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?"

Comments

Convenience vs Performance

[_merlin]

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.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[arivanov]

1. You are lucky to see speeds like that. I have the same combination and I see speeds under 128Kbit under realistic conditions in the UK. It is very rare for the speed to go above 256K. In fact the only places I have seen it higher are non-UK networks.

2. The question of DSL vs 3G has a very simple answer. The answer is a question in itself - do you have a home server and where does your traffic come from?

If your mail, media, etc is stored on a machine at home, 3G is shooting yourself in the foot. Your traffic ends up going all the way down to the GGSN at the mobile operator and than all the way back up to your kit at home (often through the narrow side of a cable or DSL). If all of your stuff is sitting in a colo somewhere or is on your laptop and you have good 3G coverage, than 3G can compete with DSL for the time being.

This is a definitely "for the time being" case because as more and more devices in the home become networked a device whose traffic has to travel across half of the country to connect to the rest of the kit becomes a white elephant.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[cybereal]

On your point of "luck" about the GP's claim of speeds, you missed that he said HSDPA, which is sometimes called "3.5g" it's much faster than 3G, it's just similar enough tech to not warrant considering it a new generation of connectivity.

Just wanted to clear that up for anyone following this for bandwidth curiosities.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[TheRaven64]

You are lucky to see speeds like that. I have the same combination and I see speeds under 128Kbit under realistic conditions in the UK. It is very rare for the speed to go above 256K. In fact the only places I have seen it higher are non-UK networks. When I use UMTS in the UK, I typically get around 400Kb/s (50KB/s). From attempting to do file transfers to my phone, this appears to be the fastest it can push data over the bluetooth connection, so the speed to the tower might be faster. The big difference is the caps. Mobile data connections often have a cap of around 3GB/month and you can go through this very easily with a big download or two or some iPlayer usage.

That said, a friend of mine used UMTS for his home connection for about a year. He used the broadband at work for big transfers and the UMTS cap was high enough to let him browse the web (including videos of kittens on YouTube) and check his mail from home.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[arivanov]

I did not miss it. I have an HSDPA card. On Vodafone, you see the purple light (HSDPA) only once in a while. It is usually red (3G) or green (GPRS). The coverage is definitely way far from what marketing whalesong are trying to brainwash you into.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[a1choice]

I am a consultant that also uses both technologies,
1) Home is DSL that has a consistent 4 - 4.4Mbit, and
2) Sprint EDO card for mobile that gets from 700kbit to 2 Mbit (average is 1.2Mbit).

Using the EDO cards in lieu of hotel high cost Internet saves lots of money. In fact I get better speed with the EDO card than the hotel's notoriously slow Internet...that is no doubt. At home I would rather have 4 - 5Mbit speed....it really makes a difference and speed is an addiction.

I also have to comment that it is certainly nice to go anywhere and have the EDO card instead of always fighting to find a WiFi spot that does not charge. Most airports still do not have free WiFi, and even all the coffee spots still charge although not as much as airports.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[Tony Hoyle]

Are you in a building with double glazing? That can affect the signal a lot.. in fact in some offices you can't get a mobile signal at all due to this.

I've not seen a non-HSPDA signal in a built up area in the UK for some time (on vodaphone as well), and have even had 3G on a remote hill in Wales. Dropping to GPRS is next to unheard of.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[arivanov]

I have tried and tested it all over the UK. East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Greater London and all the way to Glasgow.

While Pilkington-K and similar treated doubleglazed windows (not just any doubleglazed) drop the signal a bit, it is not the windows that are a problem. It is the tech in itself and the coverage. You need a non-congested Node-B to get anywhere near HSDPA speeds. As the number of clients on the Node-B grows the speed drops in x2 steps because even idle clients use parts of the code tree.

So as the tech is becoming more and more popular the network becomes worse and worse. As a result you can probably still get HSDPA speeds out there in residential suburbia. Getting HSDPA speeds in downtown lodnon, at railway stations or any other place where there are loads of clients (even non-active ones) is practically impossible.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[binaryspiral]

Are you in a building with double glazing?

