USB broadband or Other

Hey all,
I've been looking at getting one of those USB broadband wireless recievers for traveling with my laptop. For my area of the country and the areas I mostly travel to, AT&T has the best coverage with their USB Mercury. But the price for service is outrageous, $60 a month. That's $720 a year and they want you to sign a 2 year contract.

Was wondering what other options are there. I think I read somewhere about being able to link with a cell phone and have internet access for your laptop that way. I guess via Bluetooth? I don't have that sophisticated of a cell phone, but if internet access via Bluetooth between the cell and the laptop is an option, for better cell service than my current Virgin mobile "Pay as you Go" plan, having a better phone, plus the capability of internet access for my laptop thru it might be worth $60 a month.

 

I bought a 3G card from ebay, and activated it with AT&T, no contract ! Just month to month, $60 is not too bad for me, because I travel constantly for work, and having internet everywhere I go is priceless.
http://shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQ_nkwZattQ203gQ20airQ20cardQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

Now I'm not sure if you can do this if you don't already have a voice plan with them (I already had a voice plan), I believe the data price is higher if you don't, $75-80 per month.

But they also have tethering plans, but would cost more than $60 a month

The cheapest voice plan is $39.99 and you have to add PDA Personal + Tethering @ $60.00 comes to $99.99+tax. I've done both, and the card is my best option, I grew tired syncing with my pc to get online, and getting calls while online.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/pda-personal-plans.jsp
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-ph...s/data-cell-phone-plans.jsp?_requestid=217555

In the end, I guess it depends on what you need it for. Still plenty of wifi out there, hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info.

Something else about the AT&T plan, if you go over 5GB per month, each additional KB costs .00048. So if you're on the road and missed a favorite 1 hour TV show and wanted to download the 350MB torrent for it, that show would cost you $172 in additional charges.

 

If you get a wifi enabled phone then you will be fine. i know that sprint has them and i bet all cell providers do. It even have the same download and upload speeds as a normal air card. I use one for my primary internet.. 1200 down and 500 up on average with my sprint.. WAYYY better than dial up

 

Oh and i forgot to say... even if you have an air card, mobile broadband, or whatever else you want to call it, im positive that every provider has a 5gb/month limit now. the only way to get around that is an unlimited plan on a wifi enabled cell phone, but that would probably be $100 a month. So really if you combine the 60 a month if you have a voice plan with the company(80 a month if you dont) and your existing $40/month cell phone bill the wifi phone would cost the same or less and give you unlimited internet.