I use a Sprint Palm 700p with the $40 unlimited data tethering plan. No hassles and great coverage even in the backcountry.

I have Verizon and have had no problems with the 5Gb monthly limit. I travel extensively and send/receive lots of documents and PowerPoint presentations and have never come close to 5Gb/month. If you send/receive lots of audio or video flies YMMV. I've had excellent reception everywhere and am saving lots of $$ compared to those pesky $10/day hotel and airport WiFi access charges. Plus there's nothing like firing up the laptop and connecting to the Internet when I'm on a 2 or 3 hour ground hold in the plane!

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at them, but Sprint’s coverage maps on their website have always been conservative.

Sprint has been slowly rolling out EVDO to more rural parts of the country; occasionally I even latch onto a Rev A signal.

AND, Sprint roams on Verizon for EVDO coverage, at least their phones do. Can't imagine why the cards would be differant.

I switched to ATT two months ago and have been quite happy. I got an ATT 8525 and signed up for the $40/month PDA Personal Unlimited data plan. I have used the phone and data feature extensively here in the SFO Bay area as well as ABQ, PHL, and ACY. One of the reasons I went with ATT is that they (and T-Mobile) are GSM so I can use the phone on my trips to Germany and the Philippines with a mere change of SIM cards.

Sprint. $51 a month and great coverage.

The ATT8525(aka HTC TyTN) is a GSM/UMTS device which means that it can truly roam throughout the world, unlike quad band GSM phones which cannot roam in South Korea or Japan which are UMTS only countries.

I use the Sierra Wireless Aircard 875 which is Quad-band GSM(850/900/1800/1900) and Tri-band UMTS(850/1900/2100Mhz). This card allows me to have access to data throughout the world and in most countries at fairly fast speeds.

Dan

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D052; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

in the northeast US, Verizon works great. I use my 700p, teathered to my macbook pro and get pretty good speeds.
I get full coverage on the train from Boston to New York with is impressive.

Granted, with ATT I do go from 3G(UMTS) areas to 2.5G(EDGE) areas somewhat frequently while on the train, but, on the whole the service is improving.

Supposedly AMTRAK is working with T-Mobile to provide Wifi along the rails(I assume for a fee) for their Northeast Corridor Passengers. While I think that it might be too little to late as more and more pax are using mobile broadband cards, it will ad an additional selling point for AMTRAK.

My last AMTRAK trip, I counted 38 mobile broadband cards in just my Acela car alone and 5 or 6 of them belonged to families using it for AOL and stuff like that.

Dan

I use Verizon b/c it's what my company uses. I think it's higher priced, but service is good (except for at my house :()

OK guys, the IT dept at the office are convinced and they are all GOING BACK.

Now then, the question has come to me, what is the best model unit to get instead. I'm speaking hardware not service here as our long-term contract is with Vodafone. Hopefully I will get a test unit to try out first.

A few HSDPA modems are field firmware upgradeable to the 7.2Mbps standard, the Sierra Wireless Aircard 875 comes to mind.

In the states we are still at 1.8Mbps and quite honestly, I am very pleased with the speeds that I am capable of receiving. However, I should add that supposedly ATT is going to upgrade their network to the 3.6Mbps standard sometime soon, which represents a huge boost in the wireless broadband market here in the states.

With regards to the Huawei, I played with it a few times and it was nothing but headaches each and every time.

Dan

I use Verizon broadband with a Novatel PCI Express card. I have been very pleased with the coverage. EVDO Rev A (higher speed) service seems to be rolling out pretty broadly these days. If you have/get Verizon service, call their 800 number to have them help you setup a manual connection so that you can avoid using the slow and clumsy "VZ Access Manager" software. With a manually created dial icon, I can connect to broadband service about 10 seconds after inserting the card, which is sweet!

That said, I'm not delighted with Verizon. The excellent coverage is a huge factor for me, but incidental talks I've had with broadband experts indicates that Sprint coverage is pretty similar. Sprint doesn't require a Sprint phone plan for their $59/month rate, but Verizon does. I don't like my data contract being tied to my Verizon phone plan. It makes me want to leave.

From what I've read, the Verizon 5GB / month thing seems to be arbitrarily applied. Some people have had their contracts canceled by Verizon, others haven't had a problem going over 5GB. I don't stream enough media or download enough, ahem, "content" for this to matter to me.

Verizon's push for stupid consumer features (Get it Now! Picture Messaging! Download Songs!) tells me, the business traveler, where their priorities lie. When I asked a Verizon rep why they disable bluetooth data transfer on phones, he said "Security. Bluetooth viruses!" To which I replied, "If you're concerned about viruses, I sure hope that Treo doesn't send or receive email!"

Verizon refuses to leave the 1990s and enter the GSM world, but when I asked an AT&T rep about using the AT&T GSM card overseas, it sounded like I'd need a lot of money and a lot of "status" with AT&T to permit it.

So, who here is a Sprint employee that will refer me so I can switch to one of those plans?

Does it have to be USB? If it can be PCMCIA/Expresscard then absolutely go for the NovAtel XU870. The card rocks and works in PCMCIA slots with an adapter. Then, when you upgrade to Expresscard you toss the adapter and are set. No upgrading!

HTTP://www.fatwallet.com. There's a HUGE thread on SERO.