Who uses aircards with their T series?

[anthony]

Any preferences, thoughts.? And work better with Thinkpads, any to look out for?

[jdhurst]

What kind of air cards? And I don't think any given card would work better with a ThinkPad than any other machine. I use the IBM 11 a/b/g card and the Sony Ericsson wireless card in my T41. ... JD Hurst

[anthony]

I was under the impression that the internal wireless worked on LANs and home wireless networks, but to get onto the internet from places that did not have Wifi or away from your own internal network, you needed an aircard and an account with a carrier. Is this not correct?

[boilermakerinatl]

Anthony, I think you're referring to something like the Sony GC83 EDGE card. The service is through Cingular, with unlimited access for $79.99 a month. I have been looking at these as well. Kind of curouis if it would be a good replacement for my DSL and phone line. Anyone have these and want to comment?

[jdhurst]

I was under the impression that the internal wireless worked on LANs and home wireless networks, but to get onto the internet from places that did not have Wifi or away from your own internal network, you needed an aircard and an account with a carrier. Is this not correct?

Yes - the Sony Ericsson I have is just such a card. I use GC82. It is not a replacement for broadband, so I have broadband as well. ... JD Hurst

[no_man]

Highly recommend the KPC650 aircard. I use Kyocera KPC650, a very fast aircard, with Verizon unlimited Broadband. Works seamlessly in my IBM Thinkpads and corporate Dell Latitude.

[davidb]

A friend has the Verizon pccard, which works quite well, as they cruise the east coast. $79./mo
I bought the Palm Treo 650 (Verizon) and, after buying a software program called PDANet for $20., now connect the phone as a modem via blue tooth or cable to the T42p and it works beautifully, for $40./mo unlimited. Some carriers (Sprint?) have activated the DUN part of their version of the Treo, but others need to use PDANet or a patch by Shadowmite, which I tried but couldn't get to work.
Speed is double or slightly better than the best dial-up I ever got and quite reasonable for normal email, etc. It actually works!
David

[skid]

I assume the Verizon card is using cellular phone radio frequency.
Nextel offers a similar service which can be accessed using one of their PCMCIA adaptors or a data capable cell phone. DSL is not available in my area (and probably never will be) and Dial up is limited to about 17k, so I used the Nextel service with my T20 until finding a Wireless Broadband ISP. The service was about 2X faster than my dial up (meaning it was about average dial up speed)

[GomJabbar]

I assume the Verizon card is using cellular phone radio frequency.
Nextel offers a similar service which can be accessed using one of their PCMCIA adaptors or a data capable cell phone. DSL is not available in my area (and probably never will be) and Dial up is limited to about 17k, so I used the Nextel service with my T20 until finding a Wireless Broadband ISP. The service was about 2X faster than my dial up (meaning it was about average dial up speed)

I had Nextel's service before, and I can say that Verizon's aircard is light years ahead on speed. They offer a couple of different types of service depending upon your location and type of card you use. One is up to 1.5 Mbs, but is only available in certain cities. But the other one is still quite fast, probably an order of magnitude over Nextel's service.

Right now, I personally use Cingular's EDGE data card service. I'm not too sure I made the best choice. But it is quite a bit faster than Nextel's service I had before. Of course now Nextel is merged with Sprint, so you have Sprint's offerings (or soon will have). Sprint uses some of the same technology as Verizon.

[skid]

Guess I should clarify that I am not promoting Nextel service, just responding to the above request. There are also a few other issues:

1. $80 per month for a connection the speed of dial up is a little steep.

2. The service does not include an email account, but an email address is required to use the service.

3. While in Modem mode, Incoming calls would sometimes drop the connection, other times the attempted call would not be reported.

-But it was still better than 17k

[davidb]

If you use the Treo 650 as your modem for iyour notebook, t's $40./mo unlimited and it's a little over 2x faster than the best dial-up I've ever gotten, i.e. I've never really gotten 50k with dial-up. Of course you have to buy the Treo 650....

[jdhurst]

I pay about $50 Cdn for 15Mb monthly for the Sony Ericsson GC82 card and Rogers wireless service. This gives me about 100K (i.e., about double the speed of dial-up). Good in a remote situation (which occurs frequently for me), but a bit pricey for every day use. ... JD Hurst

[Puttagee]

I pay about $50 Cdn for 15Mb monthly for the Sony Ericsson GC82 card and Rogers wireless service. This gives me about 100K (i.e., about double the speed of dial-up). Good in a remote situation (which occurs frequently for me), but a bit pricey for every day use. ... JD Hurst

I've been looking for a solution, mainly a cell phone that I can use as a modem, I'm looking at bluetooth enabled phones so I don't have to walk around with cables. Going through this forum I stumbled on to this. Any reason why you are using the GC82 (Rogers)? Bell uses the Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 with a cost of $25 per month for 4 MB, for $50 you get 10MB. Supposedly they go upwards of 86K, that's what Bell says anyways.
Any comments would be appreciated.

[cws]

Nokia 6230 , may be a litte bit old but works greate with IrDA/Bluetooth + EDGE/GPRS. If
you add a MMC card , it also work acceptable as a MP3 player.

[jdhurst]

<snip>I've been looking for a solution, mainly a cell phone that I can use as a modem, I'm looking at bluetooth enabled phones so I don't have to walk around with cables. Going through this forum I stumbled on to this. Any reason why you are using the GC82 (Rogers)? Bell uses the Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 with a cost of $25 per month for 4 MB, for $50 you get 10MB. Supposedly they go upwards of 86K, that's what Bell says anyways.
Any comments would be appreciated.

When I pushed Bell, they said (admitted) it would be a long shot to get 86K on a regular basis. I get 100K with the Sony Ericsson card most places, so I see it as a better card. I had a Sierra Wireless (from Rogers) before, and it was a poor performer. I have also tried phones, and they have always been slower.

[Puttagee]

JD Hurst,
Seems you have to be an existing rogers customer to get this service, I'm with Bell.

[levimax]

I have the Cingular service with the Sony/Ericson GC83 card and am very happy with it but it certainly is not for everyone.

1. $80.00 per month for 125Kps service (certainly not DSL replacement!) is expensive unless you need access on the road and don't have time to find the nearest Starbucks or Kinkos.

2. Getting less than the $80.00 per month "unlimited" service can be very expensive. One e-mail with a big attachment or one "windows automatic download" and you are over your limit and "additional minutes" are extremely expensive.

3. It is a great "backup" for your regular internet service while in the office and your internet connection is down for what ever reason.