Indeed. I work in a metal framed two story building with reinforced concrete walls and floor to ceiling windows with
low-e coatings. Signal quality was zero bars before they installed wireless repeaters.

The answer to the original question is simple - if you aren't home often, go with the 3G card. But beware that your speeds will be fastest now and drop as more and more people sign up for data services.

Re:Convenience vs Performance

[Duke]

Are you in a building with double glazing? That can affect the signal a lot.. in fact in some offices you can't get a mobile signal at all due to this.

The problem is not double glazing per se, but Low-E (low-emissivity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-emissivity coatings on the glass, intended to reflect infrared radiation. These coatings are usually metallic oxides, which attenuate radio signals. My house has all Low-E windows and the exterior walls are coated with stucco - on a metal (chicken-wire) mesh. It is not quite a Faraday cage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage, but I do not have to wear my tinfoil hat indoors.

How much do you download?

[DuncanE]

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.

Re:How much do you download?

[DingerX]

I have the same problem on Friday evenings, especially in typing Yike! Don't beer me! Not Beer Please!. My Bartender, Ike, never seems to get it right.

Re:How much do you download?

[mrbluze]

My experience... at lease here in Australia... is that Mobile broadband works very well (remember much of our country is unpopulated desert).

Additionally, there are pretty terrible contracts for mobile broadband (telstra is asking for 24 months last time i checked), so early adopters are once again subsidising later (smarter) takers. Rental properties can easily get ADSL connected without the landlord needing to know about it, because no modifications need to be done on the property.

Mobile broadband, in my opinion, is something that only makes sense if you need it for your business. When it comes to personal/recreational use, such as on holiday or something to check emails and whatever, it might be easier to plug (or bluetooth) your laptop into your 3G mobile and surf the net that way, or just check into a hotel or cafe with wifi. That's what I have done up until now and, basically, it doesn't cost me $500+ extra per year to do it, in contrast to the mobile broadband.

I suspect the demand for mobile broadband in Australia has not been as big as was hoped. Actually I am still at a bit of a loss why they are rolling it out when the alternatives are so cheap and so adequate at this point. It doesn't make financial and practical sense to me unless it's a tax deductible thing and you are making money from it in excess of the cost of ownership.

Re:How much do you download?

[speeDDemon (nw)]

Another killer is latency, typically >100ms. Which for a lot applications has little effect, but when compared to ADSL and Cable their latency is unsurpassed. Which for gaming is critical. I wouldn't trade my 8ms ping to my favorite game servers for any amount of mobility.

Re:How much do you download?

[totally bogus dude]

It's not just gaming either - web surfing is much faster over ADSL than 3G. While you can get pretty good download speeds out of 3G, the latency means it takes a while to build up to the full transfer rate (TCP slow start). Most web pages don't have content large enough that you'll get to full speed, so the browsing experience feels more like "good dialup" than it does "mobile broadband".

You could also consider getting a phone with internet access that allows "tethering" (at least, I think that's what the kids are calling it these days) so you can access the internet using your laptop via the phone's 3G data service. At home (in .au) I have ADSL2+ in my apartment and 500 mB/month via 3's "X Series" package. It costs me an extra $20/mo but means I do have internet access on the go without the expense of a separate mobile broadband plan. Using your phone for it also means you can have basic internet access even if you don't have your notebook with you, which can be handy.

Re:How much do you download?

[Stonent1]

May lower class people use it to get broadband at the place they rent.

Lower class? I didn't realize I was in the presence of nobility, m'lord.

Why not just say proletariat? Then I can call you bourgeoisie. But I'm not by any stretch left of center so I'll leave it be.

Re:How much do you download?

[srealm]

In the US, it is very unfashionable to charge by the byte. So most internet connectivity (for residential/personal use) is 'unmetered'. However often there is clauses about 'excessive' use and the right to slow you down or cut you off for excessive use - but this applies to mobile broadband as well as residential customers. However they're often very cagey about what 'excessive' means, and by and large, it equates to hundreds of gigabytes.

