. It's not cable that if for sure. The latency is kinda high for online gaming, but the speeds and decent I generally get around 1.5Mbps. (Most I have seen is around 2.2Mbps, but it's uncommon). One of the good things about it, is it's dual band and symmetrical. (Great for uhh, torrents) I have heard of people having Verizon cut them off after so much downloaded. But well. I have yet to have such an issue. As so far this year I have downloaded. 70,082,579.62KB or 68,441MB or like 67GB. If I dig out one of my statements from last year. The number was rather large. The amusing part was. They are not to good at recording how much I download or upload. As there numbers are always a lot lower than mine.
If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
I didn't get on this article early, so no one will likely see my post, but:
Family members recently started getting the SprintPCS broadband cards with the external antenna. Their question was "Can we buy just one and have the rest of the computers networked through it?".
What a headache! The speeds are good, but networking them is a mess. At first, I tried standard procedure. I purchased a Kyocera wirless router that has a EVDO USB / port on it specifically for this purpose. It worked fine - except that you couldn't connect more than one computer at a time! The router did not have mac spoofing, and would only allow on one mac concurrently.
The solution was for me to plug my wireless buffalo into the Kyocera, then spoof the buffalo mac on the kyocera router. Then disable the wireless on the kyocera. All this headache, just to get the system to work the way it should!
I considered an ad-hoc network to eliminate the kyocera router since they only have two computers, but that would have the additional headache of the internet leaving whenever the laptop with the card in it left the house.
If you're willing to pay for individual cards you can eliminate this problem, I suppose. In addition, the sprint network even with full bars is not fast enough to stream something like network TV. I was a bit shocked at that. Even though it speedtests at 300k to 400k, videos skip constantly when you try to play them from a major network site in the us like NBC/ABC/CBS.
Overall, it's nice if you plan on using it for a single computer and web browsing only, but if you want any real content or to replace your home connection with it, I'd stay away.
I have a verizon 3G data plan, all-you-can-eat (if-you-don't-mind-the-fine-print-where-"all"-is-said-to-mean-less-than-5-GB), and Time Warner Road Runner (cable modem) hooked up to a D-Link DWL-614+ wireless router.
.5 - 2 Mbps up... my computer going through pcmcia to the 3G network probably gets about 1 Mbps... my phone gets around 384 Kbps... I think that might be an internal limitation of the modem in my gen.1 Moto Q, because the wireless protocol should burst up to around 2.5 Mbps
Ethernet cable from the router to my laptop is hands down the fastest. Followed by wifi in the house (I think that has to do with an Intel wifi driver and CPU utilization)... then wireless broadband via pcmcia, wireless broadband via USB and the modem in my phone, and finally the phone's internal modem directly through Windows Mobile 5.
If I had to guesstimate at my highest through puts, I would say when wired in I get up to 6-8 Mbps down and
I've used all these various settings. I would choose either of the cable modem connections any day. Add in the fact that the plan sold and billed as unlimited has a fairly low limit, and I can tell you I won't be dropping my wired ISP any day soon...
