Cell data plans for laptops

[snathanb]

I tether my 8525 to my laptop to use the Slingbox. It works great in a 3G area, next to non-functional in Edge.

Here's a few results using a WinMobile device on AT&T

Those consistent with what I get on my Tilt here in Dallas.

 

[TheForce]

That concerns me. Just not sure where I'd hit the wall. Prev ISPs would show me how many GB I've used in a month, but I don't know that I can get that now. Certainly 5GB would not allow me to sling a movie, but how much surfing would be dependent upon so many different things.

And EVDO isn't everywhere. Take a look at 25419 and select for the broadband coverage on their map. Looks like there's no broadband there. Not sure what you'd call it, but it looks like it would be about as slow there as AT&T's EDGE. Maybe they use the term "EVDO" for all data connectivity, I don't know, but I think they mean 3G. But it's not high speed everywhere, sadly.

With Verizon it has been pretty solid for EVDO and EVDO A. The variance has been running between 1Mbs and 2.4Mbs. Older EVDO still runs about 700Kbs. The 1X on Verizon is hard to find anymore but I can still find it in rural parts of South Carolina and the Everglades in Florida. That runs about 28800 and even as slow as 14400. The only other condition is where you have no service at all and last time that happened was aboard a boat 100mi off shore.

As for bandwidth cap- The highest I ever reached on my laptop EVDO service was when I was in the hospital for about 5 weeks. I was slinging daily during that time from about 7PM until 3AM solid! Once in awhile I would get shut down and have to log on again but I never got a warning from Verizon on bandwidth. That was about 10 months ago so I don't know what they are doing today. I just don't reach the 5Gb, if that is what it is, through normal and customary usage. In JUne I was traveling for 10 days and was slinging each evening and would often fall asleep and wake up at 3-4 AM to shut down the sling connection. Frankly, I just didn't worry about it.

I have heard that Comcast is doing the same thing but when I spoke to my rep about it, He said that as I have a commercial account, those limits don't apply. We'll see. I know there is nothing in my contract about it and I do need to upload TV shows in SD broadcast quality to their server. In MP2 these typically size out at 700Mb for a half hour show. It would be pretty silly if they shut me down due to a bandwidth cap and then shut off their sizeable revenue stream to Comcast advertising. That would be ironic.