Wireless Broadband
 

I have a few :?: about wireless internet on the road :?

Who do you use?
How much does it cost?
Other than a laptop, what else do you need to make it work?
Do providers do a credit check?
Do they require a contract?

Many thanks! :lol:

I have Verizon and get around 1.2mbs.
Costs me $79.95 per month
You don't need anything else other than a laptop. Just make sure you get the right card for your slot. It can either a PCMCIA or Express slot.
I'm sure they do a credit check.
They require a 1 year commitment or it's a $200 termination fee or something like that.

I use the verizon for my phone and the internet. Unlimited everything. I signed a one year contract for $59 a month. As long as I get a signal on my phone, I can get online with my computer.

Another variation on this question is, how many truck stops and rest stops out there have free wi-fi? I saw a bunch of rest stops in Iowa on a road trip that had signs saying they had wi-fi. Just wondering how prevalent this is becoming?

Most truck stops charge for WiFi access. Each of the major chains seem to have their own. I don't know all the states who have free WiFi access in their rest areas. I believe Texas is one, however. At least they were supposed to make it available in their rest areas.

I think your on the lesser plan and not the Broadband. Broadband is $79 and National Access is $59 and your speed is like 150kb instead of in the MB range.

He may also have a package deal. Sometimes if you have an expensive enough phone plan you can get a deal on the internet access.

Actually I get both broadband and National access, depending on where I am in the country. I can't pickup broadband everywhere.

Thanks for you answers

Does anyone use Sprint?

I had the same thing with my first card and they made a mistake. When I was at home I was on National. When I went to work near Boston I had broadband. I sent the card back and got the $79 deal and now I'm on Broadband everywhere. If I'm in a remote region it reverts to National.

I've got Sprint for both the cell phone and wireless. I haven't had any problems with it. In fact, the card picks up better than the cell phone. I ran across I-77 in WV a couple of days ago, and in the 'low' section between Beckley & Charleston, I had no cell phone signal, but I was downloading at about 15k/sec.

I have EVDO signals (120-200k/sec) in every major city I've been in. When not on EVDO, it averages 15-20k/sec.

I pay $59.99 for the unlimited plan (and Sprint is truly unlimited).

with broadband and laptop than download skpye get rid of the cell.

Do you also have to have phone service with them to get that price?

I am sending this on the verizon broadband, I am in the middle of nowhere and I have phone service I get internet.... I only pay 59.95 per month and its because I got 5 phones on a family plan, I can send text messages to any phone from my laptop which is also included with verizon....I cacn recieve text messages on my laptop as well, I heard good and bad about sprint card so I decided to get verizon since we have a family plan with them, in a major city its fast enough I download videos, I can watch news casts with no lag at all, its the best thing unless your in the middle of texas where there is no cell towers but I bet sprint wont work there either...

In the middle of Texas? Some houses and business even have indoor plumbing! Just last week we upgraded our phone system from the tin can and string system to the crank telephone system. The Metro Austin has a population of well over a million and growing. :D

As I type This I am literaly in the middle of Texas BFT as some people call it. Verizon Broadband aircard is much faster than the local dial up. I also drive all over Central Texas. My job requires me to use my laptop for data entry the only time it wont work is in a good ole Texas thunder storm.

How 'bout Cingular service? Anyone use that?

I have four cells on Cingular, do email and text from mine. It's worked nicely for me most everywhere.

Lately I've considered a Cingular card for my notebook. The cost is about 50 per month and the speed is suppose to be pretty good in most metro areas, okay in other areas where there is phone service. The card cost is 200.

An alternative is through Sirrcomm, which supports the wifi connects at petro, pilot, love, and some others. It's cheaper and uses existing wifi built into the notebook. Limitations are having to be in range of the truck stop.

There are free wifi at many places, but they're not secure at all--and not always where you can park easily in a truck unless you drop your trailer.

All the best, Tee

I need a little clarification, here . .
 

. . there is another thread on this subject around here, somewhere. The user/poster got a termination letter from his carrier/provider, I believe it was Verizon, because he was exceeding his bandwidth allowance.

When I'm at a Flying J or T/A, I can IM, webcam, watch news, listen to audio, up and download movies, etc. with no problem. Can you do the same with the phone services? The above referenced poster found out the hard way that he could not.

