Well I finally took the plunge and got a new laptop to replace my old coffee grinder laptop. I wanted mobility with a very small convenient size and plenty of power. I also wanted a mobile broadband connection after studying it for a year now.

I decided on a Toshiba 12" with a Duo Core 2ghz processor and 2 gig of RAM, 160 Gig hardrive. http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?seg=HHO&poid=359960

I also went with Verizon Broadband service which I'm using this morning.

What all this means is I now have a very portable laptop (as opposed to my old heavy, bulky one) that I can access the internet in most any populated area while in my car, or hotel room or most anywhere. Now retrieving a map or looking up phone numbers, locating businesses (read that gunstores in unfamiliar cities), email, shopping, and even accessing this bbs, are all very convenient. I'm just starting to use it this morning.

Congratulations on your new machine! It's really nice to have when you travel. I used the Verizon connection thru my cellphone last summer with a laptop, and it was great to be able to connect to the web anytime. Sounds like you'd be lost without computer access? Me too! Good luck with your new toy. Joe

Chuck, I have used the same card in my laptop for the last year or so. Here on the edge of Chicago's sprawl I get up to 1.3MBPS.....nearly T1 data speeds. I gave up the home data connection when I got it.....along with the 500 channels of nothing!

Is nice on the hour long train ride to and fro the job. Hope you enjoy it.

Best,
Mark

Yeah, I'm thinking I have that 'E'ddiction thing I heard about on the radio yesterday.

So far, at my house, the data rate seems slower than my WiFi (wireless house network, for you guys that aren't into all this). But, I haven't tried it anywhere else. I'll find out more about data rate later, I'm sure.

My wife's laptop runs on a Linksys wireless router at home and I have been able to connect up at hotels that have wireless connectins advertised. How is what you bought different?

Where do you get your signal from when you are on the road?

Milt,
I bought, essentially, a cellular phone card that can connect anywhere they provide cellular internet service in the country. It's not everywhere a cellphone can connect, nearly, and pretty prevalent and in all major population areas. In the major population areas, it has "broadband" service at the highest data rate, and then in less populated areas it drops down to a lower data rate similar to dial-up speeds.

Checkout their coverage map at this link. http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store...1&catId=409

BTW, my company has a corporate plan with Verizon that gets this service for $49 instead of the $79 shown. That discount just came down from $59 which was part of my decision.

builder,
Oh Oh I know, I know! *waves hand in the air wildly*
It's a card that plugs into your PC that uses the cell-phone network to connect your PC to the internet. It creates a pair of bonded cell phone links to provide the functional equivalent of a 128K connection. Packet compression helps make the link more efficent. I worked on the quality of service design to support this feature for one of the major wireless carriers, I can't mention their name but the initials are Verizon Wireless.

Very subtle, Yeti. I think I saw you behind all those guys in the commercial. Thanks. When this weather breaks, we need to go to Hudson Valley to shoot a few orange birds. I promise not to have a gun in my hands when I wave wildly in the air.

Chuck,
When I retire, I need one of those for an RV to travel across the country and not miss any gun stores! Eight bucks a month works for me. What a convenience!

One of my companies builds cell phone sites. I think you should all get one of these cellular broadband services. It is good for business and I need more guns. Thanks Chuck. Use it often.

Bill G.

OK. I am kind of ignorant about this stuff so clue me in if you will, guys. If you have a laptop in your car or camper, where do you get the power to run them? Do they run off of the cigarette lighter or are they battery powered? And do they work just like a cell phone? If you get to a motel, can you plug them into a phone outlet? I always kind of wanted one but I never knew how they operated.

Jimmy,
Yeti's the E guy but I'll try to do my best to explain.

Basically, this card fits in the PC slot of a laptop. The card is essentially a cellphone for data. It runs off the computer's power. The laptop has onboard batteries to power it and the PC card for the cellular internet connection.

Laptops can run from their onboard battery packs, which are removeable like a M-14 magazine (I know you know how that works), so you can have spares. Or, you can plug a laptop into a wallsocket for power and recharging the battery. You can also purchase aftermarket devices to power the laptop from a cigarette lighter plug.

With this setup, you can be completely cordless for the duration of the battery power which is usually a couple hours or more depending on a lot of things. The cellular PC card internet connection is the piece that makes the laptop truly wireless. You can be traveling in a new city and look up phone numbers, addresses, businesses, hook a GPS moving map talking system to it, and never have to look for a phone booth with a phonebook in it again.

Now don't go throwing that Zip drive out, I hear the Smithsonian is looking for one for their computer section.

PS Jimmy,
You don't need to plug them into a phone jack.

Jimmy,
Dial up(phone jack)is dying (or dead) technology!

I haven't had the time to surf the net much with the Verizon Wireless Broadband connection yet. But, my coworker has my laptop on his desk all day today to eval the Wireless Broadband connection and give my a report at the days end. He's considering it for his primary internet connection.

After using it a bit, I see the broadband connection works well most of the time. During peak hours for internet use it slows down just like other net access services.

I'm using it now and it flys pretty well.

I signed up for a year of the broadband service just to keep Bill G. employed and in-the-guns. But, in a year the technology may increase the service speed also. It's much better than dial-up, but not a match for DSL or Cable.