[Wegmans]

Hi guys!

The place that I am moving to does not have any high speed internet available.. no cable, dsl, FiOS or anything!

I know how bad Satellite internet is, so my only other option is to go with a Cellphone provider. Since I have Verizon, do you think I should go with the extra $15 a month to enable tethering on my BB? What if I want to download stuff while i'm away from my computer and have to have my phone with me? this seems like a big flaw..

-OR-

should I pay the $60 a month for BroadbandAccess; 60
600 Kbps � 1.4 Mbps and at average upload speeds of 500 Kbps � 800 Kbps.

Do any of you have experience with either package? Also any other suggestions are welcome!

[berrywhite]

When I was with VZW I would tether my 7250 with my laptop and I loved it. If I were you I would tether!

[Gibralter]

using either one you should be getting relatively the same speed. For the interent card with Verizon using Rev A you will see a little better speeds. Cheaper to stick with the tethering but as you pointed out, does have its limitations.

I would probably tether. If it works, stay with it. if not, get the card and try it. You always have 30 days to return/exchange.

[Wegmans]

How does the broadband connect to your computer? Thruogh PCMCIA? My new laptop doesn't have one!

So are the speeds comparable? Like can I watch YouTube videos? Also is that 5GB cap for real?

[Wegmans]

Well here's another question... If I want to set my father up, he has AT&T... Should he just get a newer phone (he has a RAZR) and pay for some sort of tethering with them

-OR-

Should I buy him the VZW card for his laptop? Is there a way to share the connection over Wifi?

This is so frustrating! There doesn't seem to be any clear solution

[metalrocker]

I've had a VZW aircard for about a year. It can burst at speeds of up to 2.4mbps, and it easily runs as fast as DSL, if I'm at full strength faster. I think the last speedtest I ran clocked me at 1.4mbps, that obviously had a burst in it but it is fast enough that I cancelled my cable internet service!. Streaming, youtube, all that is no problem. There is a 5gb cap "per say" but lets just say I'm a heavy user and have had no problems.

The aircard is a REV A device, so it will run faster than a tethered device (most are REV 0). Give the aircard a try, they have a worry free guarantee so there's no hassles for 30 days

[metalrocker]

Just ran a speedtest on Speedtest.net

upload of 349kb/s
download : 1273kbs

[Kebero]

There are Rev A PCMCIA and USB air cards available. I have a Rev A PCMCIA card in a Gateway laptop running Windows XP which my fiancee and I use as an internet gateway (it's connected to a Linksys wifi router), and we both get DSL speeds without the hassle of DSL or cable outages. The 5GB "cap" is now a soft one: VZW reserves the right to throttle bandwidth, but no longer reserves the right to terminate service.

[Wegmans]

Just ran a speed test with VZAccess and my tethered phone...

285 up
34 down
:/

I have tried downloading files with all applications closed and only gotten 30k/s..

such BS

[Kebero]

Remove venturi using the uninstaller. Try making a dialer instead of using VZAM.

[andrew_david]

I've been using VZW's tethered modem access for the last year +. I travel regularly for work and it's been great, pretty zippy speeds too.

But...one thing to keep in mind with VZW tethered modem package is that they will shut down your EVDO speed access after you've used a certain amount of data transfer for the month. I think 300MB of data transfer is the magic number then after that, *poof*, no more EVDO speeds and all web activity will be reduced to 1x speeds.

VZW doesn't tell you upfront that this is their policy with the unlimited data + tethered modem add on package. But you'll find out the hard way eventually.

Getting the VZW air card & plan doesn't carry this restriction. You'll have to shell out $59.95/mo (on top of your existing cell & data package) for the air card plan instead of just the $15/mo for the tethered modem plan. But if this will be your sole means of internet access it's probably worth while to spend the extra $, it's not much more than you'd be paying for a home DSL/broadband connection anyway. And you won't need to have your cell phone with you in order to connect either.


VZW has a promo for a free USB air card with sign up for a 2 year air card plan. I just switched to the air card plan yesterday. Haven't had time to play with it yet but will am traveling a ton in Jan&Feb and will put it to the test then.