I feel like I should reply to this, as I've used Verizon wireless mobile as my only internet access for over a year and a half, and am very pleased with it. But context and usage are critical. My context is that while I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I live in a rural spot that's never had any DSL options, and while my neighbors have cable, I'm too far from the road to do so (though the cable company 'offered' to run the cable from the road to my building for several thousand dollars.) So after using a very slow dial-up for six years, I switched to the mobile broadband, and it's a vast-beyond-words improvement. Speed varies. Occasionally, I log on and have something not much faster than dial-up, but that usually changes pretty quickly. One thing I've confirmed repeatedly is that if I start to download a big file (350MB, for example), the speed of the connection quickly goes up to maxium. It takes about 40 minutes to download that size file on an average day. As others have said, usage is very much a factor in this. If you do mostly email and browsing, with occasional downloads of music and video files, you'd probably be fine with it. But P2P doesn't really work, in part because you're not always on. (I'm in a tech job and work from home once a week, and have stayed connected for up to 8-10 hours at a time. But I don't leave it on overnight, and try to remember to disconnect it when I'm not actively on the computer.) I've had friends tell me that watching youtube videos on my laptop with my mobile wireless set up is about the same as watching them via DSL. There is some buffering, but it's very possible to do. I like being able to take my internet connection with me when I travel. As long as Verizon has service there, I don't have to worry about hotels charging an arm and leg for their service, or dealing with family members' wireless setups. Some people commented about getting poor connections inside their home, but Verizon, at least, offers a 10 day no-questions-asked return. (And Sprint might well do the same thing.) So you could always give it a try and see how the connection speeds worked out for you. I'm moving this summer, and will almost certainly be moving somewhere where cable or DSL is an option, but I have no plans to switch. Verizon now has a USB wireless stick (instead of the PC card) and when my current contract runs out next fall, I expect to go that route. (Which I assume would work on a desktop as well, should I buy one.) In short, using Verizon's service as my sole internet access has worked perfectly for me, and I intend to continue with it. But it might be very different going from whatever high-speed setup you currently have to the mobile wireless than it was for me going from dead-slow dialup. You don't consistently get broadband speed, but it's fast enough to do everything I want to do, and the convenience of being able to take it with me when I travel can't be overstated.
I work for a Verizon Wireless authorized agent and have a Broadband Access card from them which costs me 60/mo to have the service. I also have Time Warner cable at home that has a router connected to it. I've found that the Broadband Access card is great in that it works virtually anywhere I get VZW cellphone coverage, but it doesn't work well enough to replace DSL or Cable.
I use the VZW card at work and I like the speed, but there's too much latency issues with the service that doesn't make it ideal for constant data transmission. For instance, I play WoW (Which is against the terms of service, along with watching Youtube videos or any other streaming media) and the latency report usually rests between 800 and 1600ms. Also, I tried to download a Fedora 8 DVD once, Opera was telling me it was going to take 13 hours. Reception wasn't an issue...the tower was literally across the street from where I was.
The other great thing about home DSL/Cable is that you can connect a router to the service and have up to 255 computers connected and sharing good speed. With the Mobile data cards you'll have to buy an expensive router (Last I checked it was above $300 US) which aren't easy to find, and then you'll be splitting the problems I mentioned above. The data cards are not a good multiple user device. That means you'll be spending around 120$ US a month for two of them.
One of the caveats about these mobile cards is that, even though they say they're unlimited, the phone company will observe your useage and if they deem you're "abusing" their service will throttle your bandwidth or terminate your service. It's in your Customer Agreement with them, so make sure you know what you're getting into.
My point is, if you need internet access wherever you get wireless, then the broadband cards are great. If you're in your home, then get DSL/Cable because it's going to be less expensive and provide better service.
At some point it and the refridgerator are going to want to be connected to the internet. In all seriousness, between computers and game consoles and directv receivers I have 6+ things that can utilize the internet. And that number is only going to go up.
I don't see any mention of this yet in the comments. I have used multiple AT&T wireless cards across multiple WinXP laptop models for a couple years and they all had one thing in common: regular mysterious disconnections that are only resolved by rebooting or shutting down the laptop. I've used AT&T's wireless client, and Dell's branded wireless client with the same results. When you have that happen a couple times in a session you are ready to cancel the service. I'm typing this now from AT&T wireless. I've been online an hour and a half, and I've had to reboot the computer once already to revive it.
The comments about latency and downscaling of web graphics are also consistent with my experience. This technology is incredibly valuable when you need to get on the net away from home (it has saved my bacon a few times), but I wouldn't ever want to rely on it for a home connection. It just isn't the same experience as DSL/Cable.
Someone who travels a lot and is on a tight budget might find the tradeoffs worth it. Not me.
WRT54G3G-ST
Beware the terms of service. I have an 'unlimited' account. By Unlimited, they mean Unlimited Web Browsing and Email. Anything else is theoretically Not Allowed. Streaming music, fancy downloads, things like that: no. How do they detect not-web-browsing activity? Well, they figure that if you use more than 5GB of data in a month that's Downloading and Streaming Stuff.
