Broadband wireless services

I am accustomed to stealing/borrowing the internet around my neighborhood via a 2.4 ghz USB wifi antenna. However, I have read about companies (Verizon/Cingular/AT&T) that offer wireless internet without phone contracts (I don't have a cell phone and don't have the money for that).

My question is two-fold: for someone as young and poor as me, is investing in this route feasible? And how do those networks compare to local networks I get onto with my wifi antenna? Will the phone company networks be more expansive and offer better bandwidth? I rarely get over 11 MBPS speed with my wifi antenna.


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Prices? Feasibility? Would I need one of those fancy looking Express Card wifi dongles that cost $200? I'm just interested in learning more about the subject.

 

depending on the service and area there can be high latency. your speeds wont be too bad for such a service but any cable or dsl provider will stomp them. cool thing is you can take that on the go!

its kinda a toss up. its also not as cheap as a most cable or dsl providers

 

I have Sprint it is 3 times as expensive as DSL in my area. Speeds are ok most of the time for me 800Kb/s to 1500Kb/s download 300Kb/s to 800Kb/s upload. DSL and Cable are usually much faster.

 

Sprint or AT&T, both about $70 a month for roughly 768/128 slow DSL-like speeds that you can get for about $20 a month with wired DSL. Of course, there is the wireless aspect to consider. Wireless also caps at 5GB a month. DSL is still ünlimited but since Comcast just capped at 250GB a month, can DSL be far behind?

 

When you say that cap it per month, are you talking about throughput transfer? Packets? 5 GB seems kinda' not worthwhile, and I'd stick to my borrowing the networks.

 

5GB is the total traffic; that is, Upload+Download.

 

That would not be feasible for online gaming, then. Especially since I could do some games for 6 hours a day.

 

You could always take it for a 'test run', so to speak. Not sure about the other carriers, but I know that Verizon for sure allows you to try the network for 30 days, money back guarantee.

I took advantage of it. Had to see if I'd get any signal in the building that I worked at (call center, supposedly shielded from outside signals.) I must say that I was surprised to see that I did get decent speed...that is, about 800 kbps download. My cellphone is US cellular, and i get not signal whatsoever in the building.

Anyways, I paid nothing down, got a USB (they also offer expresscard) broadband modem, and used it for 29 days. Actually, the first one they gave me was uncompatible, so they next day aired me a newer version, also free of charge. In the end, I returned them, as the 60$ a month for 5gb total wasn't worth it. But for someone constantly on the go, probably well worth it.

FINAL NOTE: Be extremely careful about the 30 day policy, as many months have 31 days and you will be contractually bound if you go over (two years at 60$/month, or like a 175$ early cancellation fee.) Also, the per MB charge for going over 5 gb/month is ridiculous. Be sure to disable any P2P!

 

I installed NetMeter to monitor my bandwidth utilization for a few months in order to determine how much data traffic I am actually incurring.