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on Wed 22 of Sep., 2004 12:33 EDT
Cellular High Speed WiFi a hit
For some time now, Verizon has offered wireless connectivity over its
Cellular networks. Previously, it used the RTT network, and for those
that used it, you know that it was an interesting technology but
releative to WiFi? hotspots, it was painfully slow with speeds maxing out at 144kbs. In the past year, Verizon has somewhat quietly rolled out a new parallel
cellular data network called BroadbandAccess
, which offers up to 1Mbs connectivity, in my tests, and reported will go as high as 2Mbs all at a fixed
price of $79.99 a month. We couldn't resist, so many of us here at gotroot
picked up a the cards that support this, the Sierra Wireless
? 5220 1xEV-DO Card documentation and how-tos" href="pc5220" class="wiki ">PC 5220 and gave it a spin. Read on for more about out experiences with these amazing cards.
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Our tests included Windows XP, Windows 2000, Redhat 9 with 2.4 kernels, Redhat 9 with 2.6 kernels and FC 2. In all of the cases, except for a few laptops running Redhat 9 with 2.4 kernels, we experienced no problems with the cards or the service. On some of our test laptops, the USB subsystem in the 2.4 kernels would cause a kernel panic, in an annoyingly random manner, and crash the entire box. So, we upgraded the Redhat 9 machines to a 2.6 kernel, and all was well.
As an aside, setting these cards up on Windows is a breeze, just pop in the CD, click next, next, next and you're done. For Linux, its a little more work. The most important step is that to activate the card you will have to first pop it into a Windows box running the Verizon software, after that, you only need Windows occasionally to install new firmware updates to the card. As for configuring it under Linux, there is an excellent doc by Phil Karn at this URL that explains it all in easy to follow instructions:
As for the service, when you can get a good signal its proved to be suprisingly resiliant in the few areas we've tried out in: Washington DC and New York City. Unfortunately, the high speed broad band service is not available everywhere in the U.S., but Verizon is adding more cities every month, so check with them to see if your city is covered. Should you be in an area where the high speed service is not available, the card will simply fall back to the RTT network. Its better than nothing, if you can't find a hotspot, but the RTT service is painfully slow compared to its higher speed cousin, and woefully inadequate if you're used to WiFi?.
All in all, I can't say enough positive things about this service. The bandwidth is pretty good, considering that you don't need to find a hotspot, and it even works in most of the office buildings that we have tested it in. There are also third party add on antennas that reportedly extend the range of the transceiver and some contend that these antennas will also help you to realize faster speeds on the network, but I can't confirm that. We've just recently gotten our hands on a few of these antennas from a Verizon Rep and are still testing them. At the very least, these antennas do help tremendously with the signal, so if you have weak signal problems get one of the external antennas.
You can find the antennas here:
So, if you're looking for the ultimate in mobile high speed connectivity, we recommend the Verizon High Speed Wireless Broadband service. At $79.99 a month, the price may be a little steep for some, but if you're a really mobile user like me, its a small price to pay for nearly guaranteed high speed connectivity.