So, Unlimited = 5GB, and you can forget about BitTorrenting any Linux .isos (or anything remotely big like that) or tuning in to Pandora or using iTunes. If you're okay with that.... well then, fun fun fun fun.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Is it possible to use a mobile phone to dial in to a dialup number I can use with a regular modem? My university has free dialup access and my mobile phone operator gives me unlimited minutes on evenings and weekends. I don't want to spend the extra money on a data plan, but I would like to have internet access on the go. I've tried to set this up with the phone I currently have, but it doesn't work.
I suspect that it could be some sort of locked feature. I would purchase a new phone if it meant this would work. My ideal situation is to connect my powerbook to my mobile phone via bluetooth and connect my phone to my university via a regular dialup number. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
As far as I can tell, your cost analysis is flawed. You said "you and your wife" - so you will need two cards, two subscriptions. This will cost you more than $10 over the DSL connection which is shared by BOTH of you. This will cost you double (plus an extra $20).
Early last year I signed a 2 year agreement with AT&T, and then business slowed down and I had to cut expenses. I canceled my cable internet 2 months ago, and it's been working great. The PCMIA slot on my laptop broke, so I shelled out the money for a USB model, an 18 inch antenna with a 15 foot cable, and a 16 foot USB extendor cable. Apple has very easy Internet Sharing set up, so I plug it into my Mac Mini and run the antena into my bedroom where I get the best reception (I have a one bedroom apartment). My Mac Mini then allows my laptop to connect wirelessly, and I plug my PS3 into the ethernet port.
When new PS3 demos come out I can download about a Gig overnight, and I can get sustained download speeds of over 100k on my laptop regularly. Ping times are about 5 to 10 times longer than from my cable modem, so it takes Slashdot almost 10 seconds to load instead of less than 3. I can even still do internet gaming on my PS3, but I definitely have signifigantly fewer options because many servers ping times are way too high. When all is said and done it's plenty worth the slower connections than it is to pay for internet access twice.
There is a scenario that would lend itself to having both.
Given that Time Warner is instituting metered access across the US. It seems a likely situation where you could have your "main" cable line doing low latency activities within the bucket they give you and than use the cell connection as a bandwidth mule for the bittorrent or usenet activities.
It wouldn't be instant gratification, but with bittorrent you are typically waiting for awhile anyway (think sucking up ~50KB/s over the course of 24 hours rather than 700KB/s for 1 hour).
Sprint and I think AT&T have real unlimited plans for ~$50 a month, though you might incur the wraith of whomever notices if you keep it up. Howardforums would have more on that situation.
I use AT&T in Southern California. It took a bit of effort, but I managed to USB tether my 3G LG Shine (against their ToS, don't tell them) to my laptop running Ubuntu. Even at EDGE speeds I find it quite usable on the road for e-mail and web browsing. I can't seem to get instant messaging working via cellular connection, but that might be a limitation of Pidgin or Ubuntu Network Manager. However, even when I have a UTMS/HSDPA signal the latency is noticeably high, and therefore it cannot replace my cable connection for online gaming and streaming media. When LTE launches and if it delivers on its promises, I'll consider getting rid of the landline altogether.
Slightly off-topic,
But, since you mention the chicken wire mesh/metallic stucco, I'm wondering if cable companies (say, comcast) liked that back around 1999 when I was buying a new home that had poor on-air reception. It might have served as a useful way to persuade people to get cable. I just attached my twin antenna to the cable wire and used the comcast coax cable as an antenna/signal enhancer. I still got to watch Voyager and maybe 5 or 8 stations over the air.
Second, since many new homes seem to be near-Faraday-cage-like, would that permit some savvy users to use equipment otherwise not intended for residential use due to RF emissions?
How much effort would it take for builders to enhance an under-construction home for a (maybe custom home buyer, but not like happening for tract-home buyers....) buyer who intends to use equipment that *might* have signal or noise spillover?
