My BF doesn't have (and doesn't want) a landline or cable. He does need Internet access, though. My thought was to get a wireless card with Verizon broadband service. However, he has a Mac, and those cards apparently don't work with Macs. What other options are out there? (He lives in Philadelphia, if that helps.)

It depends. If he has OSX 10.4 and up (Tiger and up), newer macs, he can use this.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...edPhoneId=2407

There is a slot in there. I think you should stop by a Mac Store and see someone there...

Philly has free city-wide wifi right? Why not just use that if he can get it.

OS X does, in fact, include drivers for 3G expresscard cards. Verizon may not offically support OS X at the moment, but it should still work.
Personally, I prefer sprint. Its basically the same technology, but I find sprint to be a bit faster.

check out http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/secr...emac/index.php

The hard part is the expense. He should be able to get cable internet for about $30/month. He could also look into FiOS (fiber optic service) which is blazing fast and not much more than $30/month. Any wireless broadband is going to be a fraction of the speed and $60 - $80 /month.

They may claim 2 mbs but in reality it clocks in around 500kbs and maybe peaks around 1.6mbs at times.... most cable connections are 6mbs or higher. FiOS is b/t 15mbs - 30mbs.

The numbers may not mean a lot, but its the difference b/t watching youtube videos on demand and waiting as long as 10 mins for one to load.... and you can forget about downloading movies from itunes or anything....Sprint and Verizon may say unlimited, but when you start moving several gigs a day they are going to pull the plug.

Hmm, I generally get around 1 - 1.5Mbps on my Sprint EV-DO card unless I'm in a busy area like an airport. Theoretical throughput is 2.4Mbps, so it seems they just allocate a DS1 channel for IP services. Then again I haven't used my EV-DO card since May. Perhaps they're throttling more and/or there are many more users now. I'll be reactivating it in a week so I guess I'll find out.

But yeah, if you're using it as your primary connection and doing more than web browsing, your provider might not be so happy. There have been a couple times in the past where I pulled down maybe 10GB in a month and Sprint didn't say anything though. But I didn't make a regular habit of it. If the OP's boyfriend plans any serious net usage, 3G data services are not the way to go.

Best part of Sprint over Verizon for me: $5.95/mo "vacation hold" when I'm out of the country for a while.

I prefer Sprint for data as well. I've had Verizon since they turned on their 1xRTT network. Sprint always rolls out their network features/upgrades later, but leapfrogs Verizon in quality and footprint. Note that this is the reverse of my experience with voice! I turned off my VZW card as I never use it. I've never been anyplace it would work where Sprint wouldn't!

This device looks quite interesting and has gotten good reviews but I have no personal experience with it. It works with Intel and PowerPC macs as well as PCs, IMO this is the way to go. He could do bluetooth via cellphone tethering but IMO Bluetooth is slow and not as reliable as this would be.

Thanks very much, gang. I will put the various options you mentioned in front of him and see what might work. Sprint's solution might be good--he is not planning to do massive downloads (he can come to my house and use my DSL for that!), just basic web and e-mail usage. We have briefly tested the Bluetooth-via-cellphone thing via my Treo, but it didn't work at all and I don't think this is really a viable option.

The Philadelphia city-wide wi-fi thing is still a gleam in Mayor Street's eye at this point. It is nowhere near functional, unfortunately. I give it a minimum of 3-4 years before it's up and running, based on the length of time it's taken just to get to the idea stage.