Anyone using cellular broadband for your primary connection?

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scoob8000

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Anyone out there using cellular broadband (flash card or usb dongle from your cell carrier)?

We're possibly moving to an area with no other broadband options.

Verizon Wireless offers a plan for $60 per month 600k-1.4m downstream, 5gb monthly transfer. The sales rep was able to tell me there is a tower providing the evdo service 1.2 miles from the house so I should get pretty good reception.

So anyway, I'm just asking if you use a service like this, how does it work for you.
 
I have a EVDO (rev-a) card for my laptop, its not my primary internet connection, but I use it frequently when traveling.

If the signal is good (~ -80dbi or better) then the speeds are usually good. The latency is a little high, about 80-120ms to the first router, which makes online gaming difficult. But for general web usage and such its perfect.
 
i have like one or two clients that just use either hte Verizon or ATT service for their laptop as primary connection, works fine for them but they are just real estate people so all they do is use web based sites for searching, works fine doubt it would be good for computer nerds.

pretty expensive, why not just get cable or dsl? its like 1/2 the price for double speeds.
 
I have a client that has it, it is fine for just general surfing and I mean very general, you can use up your 5gb limit in about 30 minutes on youtube if you aren't careful. If you go over your over bandwith gets cut to 200kb a second, 4x dialup! Woot! It is still better than nothing because they live in the middle of no where and NO ISP is willing to run lines out there because there aren't enough customers to justify the cost. Lazy, greedy, sobs.

Lots of people seem to be going that way. I told them to just wait till Wimax was available and there worries will be over, that's if they don't die of old age before Wimax gets implemented.
 
Works great. Don't expect to game or torrent on it :)
 
Both sprint and verizon have 5gb caps now. Over that and its something like $.49 a meg. Alltel is still unlimited, but probably not for long.
 
Thanks for the input. I just picked up a Verzion card last night to test. I have 30 days to try it, and return it for a refund (minus usage) no questions asked.

Christopher,
Besides the signal affecting speed, do you notice speed fluctuations based on time of day? (More people online at a certain time, etc)?

My only real other option out in the wood there is satellite, but from what I've been reading, the latency is horrible. Up to a full second in some cases.

I'm not worried about gaming or downloading with this connection, I can still do that at friends and family's houses. Here it's mainly for email, browsing forums, and VPN connections to work in the middle of the night.

FWIW, most of the stuff done over VPN is command line, web GUI, Citrix, and VNC. I've heard some very conflicting things about high latency connections with some VPN tunnels. The one in question is CheckPoint.
 
scoob8000 said:
Christopher,
Besides the signal affecting speed, do you notice speed fluctuations based on time of day? (More people online at a certain time, etc)?
Click to expand...

When I was in Capistrano Beach last week sometime after midnight the cell tower I was associated with would cut out and my card would switch to a distant 1xRTT connection. Slooow.

But those kinds of problems tend to be an exception not a rule. Although to be fair I hardly ever use my EVDO card late at night or early in the morning.

scoob8000 said:
FWIW, most of the stuff done over VPN is command line, web GUI, Citrix, and VNC. I've heard some very conflicting things about high latency connections with some VPN tunnels. The one in question is CheckPoint.
Click to expand...


I use ssh sessions all the time from my EVDO card, over an OpenVPN connection. As long as I'm on a rev-a connection, its nice and snappy.
 
I use Sprint EVDO as my primary connection since nothing else is available. It certainly beats satellite, I can tell you that. DL is around 900, UL is around 450, latency is 100--150ms. Overall I am pleased with the service. Gaming is possible but not optimal.

The 5GB limit is understandable as the service has a very limited amount of bandwidth to share with everyone. Each tower has one or two T1 lines running to it that are shared with all users of that tower. Fortunately I'm lucky enough to get my service from a third-party reseller who does not have a bandwidth limit :D :D but I don't abuse it.
 
I had Sprint EVDO until they moved to a 5GB limit; thankfully I got DSL in my area this year so I went with that instead. It was great while it was still unlimited though.

Living out in a rural area, not exactly the boondocks mind you, I got speeds of about 1200/600 and latencies of 100-150ms. Not bad; definitely more than I was expecting. Far better than the dial-up I was stuck on for a decade. I never tried satellite and didn't want to either.

My connection was fairly stable; I used a USB card with an external antenna and an EVDO router. Sometimes the connection would freeze up and require a reconnection; usually in times of bad weather. Otherwise I could usually stay connected for an entire week.

