Connection speeds and Coverage
There are 3 tiers of connection speeds:

• 14.4 kbps (maybe 19.2 kbps). This is the only option for analog networks, and it’s a fallback option in pretty much any situation. However, it is quite painful to use for anything beyond email and instant messaging. Each page load is 4-8 minutes.


• 50-120 kbps. (Called 1xRTT for Alltel, Sprint, and Verizon) This is typical digital network speed. It’s like a regular modem or somewhat faster. Pages load in 30-120 seconds.


• 300+ kbps. (Called EV-DO for Alltel, Sprint, and Verizon) This sort of speed is generally only available in large cities. Here are a couple links to get you started: EVDOforums, EVDO Info, and the Verizon list of supported cities.

SprintPCS
With SprintPCS and the PCMCIA AirCard, the only option was the typical digital network speed. Any time I traveled to an area where Sprint was analog-only or roaming, there was no option to connect. I found this to be rather limiting since Sprint’s coverage in the western half of the USA (even only on interstates) is pretty lacking. Many trips I took from Carson City, Nevada to northern Idaho, Colorado, and Kansas were often only occasionally within Sprint coverage. The rest of the time, I had no coverage. I also traveled through Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi and frequently would lose coverage unless on interstates.

When we first started with Sprint 2-3 years ago, connection speeds were always 100-125 kbps up/down. More recently, they were consistently 50-70 kbps up/down. This made me wonder if more people were using the cellular internet feature so Sprint throttled back connection speeds.

Verizon
The number to connect to Verizon’s internet service is #777
Digital (1xRTT/1xEVDO) username: (your-cell-number-here)@vzw3g.net
Digital password: vzw

Quick 2 Net username: qnc
Quick 2 Net password: qnc
NationalAccess uses 1xRTT for a protocol, BroadbandAccess uses 1xEVDO, and Quick 2 Net uses regular CDMA.

After you connect, you should do a speed test to verify what speed your connection is. You can do that at the DSLReports Speed Tests.

Using my Motorola V265 phone, USB kit, and Verizon NationalAccess, I am able to connect to the internet pretty much anywhere and any time that I want. Over the past six months, I’ve traveled from Nevada through (and often, all over) Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Colorado, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana on roads ranging from interstates to backroads. I even was in Jefferson Parish (south of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi) a week after Hurricane Katrina, and I connected to cellular internet whenever I wanted, and the connection was great. I’ve almost never lost coverage, and any time I have anything resembling coverage, I can connect long enough to download and upload my email (as long as it doesn’t have big attachments).

While the coverage is excellent, the speed is extremely variable. Verizon offers 2 ways of connecting to the Internet. The faster and better one is called “NationalAccess,” which is the digital “high speed” connection. The other option is called “Quick 2 Net,” which just provides basic internet access no matter what, and it’s always been 14.4 kbps speeds for me. Unfortunately, I have to be on Verizon’s network in order to use NationalAccess. Alltel and Verizon share customers between their networks, but when connected to Alltel (it shows up as Extended Network), the only option is Quick 2 Net (the slow one). Most of the places I’ve been Alltel locations (much of Kansas, Missouri, and Mississippi) so I had to tolerate 14.4 kbps.

When connected via NationalAccess, the speed still fluctuates depending on location. In some places, I got 120 kbps up/down, in others I got 50 kbps down and 120 kbps up, and in still others I got 70 kbps up/down. It just seems to be the luck of the draw.

Verizon does also have a service called BroadbandAccess, which is supposed to be 300-500 kbps down, but I haven’t used it so I can’t comment on it. It does require a PCMCIA card at the moment, and it’s only available in about 80 metro areas so it doesn’t have nearly the coverage of NationalAccess.

Comments
In this section, I’ll describe my opinions of what using Sprint and Verizon are like.

Verizon is more flexible for connections
Personally, I prefer having coverage no matter what, and so I love Verizon’s service even though much of the time that meant 14.4 kbps speed. Something is better than nothing in my book. I do strongly wish Alltel and Verizon would cooperate even better so the NationalAccess connection/speeds worked.

Verizon also has a very economical connection setup if you get one with unlimited nights and weekends. So just use the internet vary sparingly during the weekdays and save what you need to do until late at night or very early in the morning and on weekends, and it is effectively free. Fast enough, mobile, and basically free (if you already have a cell phone)… what more could you ask for?

