Cingular (Now AT&T)

What we ended up doing last year was to sign up for an unlimited Cingular (now AT&T again) data connection. This costs us $60 a month on a 2 year contract. What we got in hardware is a little card with an antenna that slips into the side of the laptop. It generally worked very well and we didn't have to worry about hotspots. We went around the US and the only spotty coverage was going through Montana and the Dakotas. Basically we could get reliable service anywhere we could get cell service and sometimes even where the voice service was spotty. The speed was OK everywhere (always faster than dialup) and near major built-up areas it gets much faster. In fact when we got home we disconnected our internet cable service and just use this. There are other ways to go also. I have seen cell phones connected to the laptop that do the same thing. They may also have cheaper plans for this. We downloaded updated software for the card and found that it improved the service. I have seen routers advertised which you can insert the card into and then you could use the Cingular service for all the computers in your house. But we haven't tried that yet. Thanks, Don