Cost effective/secure WiFi options

First. Please search next time, this topic has been brought up a lot.

Now. As for myself. I use Verizon's mifi service. 3g most places with a rare 4g at times. I pay $55 a month for 5gb limit + insurance on the device.

It's perfect for surfing the web and so on. Just don't spend time watching youtube/hulu/netflix and so on as it'll eat the 5gb limit up fast.

They don't do a credit check but you do have to commit to a 2 year plan or it's real expensive to back out.

 

Who's your cell through? I'm with Verizon and have a Droid. Unlimited data on the phone, tether it to my laptop..internet!

 

Sprint has unlimited data now for their smartphones. You can use pdanet to tether your phone to your laptop. New verizon data plans are no longer unlimited. 3 gb is some like 30 bucks and it just goes up from there. I tether my verizon smartphone to my laptop for school...it work great. Hope this helps!

 

I use Verizon too, and am quite happy with it. They definitely did a credit check though on me. I didn't have to pay a deposit as mine was fine but you will have to pay a deposit if your credit isn't the greatest. The guy even told me my credit score so it was ran.

 

Virgin Mobile also offers a mifi service like Verizon's. Not too crazy about the rates, though: even though it's $50/month unlimited, they start throttling your bandwidth after about 2.5 gigabytes. The upside is that it's a no-contract deal, and is probably pretty sufficient if you're not a real heavy user (Netflix, Bittorrent, stuff like that). The only reason I got it is because we have the option of in-cab Transflo scanning for our paperwork, but it doesn't make sense to use that convenience if you don't have your own internet access.

 

Another thing to think about is coverage area. Speeds are really throttled back when you are operating out of the coverage area associated with your plan. Some places it will slow to a crawl.

Verizon in my opinion is number one in coverage, ATT being 2nd.

I have both, Verizon with my MiFi, and ATT with my iPad.

Im not giving up the ATT as I got grandfathered with unlimited data plan when the iPad came out, and long before they offered it an ipad with Verizon.

If you have an Iphone you can use it as a wifi hotspot, activating it changed my data plan for the worse and added an additional charge to the account. After a month I realized that it was actually slower than my MiFi and I had it turned off.

 

I don't understand why internet costs so much for decent service. IMO internet is a necessity lol, and so many people have it so why charge outrageous prices for it?