I've gotten Internet on my computer in four ways:

- Via the IPass service, which uses a piece of software on my laptop and an account (paid for by my company); it detects wifi networks in range and has agreements with most major providers, allowing me to log on without having agreements with each separately. Very convenient, but I've heard it can be pricey per minute.

- Via my Verizon Broadband Card. Usually reasonably nice speeds in major metropolitan areas, and surprisingly even some access in very remote locations in the U.S. Doesn't work overseas, though.

- For overseas, I have borrowed a Cingular Sierra Aircard. Maybe it's just my bad luck or computer config or whatever, but even in major cities (like London), this CRAWLS. Seems like 3-5K per second... just miserable, worse than dialup speeds.

- I just started using my Blackberry as a modem (tethered via the same USB cable that comes with the device for sync'ing). Sometimes very fast speeds, but sometimes also horrible slow speeds. Seems to depend more on where I am within a building (e.g. in a room with poor cell phone reception) rather than on what city I'm in. I learned, somewhat to my horror, that T-Mobile charges about $15/meg for non-E-mail data access when roaming in Europe. Ouch!