Cellular Internet Service

[Mercutio]

Verizon and Sprint both offer a Cellular-based data service called EV-DO. Speeds are supposed to be pretty quick for wireless - around 700kb/sec and prices are not unreasonable ($50/month).

Has anyone tried these services? Do they work all over the place or just in certain areas? Are speeds what they claim they are?

 

[Howell]

My boss uses it for Citrix access while travelling. I've not asked him about the experience though he uses it all the time.

 

[ddrueding]

I just deployed about 30 USB EV-DO modems with laptops using Sprint's service. Speeds are nice, latency is a bit high. Due to my area (Silicon Valley), coverage is not typical of other areas. There isn't a dead zone for 40 miles.

 

[Howell]

Yeah I forgot about all of our clients that use them. I'll second what David said. We are all Verizon here.

 

[Nitsirk]

FWIW, depending on what you or your client needs, it may be good enough to pay an extra $5 a month on top of your regular Verizon plan to just get limited internet access. This is what I have and it works great. I can check weather, yahoo and hotmail email, ebay auctions, news, directory services etc. This service costs me an extra $5 bucks on my $39.99 plan. The minutes you use while on the internet are applied to your plan minutes. I haven't been anywhere where it hasn't worked locally in NW Indiana and Chicago area.

It has limits though. You can just type in a website and go. You have to use their browser and are limited to what is available on it. It is not very fast all the time but it is tolerable. As far as the full service EV-DO, I don't know, but I thought I'd throw this option out there. For someone that doesn't need full unlimited access, it works pretty well.

 

[Nitsirk]

Also, two of our field guys have the Sprint service. They use them in the city and they work great. The one guy said his doesn't work as well in his house in Indiana but at the jobsite in Chicago it is great.

 

[ddrueding]

A service I am personally interested in is using bluetooth from my phone to allow unlimited surfing from my laptop. I've read that Verizon (my current provider) has removed this capability from phones that should support it. Is anyone doing this? What provider/phone are you using?

 

[Mercutio]

I use Verizon. My phone stuff is outdated and crappy right now. And in the past I've had limited data packages but they are very limiting.

Also the tiny amount of investigating I did suggests that Verizon takes offense to using its service for ANYTHING but basic web and e-mail. Don't stream video, download files or play games.

That kinda sucks.

 

[Handruin]

A buddy of mine has the palm treo with verizon and he uses it with his sling box. We were watching comcast cable right over his PDA phone and he says he does it all the time. That and he pipes his DVD player over the slingbox. It was actually quite neat.

My boss at work has sprint's service with their net access and they seem to be the cheapest for data plans (around $15/month vs verizon's astronomical $45/month). I had looked seriously at getting the paml treo 700wx because it was going to cost me $199. But the unlimited data plan with my cell service was just too much for what I needed.

 

[Fushigi]

Sprint's coverage map. Uncheck National Network, check Mobile Broadband, start zooming. Basically you'll see broadband coverage is quite good but not as pervasive as voice alone. I've heard that Sprint now has roaming data coverage but haven't bothered to check.

I've been a Sprint customer for years (8+ IIRC) and the coverage areas have only gotten better over time. My current plan includes PowerVision (EV-DO) with Phone-As-Modem. PAM ups the cost a bit but eliminates the need to do a device hack to use the device as a modem. Also, w/out PAM using your PC is a TOS violation and your account could get shut down if found out (it happens). PV is $15 a month; PV w/PAM is $39.99 a month on top of the phone plan, which still beats standalone data-card accounts (last I checked they were $60-70 a month). Work pays for my plan, which of course influenced my choice. Were I the one paying I might take a chance.

As DD said, speed is good, basically like DSL, but latency is higher. If EV-DO is not available, it automatically falls back to the old 1xRTT speed which is still 70-140Kbps; about twice modem speed. But in Chicagoland EV-DO is pretty pervasive and I average 600-900Kbps on speed tests.

As a Treo user I use the bandwidth for email & surfing on my device and also as a cellular modem for my laptop when I travel & WiFi is unavailable. Google has GMail and GoogleMaps apps for the Treo. GoogleMaps now integrates with Contacts to let you map a contact's location directly.

DD, Sprint hasn't blocked BT connections for Phone-As-Modem, but while I've done it before there's definitely a performance penalty compared to connecting the phone to the laptop via USB. I keep a retractable cable in my laptop bag.

