Is a 'real' wireless aircard worth it?

[Big_Dave]

As of late, I find it increasingly difficult to get online while on the road. This is due to the fact that I am spending more time at shippers/receivers instead of being able to get to a truckstop with Wi-Fi for the night like I was able to do dragging a dry van. :wow: :wtf:

I have Flying J's Wi-Fi service and have wireless card capabilities (Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, etc...), but what I wanna know, is it worth the $80 (approx) each month for their unlimited usage??

Lord knows I could use the time spent sitting (after a good nap of course), working online instead of twittling my thumbs and getting PO'd because I'm still sitting there waiting to get loaded. :wow:

I want ALL points of view on this! Not just 'good' or 'bad'.......I wanna know the good, the bad AND the ugly! :wow:

[Moxnix]

Basically Dave it is woth it if thats what you want. To me it would seem kind of high and yet I would be leaning towards it if I was still otr. The cost per month is not that far out of line as to what cable would cost you at home. That would be approx. $50 a month, and I believe that wireless service from Verizon goes for about $60 a month.

[David_Reed]

Dave,

I had the Sprint Merlin C201 air card and I liked it fine. It was in a Dell Laptop that did not have WiFi back in '03. It cost me $80 for unlimited online time with a minor discount as a Landstar BCO.

Today, I have a newer Dell Laptop that came with WiFi built in and also have a Cingular Wireless Card. It is called a GC83 Edge Card by Cingular, but it is a Sony Erickson product. It works well and having both cellular as well as WiFi, I can get online from almost anywhere. I got a $150 rebate on the $180 purchase price at the Cingular store and the service, on special, is only $60 per month, added to my Cingular bill that my phone is on.

Like you envisioned, this allows me to decompress while in situations that would otherwise cause me to chain smoke and get pissed about.

Since I rarely go to the town I live in because I divorced recently, I not only no longer have a wife, but also have no life. I work and live in this truck so I try to make the best of that situation. My time off is spent either in this truck or a motel near a truck stop that meets my standards.

I have a 888-xxx-xxxx eFax number to receive documents I have to have copies of or to send documents after scanning them with my printer/scanner/copier.

Here is another use of the laptop.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 with a 17" display (diagonal) actually it is 9" high and 14" wide. This is also a very well equipped PC as far as processor and RAM and has a DVD-CD burner built in that will also play both.

So my point is, it has a great video card and display quality. But, I don't have room for a TV with the coffee pot and microwave in this Int'l 9400.

I checked at dell.com and I can get a TV-Tuner that connects using one of the 6 USB ports this laptop came with for about $100. Soooooo, when I get the ex to have the DISH account turned back on at the house I signed over to her, I can have one of the receivers she won't be using, put it into the truck, buy a DISH antenna for the truck, then take the output of the receiver, plug it into the laptop and watch FoxNews on the laptop.

Now, we get to the audio.

As I'm sure you know, most laptop speakers are poor for listening to CD's and Videos. Too small and not loud enough.

No problem, most laptops have a headphone jack, but who wants to wear them? Not me.

The signal to a set of headphones is what is know in the audio business as "line level". Cool.

XM (and probably Sirius, also) receivers have a little device that plugs into the Satellite radio unit and on the other end is a cassette that goes in the tape player of your truck radio.

The plug on this device is a male stereo-mini plug. The connection on the laptop just happens to be a female stereo-mini jack.

Voila! A match made in Heaven!

Just get a male stereo-mini to female stereo-mini extension cable off the rack at Best Buy for $6.99 , connect the toys and badaboom-badabing you gots your rocking truck stereo blasing out your Satellite TV, CD, DVD or Internet Streaming Audio tuneage.

You've saved space and bucks.

Of course, if your truck has an in dash CD instead of Cassette, you may want to look at the back of it to see if it has audio inputs.

If it does, chances are they are what are called RCA jacks, like a home stereo. No problem, Radio Shack makes an adaptor that will convert a male mini-stereo to two (L & R) male RCA plugs.

If the in-dash radio does not have any Aux inputs, well, an external set of speakers that can be powered by a very small invertor would be the only option to increase audio quality and not have to wear headsets.

Any questions?

Full Time Company Dweller
Former O/O
(Currently Posing as a Person) :rofl:

[David_Reed]

OOOOoops!

Dave,

I shouldn't have hit that button more than once, but something hung and , oh well, would you mind deleting the dupes' since I seem unable to do so?

TIA

[Admin]

OOOOoops!

Dave,

I shouldn't have hit that button more than once, but something hung and , oh well, would you mind deleting the dupes' since I seem unable to do so?

TIA

DONE ;)
HARRY

[Capt._Chaos]

Dave, I'm using a Verizon Wireless air card that will be costing me $60 for unlimited usage when I move my cell phone service from Cingular to Verizon in about two weeks.

It's been very satisfying to have this air card and be able to use it just about anywhere as a way to pass the time. It will work in almost all of central & southern CA (even on I-40 in ESSEX (middle of the desert :yikes: ). In Wyoming, I can even park out in BFE and it works!

Air cards are notably more secure than Wi-Fi, and being on the road, I use my laptop for paying some bills online.

With Verizon, the service in Broadband areas is AWESOME, with a very fast connection & upload speed.

I'm not sure if the Verizon card would work at your house Dave, but mine worked fine when I was staying at the Super 8 Motel in Glencoe, MN a few months ago. It also worked great at MagicMan & Kathy's place (much to his surprise!).

In a nutshell, the flexibility to be able to go online almost anywhere has been great, and worth the $80/month. It's all I use now, even when I go home.

[HSLD]

I checked at dell.com and I can get a TV-Tuner that connects using one of the 6 USB ports this laptop came with for about $100. Soooooo, when I get the ex to have the DISH account turned back on at the house I signed over to her, I can have one of the receivers she won't be using, put it into the truck, buy a DISH antenna for the truck, then take the output of the receiver, plug it into the laptop and watch FoxNews on the laptop.



Full Time Company Dweller
Former O/O
(Currently Posing as a Person) :rofl:

Before you go spending a $100, look at cyberguys and Fry Electronics. Both have all kinds of neat little gadgets for video, audio, electronics and computers. All are priced very reasonably at both companies. Just put either name in a search engine.

v/r

HSLD

[Mark-the-Spark]

Dave, I've had the ATT (now Cingular) service for over a year, and it has worked well overall (key word is 'overall'). I've switched my phone service to Verizon due to local coverage issues and will soon be switching the data service to them as well. Overall I've had good nationwide cell coverage with Verizon over the past month so I expect the data coverage to be the same.

THE GOOD:
You can get online without being tethered to a truck stop, which does reduce the stress factor when twiddling your thumbs at a customer.
If you have a Cingular cell phone, you can get thier service for $60 instead of $80. Ditto for Verizon. Dunno about Splint :rofl:

THE BAD:
The speed will usually be slower... noticeably slower. Perhaps twice as fast as dial-up with a good signal, but not solid Wi-Fi quality (altho some Wi-Fi locations are rather shabby in the speed department). Both major companies are ramping up high speed locations, but they will be in major metro areas.

You will find dead spots, and/or places where the signal is so weak it is too slow to use.

THE UGLY:
You'll probably have to pop at least $100 for the card.

SO, THE QUESTION IS... do you feel lucky? Well, do ya? :)