It worked great for most things aside from gaming. I've only tried to run FPSes on it but the lag was unacceptable. It might work for other games though.

If you've got no other choice (besides dial-up), then it's probably a good choice. Plus, it's mobile! Don't expect to do much more than emailing and web browsing with the 5GB cap though.
 
I'd hate to steer this thread slightly off topic, but is there anyone on this forum that is currently using a satellite connection? Has the technology made any progress in terms of speed? Is it still the next worst connection method compared to dial-up or ISDN (lol, who uses that anymore). I know that latency would still be bad, but is it still as bad as it used to be? Not interested about reliability though, as I would imagine during rainy weather or something you'd get no signal.

I'm just curious about the progress the technology has made in the past decade.
 
I use Cingular/AT&T 3G broadband on my laptop when traveling to and from work everyday on the train (1.5 hour commute each way) using a Type II/III PC Card (Novatel Wireless Merlin U730).

It works fairly well. Consider the fact that I'm frequently moving about when using it, I think you'd get some pretty decent connection if you're stationary.

You won't be getting stellar speed or break any records, but it's a lot faster than dial-up at least lol

Be sure you read your plan carefully like others say. There's often more restrictive rules and clauses attached to mobile broadband connections.
 
So far I've only played with it at work, and I'm seeing a consistant 1.2dn 600up. Full signal with the antenna up.

[EDIT]
Testing at work: Full signal inside, Average 1.2 down 600 up

Testing at home: 2 out of 4 bars inside, Average 140 down 140 up
Outside: Full signal, Average 1.2 down 600 up

This weekend will be the real testing in the "field". Litterly, I'll be in the field with it. :D :D :D
 
Christopher (or anyone else), can you tell me how you configured your EVDO card with OpenVPN. I am trying to connect using Sprints SmartView and once connected if I launch my OpenVPN as usual it disconnects my EVDO connection.
 
GlobalFear said:
Both sprint and verizon have 5gb caps now. Over that and its something like $.49 a meg. Alltel is still unlimited, but probably not for long.
Click to expand...

They have always had 5gb caps, it was just unwritten before. I had friends who had their service discconected way before the 5gb caps were announced because it went over their "quota" and raised red flags for abuse.

Then I had another friend who's contract wasn't set to "unlimited" and he downloaded a starcraft mod/pack (650mb), the bill was hallarious.
 
I have a sprint PCS card and get 2.4mb/s down and 500kb up. This is a Sprint usb aircard (there newest one), I think it's made by sierra. I've been using it as my primary for a week since I moved into my new apartment and the cable people can't get out here. I think the 5GB limit isn't true, as I've already downloaded about 10gb off of it and I can still pull ridiculous speeds. I even watched three baseball games (12 hours of video) with 1.2mb/s feeds. Only thing is the latency sucks (160ms).
 
Ockie said:
They have always had 5gb caps, it was just unwritten before. I had friends who had their service discconected way before the 5gb caps were announced because it went over their "quota" and raised red flags for abuse.

Then I had another friend who's contract wasn't set to "unlimited" and he downloaded a starcraft mod/pack (650mb), the bill was hallarious.
Click to expand...

Generally before everyone changed their policies, you would be cut off at a certain point, throttled, or recieve a nasty phone call with threats of accouunt termination. Now, verizon at least, simply tacks on ridiculous overages without telling you a thing.
 
If you wish to run a network off if it, get the unlimited plan. There are several broadband routers out there which support the EVDO cards as their WAN port..you treat them just like most cable or DSL routers...web interface 'n all. They work OK for smaller offices 'n loads.
 
Boxxman said:
Christopher (or anyone else), can you tell me how you configured your EVDO card with OpenVPN. I am trying to connect using Sprints SmartView and once connected if I launch my OpenVPN as usual it disconnects my EVDO connection.
Click to expand...

I use OpenVPN GUI to launch OpenVPN after starting the EVDO connection: http://openvpn.se/

I've got a openvpn.ovpn configuration file in C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\ that tells OpenVPN what host to connect to, and the SSL certificate to use.

I've never had a problem with it disconnecting my EVDO connection, which is treated by Windows like a dial-up connection
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
If you wish to run a network off if it, get the unlimited plan. There are several broadband routers out there which support the EVDO cards as their WAN port..you treat them just like most cable or DSL routers...web interface 'n all. They work OK for smaller offices 'n loads.
Click to expand...

Who still offers "unlimited" plans? Last I looked into it, everyone but Altel was already capped and they were rumored to follow. Even for large business accounts, from those I've spoken to.
 
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