IF You're Still on DialUP.....Consider Virgin Mobil Aircard !!

[fordy]

...............Before I purchased my Toshiba laptop , I discovered Virgin Mobil Internet , this made the purchase feasible !!! I was left with siGning up with AT@T with a 2 year Contract so I could use the Laptop at Work . AT@T would have run me $80 amonth for two years , Virgin mobil runs $40 amonth with UNlimited usage and.....NO Contract !
................Virgin Mobil is actually , Sprint , because Sprint bought Virgin Mobil a while back ! People like Ladycat would benefit greatly as Virgin mobil is 3G on my laptop which is about 3 Meg per second or close thereto . , fordy

[Freeholder]

Fordy, how does an aircard work? Does the computer still have to be hooked up to something? Or is it like satellite or a cell phone?

Kathleen

[texican]

I'll have to research it, but my initial concern with any service is their concept of unlimited.

To my neophyte spam loving sisters, 5GB is unattainably unlimited. To their bandwidth hogging brother (me) 5GB is an afternoon in the park. I have Hughesnet at home, and even with a Fair Access Policy with (previously) 200mb a day, I was able to get up to a Gb of data. I've upgraded the plan, and now can get almost 2Gb if I push it. An unlimited 5gb plan would leave me high and drive for at least three weeks out of the month!

Thanks for bringing this up...

[mightybooboo]

Dont know anything about limits but know Virgin is a darn good company for my cell phone,and if I was traveling or offgrid that aircard sure would be nice.

Thanks for the heads-up,can you make computer phone calls with it,if so that much the better.

[fordy]

Originally Posted by BlueJuniperFarm

Fordy, how does an aircard work? Does the computer still have to be hooked up to something? Or is it like satellite or a cell phone?

Kathleen

.............The little plugin modem , plugs into a USB bus\hole on the side of your laptop ! The modem is $79.95 plus any state sales tax . They have 3 levels of service , the $40 being the UNlimited plan . I can't tell you how surprised I was at the speed of data transfer cause my ATT DSL line is 6
meg per second here at the RV park and seems very fast compared too my 6 years as a dedicated phone line internet user before DSl . I will not sign a 2 year contract with ATT at about $80 a month ! , fordy

.............The computer Does NOT have too be hooked too anything , it works just like a cell phone since it is accessing the internet via the cell phone network . , fordy

[Txrider]

There are three types of accounts in wireless I have come across..

Unlimited which is unlimited... Unlimited which is really 5GB per month with a charge per MB if you go over.

Unlimited which is 5BG per month, which throttles you down to dialup speeds if you go over 5GB..

Mine is ATT unlimited, which they no longer sell as a plan. They do allow unlimited through third partied like Iphone and some other third party deals.

ATT is the only provider with good coverage of my area.. So I won;t be changing plans easily.

There is also Virgin, Clear, Tmobile and few others with real unlimited plans for a decent price, if you have coverage where you are.

You can check for your coverage here if you are savvy enough to do so.. Who has what towers where..

http://www.cellreception.com/

Or for more tech savvy... You can get down to what frequencies are used on what tower if you know what your service uses.

http://www.antennasearch.com/

[Jan Doling]

My neighbor has the AT&T 2-year air-card contract. She only pays $60 per month and so far has never run out of airtime by the end of the month...and her teenager uses it constantly.

We live "at the end of the middle of nowhere" and she had traded her landline in for a cell phone, so the aircard doesn't cost much more per month than the landline did, plus they can use it when traveling in their car, too.

I'll tell her about the Virgin deal when her contract is almost up. Thanks.

[ladycat]

Originally Posted by fordy

...............Before I purchased my Toshiba laptop , I discovered Virgin Mobil Internet , this made the purchase feasible !!! I was left with siGning up with AT@T with a 2 year Contract so I could use the Laptop at Work . AT@T would have run me $80 amonth for two years , Virgin mobil runs $40 amonth with UNlimited usage and.....NO Contract !
................Virgin Mobil is actually , Sprint , because Sprint bought Virgin Mobil a while back ! People like Ladycat would benefit greatly as Virgin mobil is 3G on my laptop which is about 3 Meg per second or close thereto . , fordy

Well, even if I had $40/mo, there is no Sprint tower out here.

