Wireless service...What is the best bang for the buck

[usmcchet9296]

re-submitted in proper forum
I know its been posted somewhere but I'm lazy
I have cingular/ATT/Whoever the hell they are this week service but from my understanding the only edge EDGE holds over anything is stringing two cans togather. So going off of that what is the best wireless service around that isnt going to bust my meager bank account? Im not gonna use my "soon-to-be" UX for work ...to me it will just be one of many cool gadgets so I want to keep my costs low so please take that into consideration.

[XAVLIS]

I have been using my Blackberry as a modem via bluetooth and I dont have to spend a dime, other than my normal BB plan. I was thinking of starting another plan and buying a SIM card but too expensive. I get about 115kb/sec, not good for video stream but audio, internet, and emial works well.

[MathProfJohnson]

You are correct, for MAJOR prolonged work the internal Cingular is just too slow but for a quick e-mail read or blogging it isn't too bad. I can't watch my slingplayer with it, but it could just be me!

My verizon USB720 is perfect, but those bastards will not permit you to watch streaming video since you will be terminated at 5GB per month. I have been thinking of trying Sprint since they have no such ceiling.

[Robyn]

You are correct, for MAJOR prolonged work the internal Cingular is just too slow but for a quick e-mail read or blogging it isn't too bad. I can't watch my slingplayer with it, but it could just be me!

My verizon USB720 is perfect, but those bastards will not permit you to watch streaming video since you will be terminated at 5GB per month. I have been thinking of trying Sprint since they have no such ceiling.

No, it is not just you...Cingular's Edge network is too slow for either the slingplayer or for VOIP like Skipe! Cingular's new 3G network works but I have not been sucessful finding a dongle that will use that particular card on my Ux280p

[MathProfJohnson]

No, it is not just you...Cingular's Edge network is too slow for either the slingplayer or for VOIP like Skipe! Cingular's new 3G network works but I have not been sucessful finding a dongle that will use that particular card on my Ux280p

Robyn-

Tomorrow a new USB device comes out for Cingular. I will let you know how it works but this will solve my slingplayer issue!

[mikekatz24]

REPOST from the exact same thread in the general forum:



I've been using the edge network since i bought my ux280p back in december. at first i was annoyed because i was using it in backwater USA (at my mother in laws house who literally lives 45min from a mcdonalds). the thing is you get "bars" on the edge plan just like a cell phone. i can honestly say that based on the bars you'll either be miserable or extremely happy.

1-2 bars sucks. 1 bar is probably worse than crappy netzero dialup. 2 bars is probably the same as crappy dialup. with 1 bar you're probably looking at 2 out of every 3 pageloads failing and a year to download anything.

3 bars is a range of complete misery to semi-happiness. i've found 3 bars can be the same as a crappy dialup or just as fast a great dialup. sometime page loads fail but for the most part they're solid.

4 bars is getting very exciting. if you're a traveler or someone who lives in a normal city area (i live close to DC) you'll almost never get worse than this. 4 bars means 90% of pages will load and download speeds are probably about 350-500kbps. you can actually test your download/upload speeds on many sites.

5 bars is probably close to DSL speeds. you almost never lose page loads, get close to 800kbps-1mbps download speeds and can run many things simoultaneously. for me i'll surf the net, play poker with both msn/aim running in the background with no problems.

i've seen lots of people talking about the price, which is only 44.99/mo plus some taxes jacking it up to $49. you get unlimited data transfers and never pay more.


for those of you who "think" you're getting insane speeds off sprint, verizon or whoever feel to connect via those cell providers, hit this website http://myspeed.visualware.com/

and let me know what your "true" upload and download speeds are. i will connect later through cingular edge and post some results based on the number of bars i get.

[Doy22]

The thread "Wireless service...What is the best bang for the buck" is quite interesting... Thanks...