Best bang for you Dollar - Cell Internet

I called AT&T Wireless today and asked what download speed they have for their wireless laptop cards and they said they could not tell me because they could not promise anything. I asked for the maximum download speed or some sort of range and they could not tell me anything. What kind of service is that? They told me it depended on my signal from the cell phone tower but they still should have given me an idea. I also do not think 5 GB is very much for a cap.

Must be because of the differences between Edge and 3G. I experience the same differences between Edge and 3G. Some Edge connections become so bad, I stop browsing. 3G can be decent in speed (500-900) but it too is spotty. I was at a baseball game in downtown Phoenix over the weekend and a 3G signal. I couldn't get on the net at all. AT&T internet, in my opinion, is not very reliable.

For the poster with Tilt, do you not have an option for Internet Sharing? This allows you to tether with either USB or Bluetooth and doesn't require a 3rd party app. I have that on my 8525 and it works fine.
 
Best bang for the buck?

One should avoid just measuring this as cost per month because there are other factors.

1. If your needs combine a cell phone with the internet then you need to be concerned about cell phone reliability as well as the internet.
2. If Laptop only, then will the service be required in one location most of the time or will you be traveling and if so all over or in one general area of the country.
3. Will you be using the mobile internet service in areas of high population density increase like at trade show locations or just average? Know that the CDMA technology works better in high population density increases but GSM (3G) services will be lower cost. This is due to licensing.

Typically, I need reliable service in high population density increase areas several times a year (trade shows) and other times I need reliable coverage on the east coast from Florida to upstate NY. That eliminates GSM. I've tried it and it is always frustrating. I have spent so many hours on the tech support lines with Cingular, ATT and T-mobile it was probablly more than I spent for service. I switched to Verizon (CDMA) get EVDO and never have a outage or no speed at all tec support call. Difference of black and white, not even a gray zone. Yes, the CDMA cost me about 20% more but considering my time saved not on the phone with tech support or just not getting service at all in an area, the increased cost is much cheaper than the business loss I suffered with the GSM service. For me, it was a technology switch rather than a carrier. I suspect I would have been just as happy with Sprint, the other competitive CDMA carrier as I have been with Verizon but why switch when the only difference I see is a couple of dollars more a month for Verizon.

Additionally, I have two services, EVDO for the laptop and a PDA phone for that. I tried to use the tethered connection with third party software but the speeds I got were less than half using tethered so I stick with my EVDO built in card in the laptop. It is reliable, easy to connect, and it just works.
 
Thanks for the well thought out response Don Landis. some thoughts.....


1. If your needs combine a cell phone with the internet then you need to be concerned about cell phone reliability as well as the internet.

My old PDA, the Cingular 8125 was not great for phone calls, but worked good with Internet. I mean, it was only Edge and 2.5G, but at the time it was as good as good could get for Internet. My current phone is the ATT Tilt (which is the 8925, newer model of the same phone) and it has excellent voice call quality, Internet quality on 3G, and the tethering works good as I already pointed out with that third party software.


Best bang for the buck?
3. Will you be using the mobile internet service in areas of high population density increase like at trade show locations or just average? Know that the CDMA technology works better in high population density increases but GSM (3G) services will be lower cost.

Great point and something I had not thought of really. 3G works great, as there is great coverage in my city, but I have not had the need to use it in a dense setting, such as a trade show. I can see where that would certainly be a problem. My ATT Tilt, everywhere I have tried it, has given me great speeds in an average, around town scenerio.


I tried to use the tethered connection with third party software but the speeds I got were less than half using tethered so I stick with my EVDO built in card in the laptop. It is reliable, easy to connect, and it just works.

You seem to really know what you are talking about, but let me still point out that you have to make sure you are using the proper settings. Often times, providers will have a proxy server and different gateway that the media enabled phones go through (at a lower price of around $15 vs $40 for PDA Internet) and the idiots at tech support will often try to route you through the media enabled cell phone gateway as opposed to the Internet gateway used by PDAs or laptops. Cingular/ATT is known for doing this out of ignorance on the tech support's behalf. Back when I had the 8125 I researched this on the net and found it was night and day when I changed to the proper settings on my PDA. They walked me through putting in settings that they would give a phone media user, which was their slower connection (at the PDA price, I don't think so!). The PDA should be using the same gateway as the laptop, and will get the faster speeds. They can tell if you are tethering or not, and they will bill you the laptop rate if they think you are tethering. But the way the third party software works, it tricks the network into thinking you are doing all that transfer on the PDA. So you pay the price you would pay for PDA Internet ($40 unlimited in my case) and have the benefits of using the laptop. I am sure if you abused this with heavy file sharing, they would catch on that you are not using your PDA for all that traffic, but if you are just doing email, surfing, trade show credit card screen transactions, etc, you are fine with a third party software and pay far less.

