Sprint Wireless Card and Linksys Broadband Router Combo Review Discussion

Anyone who has ever owned a laptop at one time or another has thought of how great it would be to have web access no matter your location. Wireless broadband cards like the Sprint Connection Card (Sierra Wireless AirCard 580), among others, allow this to take place. But what happens when you want to share this Sprint connection with more than one device? Thanks to the Linksys WRT54G3G router, you can do this now.

Read the full content of this Article: Sprint Wireless Card and Linksys Broadband Router Combo Review

 

Nice review!

 

We use air cards like this a ton. Having a router for all to share is much more cost effective than one for each person. If you don't need a card all the time, this is a nice alternative.

 

This would be a great solution if you're travelling with a group of people who all need an internet connection. Problem is that you need power for the router, it'd work in a hotel or something. Or find a power outlet at the airport and have everyone huddle around the router to get their web connection, that'd be a funny scene.

 

You could always configure a custom named ad-hoc network to do ICS.

For general browsing, the data rates appear to be perfectly fine. You might even get a Remote Desktop Connection to a at-work PC out of that bandwidth.

 

Remote Desktop worked just fine, but was just pushing the upload limit.

 

Isn't it mostly downloading though? What could be taking so much space to upload?

 

Mouse movements, key strokes, confirmation packets, etc.

 

Great review! These products are sure coming along nicely. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

It's a shame there isn't some sort of battery-option for the router. Now that would be cool--six guys on a mountainside with hiking and fishing available instead sitting around the router checking their emails . Perhaps in future versions...

Your complaints about connection speed make me jealous. Broadband rates in my area are really slow if what you're reporting is poor.

 

On thing of interest to note regarding this router is that it does not offer usb support. It cannot accept the new usb u720 modem from Sprint nor can it be used as a home router if you need the usb connection.

The data rates you report are actually quite a bit lower than those I have experienced in 6 states. I have never tested under 700k dload, this all depends on the area, tower congestion and other towers though.

The real downside of this service is latency sadly. Even with Rev A you will still see 100-300 ms latency commonly. Uploads on Rev A has significantly improved with many reporting in the 300-700 range. Frankly the service offers better upload in areas that have been upgraded to Rev A than many hard wired services.

 

I've got some questions about this product. i live down in "Kuwait", so now Sprint or Vodafone mobiles in here, we got our own service providers.

Is it Possible to use this Router with any other Wireless card? i think my friend has one thats made by SonyEricsson.

and the price .. the $200 is for only the Router? or does that include the card too? .. and if so, how can i get the router only.

and about the slot, is it a PC-MCI slot.. or an ExpressCard54 ?



the last question. can i use the Sim card with any wireless card?.. or do i need to use it with only the one provided by the mobile company?

 

Several comments:

-- One of our Booster Antennas for the A580 might help performance.

-- The Linksys router (available here) works well with the Rev-A S720 card and in an actual Rev-A network, it should do much better than results you saw.

-- While the Linksys does not work with the U720, the Kyocera KR1 does. We have a review of KR1 here, and you can buy the KR1 here.

-- Lastly, while the Linksys does not (yet) work the Pantech PX-500, the TopGlobal MB6000 router does work with the PX-500.

We maintain a Router Comparison Chart on EVDO INFO.

 

I think what i would use is the Gprs/EDGE card. would that work in this router?

 

Careful where you get your adapter. The cheap one from Verizon fails more often than not!

Just yesterday, we made available a new ExpressCard/34 to PC Card adapter that truly works! You can buy one here.

By the way, we know this adapter allows verizon v640 to work in Kyocera KR1 router, but it did not work in Linksys router.

 

YES! The TopGlobal MB6000 works with multiple carriers, including Cingular's GPRS/EDGE. Its truly a wonderful/capable router.