Internet on the road

Welcome to the forums Joe!

I personally have cell service with Verizon, when I decided to go on the road I went with their National Broadband service. Basicly it is a USB, or PC-Card cell phone that you plug into your computer when you want to access the Internet.

Everywhere I have been is has worked really well, except in places where my cell phone service has been spotty, but that is VERY rare.

The service runs about $60 a month and you can do anything you want while online, they do not restrict you at all contrary to other posts on this subject. The only thing they do is limit your monthly bandwidth to 5gb per month. And frankly that is a ton. I used mine almost non-stop last month, including watching streaming video and using my webcam to talk to my wife and kids while on the road and didn't even break 3gb for the month.

Thing to do is to do your research and find what service works the best for you. Every cell provider has a service like it of somekind.

 

60$ a month???
It´s 15$ over here with equal service, Darn
And diesel is 2.6$/gln here...

 

verizon usb 720 modem, is the way to go. yes its 60.00$ a month. but its worth it to me. everyones different tho.

 

Just last week I finally shut down my DSL service and went with the Verizon v740 EVDO Rev A ExpressCard modem. I am getting comparable speeds to my DSL service but I have noticed that Verizon throttles the connection (meaning if you start to download a large file it will start off fast, then it will slow down after a few minutes). I would not want to try online gaming with it (ie TFC/CS) but for email, web surfing, and maybe webcam video chat it should be fine. I still need to try netflix video streaming on it but overall I'm impressed with Verizon's service. I could have gotten the USB variety of modem but then I'd have a dongle like device hanging off one of my USB ports (bleh easy for me to damage modem or USB port) so I opted for the express card instead.

A tip if you do decide to go with one of these cards: If you buy the card/service from Verizon website/kiosk/store they want to charge you $50.00 for the cheaper USB modems and ~$150.00-$200.00 for the v740 that I got (varies based on promotions etc). To get the Verizon service you'll also have to pay a $35.00 activation fee and the $60.00/mo on a 2 year contract. Now here's the TIP: If you order the modem via amazon website you can get the same deal but the modem itself will cost you one cent (you still have the activation and monthly service fee's though). There is no difference in the hardware, its a new modem just like the one you'd get from Verizon at a fraction of the cost. If you do order one of these modems I'd suggest getting the latest versions (previous poster suggested the older v720 and I'd suggest the new v740 instead).

If you have any questions feel free to give me a shout.

Cheers,

-Reby

 

im just saying about the usb 720 its what i had and it worked believe it or not in the middle of montana. i even play an online game and it worked with that also. but i dropped it and went with wild blue dsl at home. i had better gaming with the 720. now im going to get the 720 hooked up again for on the road.

 

Didn't Verizon have an unwritten rule of like 5Gb max download per month. I remember last year it was big in the news, hope they changed their policy.

If you read the TOS, on most wireless plans, they only want you to use it for email and web surfing. It is not meant to replace your home DLS or cable.

Mark

 

well i used it for gaming for about 4 months. june,july,august.and september. i never had any issues with verizon over it. 5 gb is alot also.

 

I use mine to play both WoW and LOTRO and have had no problems with it at all.

As I said, yes they limit you to 5gb throughput put month, and I barely used half of it last month and I rarely ever had it turned off.

In regards to throttling the connection I haven't experienced that, I even downloaded a movie and had no problems with the speed.

 

i used mine sitting at home. i play final fantasy 11 online. i played it all the time, never once did i have trouble with verizon for using to much. being in the truck you wont use that much bandwidth, unless your sitting at your terminal for a month. for me its the perfect way to go.