Allow me to take a swipe at Sirricom, while I'm at it . . Flying J is generally excellent, T/A is generally very good and Sirricom (Pilot, Loves, Petro and A M Best) absolutely sucks. Even with a decent signal and high (supposedly) transfer rate it is ridiculously slow, predictably unreliable and more expensive than the other two . . as bad as dial up, if not worse. Use it at your own risk and only as a last resort.

I'm curious about them too. I have my cell though Cingular and have been looking at there PC Cards. My only problem is that their best plan offers 50mb a month. And I'm not sure how good or bad that is. Mos of the others offer unlimited at the same price per month.

Downsouthdriver, you don't want any air card that has a limitation on the number of mb you can use. I was originally assured that the usage would primarily apply if I did downloads from the Internet. I found out when I received a bill that was not true. I received several bills and one was around $1,400, if memory serves. I have tried to block it from memory. I switched to the unlimited plan and haven't had any problems. The problem with the limited usage air cards is that you have no control as to how many mb you use. I can connect to the Internet and not do anything and watch my meter click the bytes. After seeing that for the first time, I realized that it made little difference whether I was active on the Internet or not, if I was connected, I was spending money. I spend about $64/month including taxes with Sprint.

Sprint has given me no problems whatsoever with bandwidth usage. In the past 2 months I've downloaded over 15gigs worth of data.

I haven't had a problem with them either, since I switched from the limited plan to the unlimited. It seems to work about as well as the cell phone.

cingular has an unlimited plan for 59.99 with 39.99 phone plan and up

If their site would stay up long enough I would go back and double check. But the last time I looked (about a few hours ago) they had three limited plans from 10-50mb. The 50 mb one being 70 or 80 bucks.

GMAN-Thanks for the insight. That was exactly what I was afraid of when I posted. Sprint or T-Mobile seem to be the best looking so far.

I have been using TMobile for years. I do not know how it compares to any one else's plan. Does any of this mean anything?

"Information
GPRS/EDGE and Wi-Fi enabled*
Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g (Wi-Fi)*
Powered via PC Card slot
Supports MNP5, V.42 bis, TCP/IP compressio"

It doesn't tell me the speed. It isn't as fast as Broadband, maybe like dial up. It has been a while since I have used dial up so I don't remember. It seem to work everywhere that I go.

Hey moderators, owners and managers ..
 

. . it appears this thread has real meaning and is a value to your constituents. Can you come up with a way to provide an objective analysis of these services?

Yah, yah, yah . . sell them advertising . . .but can we keep it honest?

Thanks for the link. When I checked before they didn't list that and I thought it odd they wouldn't have a unlimted plan. But Cingular isn't always at the front of the pack so it didn't surprise me. But if that deal sticks arond then that's who I'll go with.

Well, I finally found a location that I didn't have a wireless connection for the internet. I was in Walnut Ridge, AR this morning (just off of US 67, about 120mi north of Little Rock). When I left, I went about 2 miles down the road and heard the familiar 'ding' which meant it found a connection.

I use verizon also, but i pay 59.99 unlimited nationwide. Verizon is the best in coverage area you get service naywhere a cel phone does, and for credit check, if you're able to get a cell phone then your good to go. Also on some computers you tcpip settings might slow you down but all you have to do is download tcpoptimizer and set it to optimal and it'll automatically tweak your registry for optimal performance...

Re: Verizon Intenet--for Uglymutt
 

Yeah, we had that service for about a month and a half before Verizon cancelled the contract on us! They said we had unusual usage (over 40GB). They say they don't allow video downloading or streaming of video or music. So much for seeing my hubby on the webcam :cry:

Go to Sprint - no limits at all. In fact, they advertise their service to be used with webcams, streaming audio, etc.

I will as soon as Verizon catches me,but I will not go without giving them a little piece of my mind

It is such BS that Unlimited is not Unlimited at all... found that out the hard way with Cingular... I'm still with them, and i'll keep them for service, but i'll go get my Internet from Sprint... :)

I download that much porn just sittin at the truckstop in one night and it takes you 2 months, I like verizon better..

ohhh did I say porn I meant family videos yeah disney stuff.... and we all know what 15 gigs of DATA means huh......