Wireless Air Cards Verizon or Sprint

I have a Dell with the built in AT&T air card and have been really happy with it. Seems to work everywhere with highspeed connections. It even works at home where I have no cell phone service.

 

When we had a Verizon Air Card, here's a couple months example of the fees we were charged:

 

rdman ~ sound like unlimited is really the only way to go and know for sure what your monthly charges are. The mapping function is cool. I've driven that Flag - Alb route a lot and am not surprised at the low speeds. There's not much out there but a big ol' crater.

myyminpins ~ thanks for the examples. Doesn't look like the fees are nearly as scary as their boilerplate makes it look. It's always better to find out beforehand, though, cuz I am mightily opposed to financial surprises!

Last night, I went to the Millenicom website that was referred to by CMoore2004 on another broadband thread here. They are a reseller for the Sprint broadband. They have no monthly contract and no taxes! It's a straight $49.99/month plus a one-time shipping & setup fee of $53.30 You don't pay for the Franklin CDU-680, (a CDMA EVDO REV A 800/1900MHz DUAL BAND USB MODEM which seems to be getting positive reviews) that they send you. If you don't like the service, you can cancel at any time and return the modem to them. That seems to be it.

They are located in Portland, Ore just across the river from me and I chatted with a tech guy last night. I also looked for reviews other comments on the net, and they're all positive. I think I'll give them a try. (Thanks for the lead, CMoore! )

HG 8)

 

I hate disagreeing with anyone, but as a professional computer geek these last 15 years, I feel I must step up and set this all straight. Nothing personal intended, rdman.

bits are represented with "little b"
Bytes are represented with "big B"

1 Byte = 8 bits
1 KB = 1024 Bytes = 8192 bits
1 MB = 1024 kBytes = 8388608 bits
1 GB = 1024 mBytes = 8589934592 bits.

40 MB = 41,943,040 Bytes.

Transfer speeds are typically recorded in the KB/MB per second range, and connection speeds are typically recorded in the kilobit or megabit per second range. These are identified by KB/sec, MB/sec, kbps, or mbps respectively.

In order to transfer 1 KB per second, you must have at least an 8kbps connection.
In order to transfer 1 MB per second, you must have at least an 8mbps connection.
In order to transfer 1 GB per second, you must have at least an 8gbps connection.

I say "at least" because there is protocol overhead not counted here. Truly, in order to transfer 1 MB/sec, you must have at least 10mbps connection speed to handle the additional overhead.

My Sprint wireless card averages about 512 kbps which is approximately equivalent to 64 KB/sec. It is typically MUCH faster than dialup (which is UP TO 56 kbps or so, depending on connection quality and data composition) but much SLOWER than cable or dsl or the like. For those who still measure speeds in archaic telco terms, a 512 kbps connection is the same as an 8-channel Fractional-T1, or roughly 1/3 of T1 speed. Still not too shabby, but outdated as far as "broadband" goes these days. My cable modem at home is roughly equivalent to 4 T1's speed.

My only gripes about my Sprint service are that A) The coverage area is substandard where I live (in Dallas- I either have no connectivity or limited throughput) and B) cost - it costs as much as quality cable modem, with much less speed. (My cable modem service is 6mbps) Even still, I have to have connectivity anywhere I go... and unfortunately, Sprint does not fit that bill. I can go out to the hill country back home, and I will not even have basic telephone service, yet everyone with Cingular/AT&T has full bars and full data service.

I would not buy anything from Verizon. I don't really care for the company, and I can't really express why. I had bad experiences with GTE, so I guess that reputation followed the name change.

On the other hand, I would suggest anyone check out Cingular/AT&T for their 3G/EVDO broadband access, they have MUCH better coverage than Sprint and the price is a little less, too. The one thing that worries me there is that it says I can move 5000 MB per month, and anything in excess of that is $0.00/mo. Which makes me wonder... why not just say "unlimited"?

Hmm...

 

Verizon says their service is unlimited but they shut my account off for over usage...it did work pretty well everywhere i went...I have sprint now which works well too but it seems like Verizon was faster. Make sure you dont use it in Canada.

 

For the bazillionth time, when I got my air card from Verizon last summer, they EMPHATICALLY made sure I knew it was 5 GB a month and that was it. It's in the contract. If you look for it, you will find it. They didn't try to hide it from me but who knows what other agents would do?

If you need truly unlimited, go with Sprint

 

Yes, because in my experience the only limitation with Sprint isn't the amount of data transferred, but when and where you can transfer that data.


If I take the laptop to the kitchen table, for example... I will be lucky to remain connected. This has been my experience with Sprint over the last several years, in fact. At least voice calls don't sound like you're underwater (as much) anymore.