Mobile Internet Service

[JCsPlumbing]

Does anyone use mobile internet service with their laptop? Which one? Costs? Good/Bad? Thanks.

J.C.

[Josh]

I tether my blackberry when I am on trips. You just plug it in via usb and ya have internet. Sprint is the network its on.

[ToUtahNow]

I tether my blackberry when I am on trips. You just plug it in via usb and ya have internet. Sprint is the network its on.

Which Blackberry do you use or recommend. I am getting real tired of my Treo 700W. I even downloaded new firmware and it still seems haunted.

Mark

[Josh]

8830 world edition. Ya gotta make sure your carrier supports tethering. Its not as fast as my dsl or cable but its way faster than dial up. Works well.

[gear junkie]

8830 world edition. Ya gotta make sure your carrier supports tethering. Its not as fast as my dsl or cable but its way faster than dial up. Works well.
What does this mean?

[JCsPlumbing]

Tethering as I understand it is basically hooking up your mobile phone/PDA to your cpu for internet service. The phone or PDA must support it and you sometimes have to pay a fee along with your typical plan.

J.C.

[darius]

On BBerry you should be able to browse the net without tethering. It does cost a little though, as they charge for the amount of data transferred both ways.

Probably the best solution is EV-DO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution-Data_Optimized). It should be available from just about any cell phone service provider. Not free but the cost is bearable.

[ToUtahNow]

As a follow up I went with the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition (Josh's recommendation) and so far I am very pleased. I now wonder why it took me so long to trash the Treo.

Mark

[JCsPlumbing]

Mark, a few questions.

Which service do you use?
You tether it as a modem to your laptop, right?
Does the device support full internet service wirelessly and independent of a cpu?

Thanks.

J.C.

[PMR413]

JC, have you considered an air card or connecting via a free wifi location? I’m using an AT&T air card when not at a free wifi location. Depending on my connection and signal strength the air card speed will fall somewhere between a dial up and DSL connection. As far as cost I can’t tell you, the company I work for provides both laptop and card. Hope this helps….Pat

[ToUtahNow]

Mark, a few questions.

Which service do you use?
You tether it as a modem to your laptop, right?
Does the device support full internet service wirelessly and independent of a cpu?

Thanks.

J.C.

I have not worked out of the office or caught up to the learning curve just yet. I do like the way it is setup and how it works and pairing it to Bluetooth devises has never been easier.

Mark

[JCsPlumbing]

JC, have you considered an air card or connecting via a free wifi location? I’m using an AT&T air card when not at a free wifi location. Depending on my connection and signal strength the air card speed will fall somewhere between a dial up and DSL connection. As far as cost I can’t tell you, the company I work for provides both laptop and card. Hope this helps….Pat

I have considered it. Good to know the speed. And it always helps! Thanks.

J.C.

[JCsPlumbing]

I have not worked out of the office or caught up to the learning curve just yet. I do like the way it is setup and how it works and pairing it to Bluetooth devises has never been easier.

Mark

I like simplicity. Getting old maybe. Just too many things on alot of phones & handheld devices getting in my way.

Now I must heat my bowl of Cream of Wheat. :(

J.C.

[dantheman9727]

I also use my blackberry to tether with Verizon. I've been very happy with the service so far. The nice thing about doing it this way is that when you're tethering, you have the option to interrupt your connection to take a call, but you don't have to. Also, if you don't have your laptop, you can still access quite a bit from your blackberry, just not as easily. Both the blackberry and laptop are fairly quick speeds... faster than DSL

[RDW920]

I live in a remote area, our only available dsl service was only at 256k down, 120k Up. :(
We went with verizon air card (only good cell signal in our area).
I used a USB720 card, plugged into a Kyocera KR2 router and hooked 2 desktops to it. Our speed was around 580k up, 260k down, but it was $60 a month.
Thankfully just last month we now have 1.5 dsl in our area so we went with that for less than $30 a month.:D

but all that to say the aircard would work good directly with laptop, as long as you know you have cell service in the area. If you decide to use with router it is a pain as router man. don't know which air cards they support, and cell providers don't know what routers support their air card.....that part took a lot of sorting out.

[egecko]

Does anyone use mobile internet service with their laptop? Which one? Costs? Good/Bad? Thanks.

J.C. It all depends where you are located and the area you will be in. There is WiMax which is like an internet cloud that will allow you to connect to the service from anywhere while within the cloud area. There are currently only two cities that offer true WiMax and those are Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD. The companies are XOHM and Clear with DL speeds from 3-4Mbps for mobile.

There is also pre-wimax technology that's offered from Clearwire that uses cell towers to allow access. Clearwire is the parent company of Clear.