That said, AU is definitely ahead with mobile billing. In the US, they charge you for everything on the phone - IN AND OUT. Which means you receive (or make) a phone call? you pay for it. You receive (or send) a text message? you pay for it. They have plans with X text messages free, but since a lot of phone companies offer an email -> text message interface, it is quite possible to run up someone's bill by making a program that will send emails to a subscriber's email -> text message address, and give them like 5000 text messages in the month. And the subscriber has no choice but to pay for it. I've always been against being forced to pay for what you receive on a cell (mobile) phone as far as voice calls and text messages. Mobile internet is a different story of course.

Also, in the US, you can get residential internet speeds MUCH faster than what you can get on mobile broadband. Mobile broadband tends to be on the low end of 'high speed'. For example Verizon BroadbandAccess (which I have) advertises 700kbit, with bursts up to 2mbit. And this is approximately accurate. However you can get the Verizon FiOS (fiber to the home) service, and get up to a 50mbit connection (I have 20mbit, and have verified the speeds are accurate). This in itself is also forcing cable companies and other DSL providers to up their offering, which is why cable is all about saying 'You can get 10mbit!' or advertising their 'boosting' options to go up to 20/50/etc (though the big problem with cable is its a shared pipe, if your neighbours are flooding the line, your connection suffers - not so with DSL or FiOS).

In the US at least, the speed gap between 3G and residential broadband is huge, and getting bigger.

And to the original post, I'd recommend Verizon's BroadbandAccess. You will note that in the Sprint/AT&T ads, they NEVER mention Verizon, because Verizon's coverage is better, and their speeds are better. And their AUP is less draconian (though it still 'forbids' use for P2P applications and running a server though it, but Verizon also tends not to filter anything so doesn't enforce said AUP much unless it puts a strain on their network).

Re:How much do you download?

[Thugthrasher]

Lower class DOES have a meaning, fairly equivalent to working class, depending on which exact definition you use (there are some variations). I GUESS lower class could imply that they are 'lesser people,' but what it REALLY means is 'of lesser FINANCIAL worth than the middle class and upper class.' And the reason that MANY people (myself included, and I have spent many of my recent years floating around the property line) don't like to use working class as an equivalent is that it implies that all of those in that class work (which isn't true) and it implies that all of those in other classes (middle and upper...which I REALLY want to know what you call those because if lower is negative, upper is just as negative because it implies those other classes are lesser people in the same way) DON'T work, which isn't true.

Wirless and/or Mobile BB

[ghostpirate_jay]

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.

For "typical" use only

[Lifyre]

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.

Don't

[johnjaydk]

No. It's not a good idea.

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.

Re:Don't

[teh kurisu]

The speed also depends (at lest with GPRS over UMTS and EDGE/GSM) on the number of active users on a particular cell.

To be fair, this also applies to ADSL connections. Most residential ADSL users (in the UK at least) are subject to a 50:1 contention ratio.

Re:Don't

[Plunky]

First of all the announced throughput is a best case figure. You'll never see it in actual use.

Another thing to consider is that I have found that my supplier (T-Mobile in UK, using GPRS) has an intercepting proxy server; they strip out 'unnecessary' parts of HTML pages, and re-compress any JPEG images at the highest most lossy (eg 50k->10k) setting in order to make it seem faster which also loses EXIF data.

I don't know if this is only for GPRS or if it affects their 'broadband' services also but it seems to be limited to port 80 so its not too difficult to get around with a proxy but it can be annoying..

Re:Don't

[chill]

The grandparent is picking nits.

While it is true the DSL is a switched technology and not shared like cable, that only applies to the wire from your house to the DSLAM. At that point it aggregates and the ATM uplink is most certainly oversubscribed.

DSL oversubscription is just one hop up the line, as opposed to cable, where it is oversubscribed from end to end. Not much difference, really.

Re:Don't

[TheRaven64]

I am thinking of moving to 3. I thought about this too. Then I phoned their sales team to get them to clarify what they meant by 'Internet' in their adverts. Apparently it means 'port 80, filtered.' The only thing to do seems to be complain to OFCOM.