As a computer tech dealing with the general public, I know realtors and other folks with the dedicated laptop cards and I'll tell you, from what I have seen recently, these cards from Verizon, Sprint, or ATT are really no faster than tethering to a PDA. The only difference is they are paying more in price each month. Often double or more. I really think your slower speeds when tethering were more a problem of an older network or going through the wrong gateway. But in your case it sounds like you don't have the time to monkey around with tethering and cost isn't as much of an issue. So hey, whatever works, works. I mean, it is certainly easier to not have to connect a PDA to a laptop and have all that clutter, it just costs $40 or more a month for that luxury.
 
Great point and something I had not thought of really. 3G works great, as there is great coverage in my city, but I have not had the need to use it in a dense setting, such as a trade show. I can see where that would certainly be a problem. My ATT Tilt, everywhere I have tried it, has given me great speeds in an average, around town scenerio.

See my post above yours. AT&T 3g uses WCDMA, not GSM. I have a tilt also, have for a year, and it has worked great everywhere I have traveled for both data and voice, including highly-concentrated areas, like trade shows and conventions.
 
See my post above yours. AT&T 3g uses WCDMA, not GSM. I have a tilt also, have for a year, and it has worked great everywhere I have traveled for both data and voice, including highly-concentrated areas, like trade shows and conventions.

That is good to hear. I love my Tilt.
 
W-CDMA -IS- the method GSM uses for 3G

From AT&T:
"AT&T offers the nation’s fastest 3G network. 3G speeds for supported devices deliver:

* Typical download speeds of 700 Kbps—1.7 Mbps
* Typical upload speeds of 500 Kbps—1.2 Mbps

The AT&T 3G network uses HSDPA/UMTS technology (High Speed Downlink Packet Access/Universal Mobile Telephone System), which makes it possible to enjoy a variety of feature-rich wireless services. It also gives AT&T the advantage of offering simultaneous voice and data services. That means you can talk and use the Internet at the same time. "



Yes, W-CDMA. But W-CDMA IS the 3G method of the GSM community. And when I connect, my display says "GSM" when I have a 3G connection.


"Third generation (3G) is the generic term used for the next generation of mobile communications systems....

Developed by the global GSM community as its chosen path for 3G evolution, UMTS is one of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU's) family of third-generation mobile communications systems. UMTS uses a W-CDMA air interface, which lead some to refer to the technology as simply W-CDMA, creating confusion in the marketplace.

To alleviate this confusion and to highlight the backward compatibility of the system with second generation GSM, the GSM Association now refers to the range of high-speed multimedia services that can be delivered to users via mobile networks using UMTS/W-CDMA systems such as 3GSM, rather than simply the air interface technology. "
Link.


And a few facts & figures, which note the GSM/W-CDMA bond, here. And see Wiki.
 
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I think perhaps I wasn't clear on my point. :)

For years, in congested areas, GSM suffered compared to CDMA because of the way they allocated system resources. And, it still does, for basic GSM signals. Thus, there is an entrenched bias against GSM in highly dense areas, like a convention or sporting event.

However, if you are in a 3G area, the air-interface is W-CDMA, which allocates resources using Code Division, just like CDMA Thus, it doesn't suffer from the same congestion problems that plague traditional GSM networks, which use channel allocation.

That was my point in posting that AT&T uses W-CDMA in 3G networks as the air interface, not GSM.

I've got a Masters degree in Engineering, and I've been in the telecom industry for 2 decades. What I know about cellular communications isn't exactly gleaned from AT&Ts marketing or by reading wikipedia. AT&T and Verizon are my two largest clients and I've been in dozens, if not hundreds, of their cell sites. I do know a little about how it all works. :D
 
Good. I defer. But let's make it clear to others as well.

Certainly, CDMA is technically "better." But the argument can be made that for popular use, esp worldwide, GSM is "better" due to being more widespread. Standardization has great value in and of itself. They are close in performance for most people's (voice comm) purposes. It hardly matters. With any luck, 10 years from now the entire world will be on one, new and more efficient, standard.

At least TDMA is all but gone (yes, I know GSM is a variant), soon to be followed by that "not wonderful" iDEN (another TDMA variant).
 

Picked up a Sprint Airave

Blackberry Storm/Thunder

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