 

[Fushigi]

Sprint's coverage map. Uncheck National Network, check Mobile Broadband, start zooming. Basically you'll see broadband coverage is quite good but not as pervasive as voice alone. I've heard that Sprint now has roaming data coverage but haven't bothered to check.

I've been a Sprint customer for years (8+ IIRC) and the coverage areas have only gotten better over time. My current plan includes PowerVision (EV-DO) with Phone-As-Modem. PAM ups the cost a bit but eliminates the need to do a device hack to use the device as a modem. Also, w/out PAM using your PC is a TOS violation and your account could get shut down if found out (it happens). PV is $15 a month; PV w/PAM is $39.99 a month on top of the phone plan, which still beats standalone data-card accounts (last I checked they were $60-70 a month). Work pays for my plan, which of course influenced my choice. Were I the one paying I might take a chance.

As DD said, speed is good, basically like DSL, but latency is higher. If EV-DO is not available, it automatically falls back to the old 1xRTT speed which is still 70-140Kbps; about twice modem speed. But in Chicagoland EV-DO is pretty pervasive and I average 600-900Kbps on speed tests.

As a Treo user I use the bandwidth for email & surfing on my device and also as a cellular modem for my laptop when I travel & WiFi is unavailable. Google has GMail and GoogleMaps apps for the Treo. GoogleMaps now integrates with Contacts to let you map a contact's location directly.

DD, Sprint hasn't blocked BT connections for Phone-As-Modem, but while I've done it before there's definitely a performance penalty compared to connecting the phone to the laptop via USB. I keep a retractable cable in my laptop bag.

 

[Mercutio]

Sprint has an exceedingly yummy offer called Sero, which offers a 1000 minute phone/unlimited (EV-DO?) data plan for $50/month and steep discounts on phones.

Drawback is that it has to be a new number.

I wouldn't mind doing the phone as modem thing, but I really don't like smartphones. I already resent having to keep a cellphone near my body and charged at all times, and I'd hate even more to have a *bigger* phone that needs to be charged *more often.*

Looks like the smallest phone they're offering with the SERO plan is the Motorola Q, which doesn't do 802.11. If I'm going to be saddled with a Smartphone, that would be the #1 thing on my list of requirements.

 

[ddrueding]

I currently have a large phone, and the whole point of getting a phone that can do PAM would be so that the phone doesn't have to be so large. If the phone was going to be Treo-sized, I might just do the work from it.

 

[Mercutio]

In what twisted world do you live that a Treo is a "small" phone?

 

[Handruin]

Looks like the smallest phone they're offering with the SERO plan is the Motorola Q, which doesn't do 802.11. If I'm going to be saddled with a Smartphone, that would be the #1 thing on my list of requirements.

I'd have to find links, but I remember reading bad things about the Motorola Q. There were plenty of people complaining ti would freeze/lock up often and need to be reset.

 

[Fushigi]

I'll grant there are smaller & lighter phones, but I've never found the form factor to be an issue. I slip the phone in my front pants pocket; it's never been a bother. And with BT you don't have to hold it to your head when on a call. Of course, the Treo still looks better than that average BlackBerry, although RIM is finally improving their shape.

And if you plan on actually using the phone as a data device, you'll appreciate the screen size & real (backlit) keyboard.

 

[Pradeep]

I believe tethering to laptop is an extra $10 per month for Verizon plans. Hard to beat their coverage.

They cap you at a monthly 5GB on the data plans. If you don't feel the urge to watch TV on your phone it should be fine.

 

[Mercutio]

A few weeks ago I got an HTC 6800 (Sprint calls it a "Mogul") and Sprint's utterly uncapped SERO data service plan (no bullshit Verizon "unlimited but only 5GB a month" deal). $30 a month for phone and data and my tests say I get about 750kb/sec downloads from my personal web server.

I could write a longer review if anyone is interested.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm still shopping around. It will be part of my new car computer. Parts list below:

ASUS R2Hv
Car Stereo adapter
Targus PA050U USB Hub
Turtle Beach TBS-1122-01F 7.1
Seagate 500GB USB 2.0 / eSATA

Of course, coverage is way more important than speed, and so long as it's fast enough for an RDC connection, I want to pay as little as possible.

 

[Handruin]

The sprint internet service seems like a great deal. However, I can't come to ever use their cellular service again because I've never been happy with it. If I could just get the internet and no cellular, that might be kind of neat with VoIP.