Wireless Internet - Better Than WiFi

We have a wireless broadband card for our laptop. With it we have fast internet almost everywhere we go. In a few areas our connection has been slow, but with more and more antennas going up all over, we expect that to improve. If we are near a city, we have a good connection. Grants, NM, and Chattahoochie, FL were slow. Too slow to send or receive photos, and maybe too slow to pay bills or do on-line banking.... but it worked okay for text e-mails.... and we were able to look up some information (slowly). The only place we couldn't get a signal at all was Vista, CA. Maybe it had something to do with the mountains. It wasn't a problem for us, since we weren't camping there - we were camping on top of a hill in Escondido, and reception was great.

The only thing we missed was our printer. We would have liked to print out a couple maps, but Tater had to draw them by hand. Next trip, we'll have a printer on board.

We're very happy with our wireless, and use it exclusively both at home and in the 'Cat. Our daughter and son-in-law had dial-up, and were so impressed with the speed of our wireless, they got wireless for their PC.

We definitely recommend wireless broadband for anybody who travels a lot and wants to keep in touch. Ours is billed right along with our celphone, and is reasonably priced.

I know there are numerous suppliers, which one do you have?

And , look at this:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3380&review=Sprint+Wireless+Linskys+Router

We have Verizon, and are very happy with it. We had AT&T until May 2007, and it seemed to have a lot of dead areas when we traveled. Jim's work celphone was Nextel, and it, too, had dead areas. That was a good excuse to use when people tried to reach him when we were on vacations. We decided to go with Verizon when we moved back down to Texas last year - partly because our son has Verizon. It was a good choice.

Interesting about the router. Don't really need it here.... at this time.

I have Verizon, may have to get one of those broad band cards.

Here is a link for a battery operated wireless router. You can create a 'hotspot' wherever you go.

http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=index

verizon now own alltel. i have had alltel cell service since they've come onto the sene. last year i bought the broadband card and haven't regretted it since. have had no dead spots from MI to SC.
cost : $61 per mo.

I've been with AT/T and have had good service where ever I go so far.... The only place I've found a dead spot is where I work at. I have to get up on a hill to get service....


I just need to get a Iphone now so I can Dump my Laptop....
Iphone's you can use Wifi where available or use the cell service...

Our wireless card has a little port where we can attach an antenna. I think that would probably improve the reception in the boonies, and maybe eliminate the dead zone at our son's house in California.

Tater,

We looked at the Verizon air card, it was $59/month for 5 Gig of data. That didn't sound like much for a whole month. You said you use it at home too? Do you find that you come close to using all the 5Gig in a month?

I leave the PC on most of the day, then at night, DW has her laptop on for a few hours also. I'd be afraid we'd go over the 5Gig limit.

Here is a link to Escapees.com and the posts are all about air cards:

http://www.rvnetwork.com/index.php?s=3f0102e722bf0c834c088cf3815d388e&showforum=33

Lots of info about Wilson antennas for air cards and cell phones.

We have unlimited use on our wireless. It's $69.03 per month. We leave the laptop on all day, but the wireless is only on while we are using it.

I went to Verizon website and they only offer 1 meg or 5 gig, no mention of unlimited.....

I would be tempted if it i could find unlimited.

i have alltel and i have unlimited usage. my laptop is online 24 hrs a day. once in a while it bumps offline, but it's no big deal. $61

Tom,
You might have to call and ask about unlimited. My son-in-law called, and at first they offered the 5gig, then he mentioned that we have unlimited service, and they quoted him a price for unlimited. The Alltel sounds like a good price. I think one service is about as good as the next. We're happy with Verizon, so far.

Tater

We also have the Verizon Broadband Modem. I love the idea of riding down the highway and doing email or searching the internet. We have had it for a year now and have never had any problems. I use it as my main connection at home (we are w.a.y out in the country, no DSL here). Mine cost me $59.oo a month.