Re:Don't

[seanadams.com]

DSL oversubscription is just one hop up the line, as opposed to cable, where it is oversubscribed from end to end. Not much difference, really.

Actually there is one very important difference: with cable, each customer is connected _directly_ to the shared medium, so it is possible for a single user to saturate it (this is GOOD as long as the protocols allows the link to be shared fairly). With DSL this is not possible because the uplink from the DSLAM (100+Mbps) is much faster than an individual line to a subscriber (2-6Mbps). It would take many subscribers all downloading at the same time to saturate that link, and it might never happen if the link is faster than the peak actual usage of the sum of all subscribers.

I'd still take cable over DSL because even though I am contending directly for bandwidth with other users, my speed would still much faster 99% of the time. Less deterministic maybe, but who cares as long as it's faster? Unfortunately neither is available to me, but I have a long-range 802.11 link which works OK.

As a side note, people seem to be really confused about what it means to be "oversubscribed". It doesn't mean "there isnt enough bandwidth for everybody". It means that there is some ratio > 1 of total last-mile bandwidth to total uplink bandwidth. Just as the main breaker in your house might have a 100A main breaker, but if you add up all the individual breakers you might have 300A or more. There's nothing wrong with it and you will always have enough power provided that the main breaker is larger than the _peak_ load. Really it's meaningless to complain about oversubscription per se - that is the right thing to do and will happen no matter what. The issue is just how much bandwidth is available to a given user at a given time and there is no "right" answer for what an oversubscription ratio should be. Depends on the type of network, the needs of the users, budget etc. It's not a right/wrong question.

Depends.

[palegray.net]

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.

My experience...

[red star hardkore]

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.

Re:My experience...

[red star hardkore]

Also, meant to say about the software trouble. I don't know what modem your provider would supply, but here in Ireland (and the UK as far as I know) all the providers use the Huawei modem. The Windows software/drivers is incredibly buggy. After a few weeks it needs to be uninstalled, reinstalled, during the reinstallation it crashes or can't find the drivers on the integrated flash memory and needs to be tried many times before success. I've tried this on a clean XP reinstall also.

I've heard that with a little manual configuration, it runs a lot better on linux. I'll be putting that to the test when my eeePC arrives. :)

Signal may be poor indoors

[wazepp]

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.

Traffic

[Raphael Emportu]

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 ATT but...

[deadmongrel]

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.

Data Limit, Reliability.

[splutty]

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??

Re:Data Limit, Reliability.

[kent_eh]

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 :)
Here in Canada I would agree, keep the fixed system for at home.
My cable internet costs about $60/month flat rate. Although they (like most it seems) have mysterious limits to their "unlimited" service, I've never hit it.
The only HSDPA service here is Rogers/Fido (although for some reason they call it HSPA). The least expensive package I can find from them (using a PCMCIA modem) is $65/month max 1Gig/month (2gig $75, 3gig $85, 5Gig $100, $.03/Mb above that).
I have tried it out, and it feels speedy enough to use for general surfing. Didn't try sustained download speed tests, though.
The sales guy says they are upgrading speeds later this year "double what it currently is" he said. I assume that means they are moving to 7.2Mb

Bandwidth caps...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Depends...

[retro128]

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.

Nope.

[darthflo]

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.

Verizon's EVDO

[goatbar]

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

Wireless cards Vs wired

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Decent article on performance

[FingerSoup]

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.

Keep the landline

[wikinerd]

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.

I get the purple light

[littleghoti]

It still isn't that fast. You are much better off with a decent wired broadband and wireless router.

Share the connection!

[dsmaher]

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.

What about the toaster?

[sunking2]

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.

Re:Keep The In-Home Wireless....

[Rakeris]

Many people seem to be under the impression you have to have a special router to share an EVDO connection. This is NOT the case!! All you need is a normal router/wireless router. All you do is connect the router to your PC like normal, tell you PC to share the connection to the routers default IP, and it will share the connection just fine. Mine works with my Wii and my wireless laptop great.