And, how does the government intel apparatus feel about homes that are heavily shielded but the occupants are persons of interest but hardly use the internet(s)?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Although it depends very much on the signal you are getting, I have found that using Verizon's EVDO technology with a Vodafone adapter has been great. I would prefer a landline if possible, which in my case it is not. (Living on a boat)
Anyway, I have no trouble as this is my primary (only) connection and I do everything from streaming video to gaming and web surfing.
I've used Sprint's unlimited EVDO for about two years now and absolutely love it. The hardest thing it saw was Second Life, which ran as well as on friend's DSL. I could stream music and video inworld as well as all the world's content.
However my local tower only gave me about 600 kbps whereas next town over had 1100. So depending on where you are, it may or may not be faster to use mobile broadband than cheap DSL.
However during outages, at least with mobile broadband you can drive two miles and be on another working tower if you need connection!
It was also wonderful to have internet access and email and browsing anywhere at broadband speeds. Even sitting by a campfire on a camping weekend, then just being able to plug in the phone to a laptop (even with a recharging cable).
So far, of less than a week of cheap DSL, I can't see any benefit in all honesty.
A Sprint EVDO RevA card and a 10Mb/s cable modem at home.
The Sprint PC Card has excellent signal in my house, and I bought an external antenna--it provides a solid 1Mb/s connection with respectable (~200kbps) upload speeds. I also bought a Linksys router that accepts the Sprint card to provide it via Wi-Fi in my house.
After a few months w/ the Sprint card I canceled the cable modem and lived w/ just the Sprint card for about 8 months as I had access to high speed internet at work and at my SO's apartment, so large downloads were not an issue.
The card as my only access worked just fine for a long time, even when both the SO and I were doing light-internet based work (email, web, etc), it was fantastic being able to take the card with me everywhere I went and have internet access when no (good) public or private WiFi was available.
I was able to VPN into work and also use Remote Desktop well enough. I could even stream Netflix movies.
When I take long trips w/ my family I keep the router plugged into an inverter in the car, on I90 between Boston and Rochester, NY you may be happy to know that the internet is effectively not interrupted anywhere along the way--even though there are many locations where FM is limited to a handful of stations and XM is blocked by surrounding mountains/hills.
I ultimately brought back a cable modem at home so that I'd be able to access my home network while I was away--that was really the weakest point of the mobile broadband as my only connection--if you take the card with you, you have no internet at home, if you live alone the only draw back is no way to access services at your home remotely or let PCs at home do anything on the internet while you're away... but, if you live with someone else they may not appreciate you taking the card at any moment which defeats the purpose of the mobile card (assuming you take your laptop w/ you 24/7 like my nerdy ass does)
I think if you work remotely for even 3-4 days a month it is absolutely a justifiable service to pay for as it saves me so many headaches of waiting to use a connection, or staying around one in order to wait to be able to do some work. There's been many occasions where I've been free to spend a day doing something that I wanted, and was able to pull the car over, or stop anywhere convenient to handle something for work that needed to be done.
Sprint Card is $61/mo w/ taxes & fees
RCN 10Mb/s cable modem is $46/mo w/ taxes and fees
The last I heard, the requirements weren't that the device didn't cause interference, but that it was able to operate in environments with powerful transmitters.
Unless someone knows of a mobile broadband provider I don't,
the latency is the killer. Even if the total bandwidth is decent,
you can't use it for anything that needs to be highly interactive;
World of Warcraft or Second Life is right out, as is any kind of
*upstream* audio.
What is an option for computers without the pcmcia slots as far as mobile broadband. I have an iBook....it has no slot.
I believe Sprint offers a Novatel Wireless U720 EVDO Rev. A modem which connects via USB. Visit the Sprint website for more details.
I use a Sprint S720 PCMCIA card in Portland, Oregon. In close-in NE Portland, my speeds whilst sitting in an apartment are around 800 kbit/sec down, 120 up. The best I've seen is 2 mbit/down while sitting in downtown.
Even though it's not as fast as Comcast, the price is roughly the same ($60), and allows me to be most anywhere. I love the flexibility of not having to worry about whether I'm able to find Wi-Fi. Also, I've traveled between Portland-Seattle on the Amtrak Cascades train, where 50% of the time, I had EVDO, and 1xRTT the remainder.