I have a Motorola Q9h Smartphone, I just hook up my phone to the laptop via USB or bluetooth (slightly slower). They have it advertised as unlimited internet access, but I'm told they start to monitor your use after you reach the 5GB/month soft limit.

I get around 800-1000kbps down/500kps up in most areas using the AT&T 3G network. I only use it when we are away from home or work. I have 10Mbps/1Mbps at home on the cable modem.

I have 10Mbps/1Mbps at home on the cable modem.

I can't understand why the " Broadband over Powerline " didn't take off.... Some business use it. and its available in some large cities as a test run,,, but hasn't caught on or is being held back for some other reason....
Its 10Mbps/10Mbps Up and down,,,, Thats FAST.....

I did see where DirectTV is offering it as a bundle in Dallas,TX.
I'd love to have it myself.... http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=83F85F5B-C9CE-40F5-8B09-5F9F095BB7B0

Cool, that would be nice to have!!

Phillip,

The company I work for supports AT&T in their rollout/operation of a triple play service (video, high speed internet & phone) called U-Verse. Some of the video services U-Verse has in darn near revolutionary plus it provides very high speed internet. I know AT&T SE (formerly known as BellSouth) is starting to roll it out in their region. Keep an ear out and let me know if you have any questions.

I saw at/t's add for that in larger citys,,,, hasn't got here yet, but I liked what I saw.

I saw that Tesla's wireless transmission of electricity is here also. Very interesting read here if your into that kinda stuff...

http://tech.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=17337626&gt1=40000

Thats one guy I wish that could have lived a little longer......

oldelmer1 wrote:I went to Verizon website and they only offer 1 meg or 5 gig, no mention of unlimited.....

I would be tempted if it i could find unlimited.

I'd like to see you use up 5 gig of bandwidth in a month. Unless you are transferring huge files like movies, this is way more than enough for web surfing and e-mail on the road.

5 gig is 5,000 photos at 1MB per photo.

mattebury wrote:

I'd like to see you use up 5 gig of bandwidth in a month. Unless you are transferring huge files like movies, this is way more than enough for web surfing and e-mail on the road.

5 gig is 5,000 photos at 1MB per photo.

I agree. But . . . if you got it, you may want to really use it.

I use it extensively traveling to campgrounds. I'll design a special web page prior to a trip which will include links to every traffic camera along the route, constant monitoring of the highway speed sensors, alerts, and general links to the destination campground, poi's etc.

Anyway, I was at the Verizon store recently, purchasing phones 'n stuff for my wife & daughter. I was thinking of downgrading myself to the 5gb data plan. Since I don't use it too often, I rarely check my mb usage online. I remembered that I took two trips last October so I asked the salesman to check my mb usage for that time period. He told me I was pretty close to 5gb with only two (albeit heavy usage) days.

Well, no downgrade for me, but I will monitor data usage myself from now on in case the salesman was snowing me.

I have Verizon's unlimited broadband access plan through my work, $59.00 per month (about $67.00 after taxes & fees).

With Verizon's EVDO network, the speeds are more than reasonable, but they don't compare to the WiFi at many campgrounds in my opinion. Still, it works a treat if the campground has no WiFi. I can browse pretty painlessly, VPN to my office, Remote Desktop to my home computer.

One time I even connected to the Slingbox at my house to watch a game on ESPN when the campground did not have cable TV. (Although that would surely kill your data quotas)

If there is no EVDO service in the area, Verizon's older 1x data network still works fine for email & light web browsing.

YMMV

Chris

I have the verizon modem. It works great. I have found that it does not work well while moving (wife driving of course); have to be stationary for it to work well. It seems to work anywhere that I have Verizon cell coverage.

I was not aware of a bandwidth limit, but I'm sure there is one. This is a radio network with limited capacity. If there were no limits, people would be constantly downloading videos, music etc and slowing the whole network down. Ever been on a hotel wireless when it was running dirt slow? That's probably because somebody was hogging the bandwidth. Someday you will see limits on almost all access points, even at home.