AirCards?

February 22, 2006 2:02 AM

AirCards . . . Has anyone done a real comparison of the features, peformance, and cost of the different cards and the diferent plans? I'm sitting in an expensive hotel paying an additional $10 for HS cable access per day. I've decided to get an AirCard but I'm not sure which is best.
posted by AJ to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Just be happy you're not in a hotel in Germany where 24 hours of access broadband set me back 28€. Makes good old fashioned American price gouging seem quaint.

I am interested in if anyone is using HSDPA from Cingular yet. I wasn't blown away with the old-school GPRS and EDGE services available from T-Mobile but the "bursts above 1 megabit" from the Cingular marketing copy made me wonder if it is worth $60/month.
posted by birdherder at 5:42 AM on February 22, 2006

My experience was that Verizon's cellular broadband service was significantly more realiable and, on average (I travel a lot) faster than Cingular's HSDPA. But Cingular had a 30 day return policy, so I tried theirs first. :) Try Cingular, and if it doesn't work, return within 30 days to get out of your contract, and switch to Verizon.
posted by Merdryn at 6:12 AM on February 22, 2006

We've issued Sprint cards to our traveling sales people, right now some still have the old cards and some have the new EVDO-capable cards. I pretty much never get support calls for them, unless the cell network is generally jacked in which case there's nothing I can do.

Right now we're getting the cards free and paying $80/month unlimited airtime, which I think may be the same as the regular consumer price. I always borrow one if I'm going out of town, as they're very handy. Even with the old, slower card, I could VPN and Remote Desktop to the office at tolerable speeds. The cards also generally get better reception in my signal-hole office than my brand new Sprint phone. (Actually, the phone, a PPC6700, will operate as an aircard via cable or bluetooth. So that's an option as well.)

It doesn't appear that there's a MacOS client for them, though. I think I've heard of the Verizon cards being used on OSX.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:07 AM on February 22, 2006

To piggyback if I may, I'd be interested if any plans (particularly Verizon) let you start up service without a contract. I may need a card for 6 months, not two years.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 8:26 AM on February 22, 2006