Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I am moving into an apartment who says they have internet, however i am finding that my opinion of what internet is is very different that what other people think internet is.
So what I am looking for is a wireless card i can put into my lappy and connect to t-mobile, or at&t or someones network for internet. But I would like something as fast as possible.
Anyone know if there is anything out there like this?
-
-
-
There was a very nice article about wireless access to the web in Macworld's August issue; I don't own a Mac, but I'd strongly suggest you take a look at that article before signing on the dotted line ( or the electronic equivalent. )
The carriers are playing some pretty nasty games with the language in their contracts, many of them refuse to disclose relevant terms ( like what the cap on monthly transfers is, and how much you'll be charged if you go over, etc. ); Verizon was very successfully sued over this recently, as the article describes, and now has the fullest disclosure of any of the carriers.
You really should go to a library and look at this article; doing so will probably save you a lot of grief, but here are some of the highlights:
- The ACTUAL speeds you'll experience for uploads and downloads
will be about half of what the carriers claim in their ads; typically
e.g. as follows ( average download speed, followed by average
upload speed )
AT&T Laptop Connect .755 Mbps .484 Mbps
Sprint Mobile Broadband .494 Mbps .294 Mbps
Verizon BroadbandAccess .592 Mbps .232 Mbps
Note these speeds are about one-tenth of what basic cable net access ( e.g. Comcast ) actually delivers at 6 Mbps download, by way of example. Also, they each cost around $60/mo, and have usage caps that are quite restrictive, e.g. Verizon's plan is capped at 5GB per month, as is Sprint's - although Sprint also has a $40/mo plan with a cap of only 40 MB/mo, and a charge of $1 per Megabyte if you go over, which is just outrageous.
T-Mobile ( outside New York City, where they have a 3G network in place ) offers only "Edge" access, sometimes referred to as "2.5G", for which they CLAIM a download speed of 0.1 to 0.2 Mbps ( or 100 - 200 Kbps, equivalently ) for just $20/mo, according to the article, ( or $40/mo, according to what I've seen online ) but those speeds are likely to make your use of the internet a real pain; they're about one-sixtieth to one-thirtieth the speed of Comcast's basic plan. And you can get wired DSL in a lot of places for the same price anyway, if you're willing to accept a cap on your download speed of 768 Kbps, ie .768 Mbps.
I'm on Clearwire right now, but am going to drop it. They deliver, on average, between one-third and one-sixth of their advertised speed of 1.5 Mbps, often even less than that.
( Clearwire rant begins here:
)
And their contract is truly evil, with all sorts of "gotcha's"
like a $220 early termination fee, and language that says
they can do anything they want and you have no recourse.
I'm not exagerating, btw, take a look at it at them at
http://www.clearwire.com/company/legal/terms.php
and take a look at www.clearwiresucks.com, too, if
you're thinking of using them ( not my site, btw ), and at the
speeds their users have reported nationwide on sites like
Also, Clearwire's contracts are for one or two years, and THEY
AUTOMATICALLY RENEW FOR ANOTHER ONE OR TWO YEARS
if you don't contact them and insist upon a month-to-month
arrangment within 30 days of the end of your original contact
term. Try to cancel in, say, your 14th month of service after
your original 12-month commitment has elapsed, and they'll
tell you the contract has permitted them to automatically
commit you to another term of the same length as your
original one, and you'll have to pay them $220 to cancel.
As far as I'm concerned, the only bright spot re Clearwire is
that if you call to cancel because of slow speeds - and you
have to do this within the first week of activation, or you're
stuck - they'll offer you the service for $24.99/mo plus the
modem rental of $5.99 ( you can also buy it for $100 ), a lot
better than the $36.99 plus $5.99 modem rental that they're
now advertising - 40% more than their price at the beginning
of this year, btw; they've raised the price of their main offering
twice since May, which kind of amazes me at their arrogance.
I'm still going to dump them, though; I don't like being conned.
( Clearwire rant ends here. )
Bottom line, you'll probably be better off with whatever your landlord is offering for free, assuming it's DSL or cable-based. And if you do sign up for service independently, especially for any kind of wireless service, do your homework and READ THE CONTRACT before you sign up. Also, make sure you have a window in which you can cancel without penalty if speeds aren't as claimed in the advertising.
wireless internet everywhere?
Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by Methal, Sep 7, 2008.
