[geeks] Cellular data services

[Brian Dunbar]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 5:42 PM, Dan Sikorski wrote:

> Does anyone have experience using a data service from a cellular 
> provider?  I'm looking for data service for a laptop user.  What i 
> need is something that works with a PC card to put in a laptop, and be 
> able to get online anywhere that there is cellular service.  I've 
> looked at AT&T, Verizon, Nextel, and Sprint.  They all seem to offer 
> what i'm looking for, but i don't know whose service would be the best 
> here.  What i'm looking for is first ease of use, a close second is 
> reliability.  This would be for use with a windows xp professional 
> laptop.  Price is not of great concern.  The user probably has much 
> more money than patience.  Any advice?  (Nadine? :) )

I've only hooked one user up with the service; one of our PCB designers 
lived in Austin, did a great deal of work on site at Intel and Dell.  
The former were anal about allowing him to dial out (and forget about 
using the internet and VPNing) just to acquire a license for Mentor on 
his laptop.

We bought him a phone, it connected to his pc modem card via a special 
cable (don't loose that) got a reasonable plan.  As far as I know, It 
Just Worked.  The provider was SWBell just about the time they turned 
into what, Verizon?

He did have some trouble downloading the design files (some were 
hundreds of MBs) over FTP but we we persuaded him to use his xDSL 
connection at home for that.

No war stories, sorry.

~brian