Travel and mobile hotspots

[TEEB]

First, please be advised I have little knowledge on smartphones. But, my wife has a Sony Ericsson Experia Arc.

She is going for a brief visit to the USA( just north of Seattle)for a few days.

The question is: she want to wireless connect to her smart phone so she can use her Asus laptop. She will send emails and browse the web, facebook etc.
What kind of plan would I need to cover this time. She has a 6GB plan with Rogers in Canada.

Would it be better to buy a usb stick with a us carrier?

Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanx

[glc]

The most economical way to be connected is go find free wifi hotspots and don't even involve the phone. There are plenty to be found. Most hotels offer them, as do McDonald's, Starbucks, Panera Bread, Barnes & Noble, and public libraries.

To use the phone, she would need a "tethering" plan and a USB cable. Tethering plans don't come cheap, and USB sticks aren't cheap either.

[TEEB]

Thanx George. I should have stated that she is into herding dogs and will be in a Motor home in rural areas. Unless the owner has WiFi there is no other choice that I know of. I don't know haw much data she would use but it's quite expensive to use the Canadian carrier plan.

[glc]

If she is in a rural area, there's a good chance there may not be any high speed cellular data service anyway.

[SpywareDr]

Yep, if "Rogers in Canada" doesn't have a cellphone tower covering the "just north of Seattle" area, she's out of luck for any type of direct "Rogers in Canada" service. If ""Rogers in Canada" has a contract with some other cell phone company that has a tower within range, then she might be able to enable and use "roaming" for phone calls.

I have been in many areas in the US where there is no service whatsoever for any of our group. And that includes the largest cell phone companies such as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, etc. The reason is because there simply are not enough potential customers in the area to support the expense of a cell phone tower.