Some phones can’t be charged via USB
This is one I got bit by. The Motorola V265 apparently cannot be charged through its USB connection kit. This doesn’t seem like a big deal until you factor in that being online drains the battery. All of a sudden that nearly unlimited night/weekend internet use turns into no more than 2-3 hours at a time due to battery life. Then you’ll have to wait a good hour or more before connecting again. So you have to be extremely careful to charge the battery at every moment possible.

Because some phones do advertise the feature that they can be charged via the USB port, those phones are definitely more valuable than the ones that can’t. I highly recommend making that an important buying decision, even to the point of paying $50-100 more for it. The pain of not connecting due to battery life issues is extremely annoying.

One other note is that I’ve found my phone drains the battery much faster (maybe half a day vs. several days) when connected via the USB kit than when it is just laying down or in my pocket. I don’t know why that is, but it has been annoying because I have to be even more careful to plug the phone into power when not online.

This is one HUGE advantage to a PCMCIA modem (AirCard). It lives off of the laptop’s power and doesn’t have its own battery. I didn’t notice that the SprintPCS AirCard reduced laptop battery life by more than 10-15 minutes, so that wasn’t particularly painful, either.

Set your email to only download the headers
This is something you don’t think about if you’re used to broadband internet, but sometimes people send 1-4 MB files via email. This is extremely time-consuming to download, especially if you’re on the 14.4 kbps connection or you get a lot of email. Also, most email programs do not show progress information for the email they are downloading so you have no idea how long it will take. Since cell internet connections could be rather expensive, this can be quite annoying. Downloading the email headers first will give you an idea of what email to download first, and you can decide whether or not to download larger or less important email later.

Cellular Internet is not a panacea (nor should it be your primary Internet connection)
For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been in Beaumont, TX, having only used the Motorola V265 phone with Verizon NetAccess (thankfully, the fastest speeds do work). Even though my plan is 900 minutes/month with unlimited nights & weekends, I found that I have to be very stingy with my internet use during weekdays. I try to sign on, download my email and load all the pages I’m interested in reading, then sign off and read them, only signing on to download more pages and sign off after they’ve loaded.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful enough and went over my monthly minutes by 52, which cost me an extra $40. That is the danger with cell-phone based internet like this. You have to be extremely careful not to abuse it; the price of failure is very high.

Another downside is disconnects within certain areas of houses. With both Verizon and SprintPCS, sometimes the signal I got was too weak in certain parts of a house so I’d have to move to a different part to connect. This could prove to be frustrating if you aren’t in an area with a strong cell signal.

To be blunt, I never use cell internet if broadband or WiFi signals are nearby. There is just no advantage.

Mobile Internet access is extremely useful
I alluded to this at the very beginning of this article. Having internet access available nearly wherever you are is amazingly useful. One thing I did on the trip from Tupelo, MS to New Orleans was regularly update a blog I made for the journey. In New Orleans, many people had had little communication with the outside world, and I was able to provide them with a phone to call their family or an internet connection to check email or look up information.

Other things I’ve done using cell internet:

• My roommate bought a car on eBay while in the backseat of a car traveling down a highway in Missouri


• On a Thanksgiving road trip the day after I wrecked my car, I was able to locate and price parts that I could use to fix the car.


• Several times, I conversed on the phone with customers about their laptop sales while looking at the orders on the web-based order processing system. It was literally like I was in the office (well, other than occasional dropouts and lower voice quality). I’ve even done that from the passenger seat of a car travelling down the highway.


• Downloaded the OpenOffice.org office suite during a road trip (yep, it took a while)


• And of course, received and sent many emails, ICQs, IMs from many locations.

I can literally take the internet anywhere, and I do.

Conclusion
Cellular internet is awesome. Yes, it’s pricey and fraught with potential headaches, but the benefits are outstanding. It is simply amazing to be able to be just about anywhere… in the mountains, in a car going down the road, and at the ocean… and still have internet access.

From my experience, I know I definitely prefer the option of being able to connect to the internet via analog if a digital signal (or the wrong digital signal) is not available. And if you live or travel in many parts of the western USA, SprintPCS’s coverage is abysmal. So I definitely lean toward Verizon, and having that internet access has saved me more times than I can count.

Just be sure to stay under your minutes or you’ll be signing over your paychecks.