[FarmboyBill]

I suppose it does, but thought Id better ask. Does that work for regular comps also?

[fordy]

Originally Posted by ladycat

Well, even if I had $40/mo, there is no Sprint tower out here.

...................Lc , I'm 15 miles southwest of ft.w at my work place and I have full 3G service even though it doesn't necessarily , show such ! I'd do a little further investigation before giving Up ! They gave 2 less costly plans that you should consider as well . , fordy

[Joshie]

Fordy, we considered that but.... it's on secondary servers. It won't pick up everywhere and if the system gets full, you'll be kicked off first. Also.... where we live you cannot pick up a signal.

It is good for some people but there are a lot of people who cannot use it. Where we live, the only thing we can get, other than dial up or satellite (with its 2 year contract, is Millenicom. For us, they use Sprint. I know there are others on HT where Millenicom uses Verizon. We have unlimited usage and have no contract. We have wireless coverage in the house. We can take it with us in the car. It's not cheap by any circumstances. Cost. $70/month.

Ladycat, we've spoken to a number of places who have said that if you have problems with getting coverage getting a signal with other carriers, you'll likely not get Virgin to work. Apparently, it works only on Virgin towers. It won't switch to other carriers as Sprint, Verizon, etc. do.

[ladycat]

Originally Posted by fordy

...................Lc , I'm 15 miles southwest of ft.w at my work place and I have full 3G service even though it doesn't necessarily , show such ! I'd do a little further investigation before giving Up ! They gave 2 less costly plans that you should consider as well . , fordy

Originally Posted by Joshie

Ladycat, we've spoken to a number of places who have said that if you have problems with getting coverage getting a signal with other carriers, you'll likely not get Virgin to work. Apparently, it works only on Virgin towers. It won't switch to other carriers as Sprint, Verizon, etc. do.

Everyone here uses US Cellular because that's the only one you can reliably get indoors.

Some of the others can be picked up outdoors- sometimes!

[ladycat]

I just checked Virgin Mobile for the umpteenth time.


Coverage details for (my address) :
No coverage

Coverage updated on: 10/15/10

[Willowdale]

I have a Verizon air card. Works great. Verizon is the only cell signal I can receive at my farm. I'm paying about $60/mo. And I have great coverage most places I travel.

A lot of the new smart phones will actually serve as a wifi hotspot that my computer can connect to through the cell signal! My Droid will do that. So I could get rid of the air card entirely if I wasn't on contract for another year.

[FarmboyBill]

Still hopeing somebody will tell me if this works for a PC or not.

[crispin]

Originally Posted by FarmBoyBill

Still hopeing somebody will tell me if this works for a PC or not.

Yes it will work fine on a PC or a Laptop

[ErinP]

From what I can tell, nearly every cell company has a service like this.

We have a black WiFi box that sits on a shelf and gives us our service. The service is $40 per month, true unlimited. The box was $199 and an antenna to give us actual coverage down here in our hole was another $129.

Not only is it our internet, but it's our "home phone" as well.

[gilberte]

Originally Posted by ErinP

From what I can tell, nearly every cell company has a service like this.

We have a black WiFi box that sits on a shelf and gives us our service. The service is $40 per month, true unlimited. The box was $199 and an antenna to give us actual coverage down here in our hole was another $129.

Not only is it our internet, but it's our "home phone" as well.

You can place and receive calls and don't need to pay for a landline?

[seagullplayer]

Originally Posted by ErinP

From what I can tell, nearly every cell company has a service like this.

We have a black WiFi box that sits on a shelf and gives us our service. The service is $40 per month, true unlimited. The box was $199 and an antenna to give us actual coverage down here in our hole was another $129.

Not only is it our internet, but it's our "home phone" as well.

I would go for this if I knew of a company that offered it. They all tell me I am out of coverage area, and I "almost" am. I can receive calls and sometimes make them. My BIL was over and he used his USB modem from my kitchen table with a little antenna attachment and gets full bars.

[FarmboyBill]

I havnt been a full bar inna long time, or an empty one for that matter lol