Internet access-who are you using

5-10 gb limit is a freaking joke! Yes you can do Skype but only for a little while! Go to your providers site and look up what you can do with 5 or 10 gb! They have a chart of what takes or used what in the amount of time or GB they use. You'd be surprised what a you tube and movie will do to that oversized 10gb limit!

I was lucky and had unlimited Sprint which was good almost everywhere I went except the NW! All those mountains pretty much killed a good coverage area.

As Zippy posted and I have in the other threads on this subject WIFI is NOT very secure! It can be hijacked and all that firewall and anti-virus and anti malware you have will not protect you!
Also WIFI if free you have to be able to get to it. To pay for it you still have to go to where the WIFI is! This will cost you more than that stupid price you pay for both free and paid! You have your TIME if you need it right now, the out of route to get to that truck stop you might have paid for the WIFI and hopefully you'll be able to find a parking spot and a spot that has a good line of sight to the antenna and the speeds that make old AOL dialup look like a DSL line! Then the price of an hour! Yeah that's a real deal!

Pay the price for a broadband card. If you researched the provider and when you looked at the maps you zoomed in on them so that all those pretty orange or green or whatever color their coverage areas are, when zoomed in you see exactly where they are as in some areas they have a few towers but those hills, buildings, and mountains do block areas out and those zoomed into maps show this! Only get the service that will cover the area where your company lanes are!
Look at what the REAL cost is from cheap and free WIFI hot spots to having instant access where you are and when you need it and not having to open your truck stop guide to find the nearest truck stop where you dropped stupid money for iffy service (yeah it's been known to be off line so that 75 miles you drove to get on line is coming out of someones pocket in several ways!

If you were like me the unlimited service was well worth the cost! I used my computer for all my entertainment! From TV to games and it's so much better to be able to get on line while sitting for hours while waiting in line to unload to waiting for a load! Heck my dispatcher would hit me up with an Email on line over the Quailcomm as he knew which got faster service and which I could actually write enough of a reply over some 300-500 character QC message!

Now, you'll pay for unlimited due to all these not so smart phones and children playing and wasting bandwidth but the thering is ok just be sure you have your security set high and have a spare battery for the phone as they will go bad faster due to the harder use! I'm just wondering when the phone manufactures will come out with a stand alone battery charger for their stuff! More money and you'll never have a dead battery for longer than it takes to change it!

 

Major truckstops (i.e Pilot, Loves, Flying J, T.A)do not provide free wi-fi. The charges at all are usually or close to
$1.99 hr
$4.99 24hrs
$19.99 Month
$149.99 Year

That being said
I get mine thru Pilot Truckstop (Wandering Wi-Fi) for $150.00 per year, breaks down to $12.50 a month. That's where I usually park at night due to my shower credits being there. It's not the best, but it's cheap and serves all the purpose I need it for. I'm not downloading TV shows or movies so it's quick enough for me.

 

Save yourself many problems.

Do not even consider ATT for internet. I had it. It was because where I had the phone at the time.

I left within a few months because of no service, lack of service and bad internet.


Went to Verizon. Now have my phone service back there as well. I had their internet for about 2 years before I switched the phone.

 

I agree with RM, I have an AT&T aircard and although it does get a signal almost anywhere in the country, it's weak at best...I will be switching to Verizon ASAP...

 

Most truck stops have wifi, but you have to pay for it, and its kind of expensive. Some Sap Bro's have free wifi, but very few Sap Bro's truck stops, and not all do. Most McDonalds provide free wifi but not often you can park close to one. Most business like coffee shops ets that offer free wifi you will never be able to park your truck close enough to use. Much better to get an air card from a big company. I use sprint and it works, its cheap but it also sucks. Not good coverage, most of the time I have a week signal, a lot of dead areas where I have no signal. The only reason I use it, is becouse I got my plan threw there shop in CRE headquarters in Salt Lake City. They give I think its 20% discount if you work for CRE. For me that makes it the cheapest air card on the market. But it still really really stinks becouse of bad or no sighal. I really do need to switch.

An air card is invaluable. Internet is great for entertainment, communication with friends and family, job like finding shippers recievers, weather ets... the list is endless. It is a huge bargen for the price, I think every trucker should have a good laptop and aircard.

 

I have a droid eris through verizon. I loaded the "pdanet" app and it tethered the phone super easy. I have unlimited data package on the phone.

I called verizon to add broadband tethering to my account, just the $20 a month dealy. But they said it is not supported on my "old" phone. So they won't let me give them any money for what I am doing... DANG!

Mikeeee

 

Does anyone use Virgin or Sprint air cards. I have Nextel for cell and will go without a phone before I go back to Verizon, they screwed me over good about 12 years ago. Just wondering if Sprint or Virgin work well.