Wireless Internet Providers??
 

Anyone do the research on wireless internet providers as in cost connection speeds, length of contract, service areas, etc? Looking to get it but not able to get a lot of info off the net about the services

I use Sprint. My cost is $49.99 per month (with my cell phone plan). The contract is 2 years. I have service pretty much any place I have cell phone service. It's almost always high speed when close to a large city. Otherwise it's about 3x faster than dial-up.

It's perfect for a job like this.

i use sprint also no complaints here fast to

I use Sprint also, no complaints.

Here's a site that also has information on internet connections
http://www.dslreports.com/overview?v=r&typ=wireless

I have verizon and I pay 59.00 unlimited. I have only found one place where I couldnt use it.

Then again it was Pennington Alabama and its not known for being the tech hub of the South.

another heavily discussed topic. You'll find tons of info using the search.

Cingular $59 a month unlimited. Service just about everywhere.

I looked into verizon before getting Sprint and verizon had a bandwidth limit and monster charges if you went to over the limit, did they change that?

I really wanted to go with verizon because they had the new cards for the new laptops but that charge made me decide to go with sprint.

How fast is Cingular's wireless internet?

Sprint, Verizon, and Alltel all use EvDO for broadband. That is the same medium for transmitting streaming video like "Get it Now" to your cell phone. You should expect 1MB to 3MB in the big cities. If yo do not get a broadband connection then the card will fall back to using CDMA *the same protocl that moves your digital voice over the cell phone network)and that produces 784KB (high DSL speed) to 384KB at the lowest.

Cingular uses a different system called EDGE that only gets 168K to 384K. They recently installed HSDPA (high speed download packet access), averaging throughput rates of 384K bps to 700K bps, with bursts of up to a megabit per second in some big cities.

Sprint and Verizon have higher throughputs .. but also a higher price tag.

BTW) Verizon has a limit on use. If you connect a streaming video device like Slingbox up .. you might get cutoff ..

I use Verizon.

Varies. Within a 3g network, my card has (have proof via different online speed tests) hit 1.5+ Mbps (1.5 megabyte per second)

Out side a 3g area the card will generally run on the edge network, full service in this area I'll get 2-3 times faster then dial up. 100-140 kbps.

Just did a another test via testmy.net, here's my results.

You can use the validation link to "VERIFY" my results
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 1275 Kbps about 1.3 Mbps (tested with 1496 kB)
Download Speed is:: 156 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Server 2)
Test Time:: 2007/05/02 - 8:55am
Bottom Line:: 22X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 6.56 sec
Tested from a 1496 kB file and took 9.609 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 142.4 % faster than the average for host (mycingular.net)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-H3FQ9WCJ4
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3 [!]

Nope that would be MegaBit not MegaByte (8 bits to a Byte)

I could see 1.5 Mbps tops on HSDPA network.

However .. it is more than just finding a 3G (GSM) cell .. that cell has to support HSDPA. I would assume that Cingular is expanding its presence everday in lager cities but not every cell in even the largest cities are both GSM/HSDPA capable. Even then .. there are deadspots even in large cities.

The good news is that if you are headed to Europe .. GSM /HSDPA is the standard... the bad news is the coverage here in the US

Why Verizon and Sprint are better is that CDMA supports data packet transfer as well as digital voice at higher speeds. So you get faster service even in many remote areas and the Braodband technology is even faster (3Mps vs 1 - 1.5)