Last Updated on December 4, 2019 by Christopher G Mendla
The earthlink wireless was still down. I’m not sure what the problem really was but the constant downtime and resulting support calls was getting tiring.
I wandered over to our local friendly RadioShack. They had a Sierra Aircard for about $80 after rebate. The nice thing was that they had a special on the unlimited broadband service for about $60/month with a 2 year contract with Sprint. The cheaper, limited plan only offered 40 MB per month.
With all of the software bloat today, it appeared prudent to take the $60 plan. That is $40 more a month than I was paying. However, I will now have a lot more flexibility with my laptop. Also, it could pay for itself on trips. The average hotel charges about $10 per day for broadband internet. If you ‘bring your own” cellular, you can avoid that charge. Sprint’s coverage map shows that the coverage is extremely good. However, if you visit an out of the way location, you might not have service.
The card itself is USB based. If your USB slots are vertical, you should use the ‘docking station’. So far, the card has been working great. Supposedly, if you are in an area where the data service is unavailable, the card will try to use the voice systems it finds.
We’ll post more updates on this as we put it through it’s paces. So far though, so good.