Travel Technology - Which Wireless Broadband Provider?

I live in NY and can choose among the big three: Vzw, T, and Sprint.

Will use it mostly in NY, and at airports throughout the country.

Also do a fair amount of international travel, and would love to have decent roaming rates.

Don't envision a huge amount of use overall.

Any favorites?

TMobile's 3g network is too nascent to be useful to someone traveling all around the country.

Verizon has a package with 200 megs of roaming data for use in select foreign countries for $219 a month:

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/08/04/verizon-atandt-retool-international-data-plans-still-heart-stopp/

What I recommend is a Verizon MVNO Millenicom which Verizon's data for ten to fifteen dollars less than Verizon charges, no contract, and no 5 gig cap.

http://www.acun.com/

Instead of popping for an international data roaming plan, check out ATT's premier wifi service for $19.99 a month which gives you wifi roaming on the iPass network at half what iPass charges. This gives you access in a ton of the world's airports, many hotels, Starbucks, train stations, etc. This does mean that you may not get coverage in your European hotel room, but you'll probably have it within a quarter of a mile of the hotel:

http://attwifi.know-where.com/attwifi/cgi/index?design=default

Note other than wifi, I've avoided discussing ATT because I presume that you believe that they are generally not an appropriate carrier for your circumstances.

Stu

PS: After posting this message, I've noted that your common haunts include London (as well as Sydney). Three (at least in the UK) has great prepaid 3g data rates. Buy an unlocked 3g modem and buy a Three prepaid card off the net. Here is their offer.

http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/Pay_As_You_Go

By the way, look on this forum about a 3g data card. There is a great deal on an unlocked Option 3g data card with 2100mhz HSDPA (maybe HSPA) for $99.

I live in NY and can choose among the big three: Vzw, T, and Sprint.



I think you mean VZW, AT&T and Sprint. T-Miserable is not in the same league.

I think you mean VZW, AT&T and Sprint. T-Miserable is not in the same league.

Neither is AT&T - their 3G is so overloaded that it borders on useless.

When T-Mobile has 3G coverage, it is pretty decent, but as the previous poster said, it is still way too spotty.

The iPhone has definitely been a mixed blessing for ATT.

When I looked in to this a while back, Sprint and Verizon were the clear winners.

Not sure about 3G roaming with Verizon. EVDO is not the same as the GSM 3G standard used in much of the rest of the world.

Thanks. So Sprint or Verizon it is.

Now which one to choose?

WiFi is out, eliminates the point for me.

I primarily need it to work FAST and reasonably well-priced in the US, and not to be outrageous with roaming fees outside of the country. Of course, good coverage is imperative.

When I looked in to this a while back, Sprint and Verizon were the clear winners.

Not sure about 3G roaming with Verizon. EVDO is not the same as the GSM 3G standard used in much of the rest of the world.

Verizon offers a hybrid adapter for international travelers that is EVDO in the US and HSDPA in Europe. The product is co-branded with Vodafone who has a 40% ownership interest in Verizon. If you are a "tea leaf reader," it looks like the two sibling companies are pursuing a convergence on the LTE platform once 4g starts coming out. If Verizon can join the Vodafone "passport service," Verizon will have a global winer that will seriously harm the two national US GSM providers.

I'm know expert on Sprint, but their website sure implies that the only data options for Europe is pay by the meg:

http://www.nextel.com/en/services/worldwide/travelabroad_sprint.shtml

The do sell an HSDPA data card (the Sierra 881u) for European roaming, but they don't seem to sell any packages that include European megabytes.

Eliminating ATT and WiFi options, Verizon seems to be your only choice. (As noted before, you might be able to get a data package from Three UK to cover England and Oz, but I presume that is out as well).