Air cards - Montana Owners Club

SUBSAILOR · 11-21-2007, 05:45 AM

Has anyone used the AT&T air card? We've only talked to people that have Verizon. We are debating on which to get???
Thanks
SubSailor

Bob & Lee · 11-21-2007, 06:49 AM

I have the ATT card and really like it, we had it prior to the 3G coming to Colorado and it was good but now it is super fast. we also have two phones on ATT. have had great luck with being able to keep connected in most places we travel, there are as with any company dead spots in the canyons and such and we move around and get a signal. we had nextel and it was bad no signal from colorado boarder to salina Ks, so we droped them about two years ago and have been happy with ATT/cingular w/rollover min.and unlimited internet. If you are affilited with the Gov. or some companies you get 16% discount every month..

adelmoll · 11-21-2007, 07:23 AM

Bill had the Cingular (AT&T) card and I had the Verizon.. I had good service 95% of the time while he only had service about 70%. He now has Verizon air card but kept the At&T cell phone... That has worked well for him.

Helen

AZCampinfool · 11-21-2007, 02:10 PM

I use Sprint and it has worked great so far. I was told that Sprint has better roaming agreements if you are going to be doing a lot of traveling so I went with them. Not sure if that is true or not, but I do like the service so far.

sailer · 11-21-2007, 02:50 PM

You can get a x ternal antenna to add to the air card as i am putting it on in jan or feb some time .. found a place in fl and the sister co in nc to buy it from as also it will work at the lake in wisconsin ,, which is near the green bay packers

Verle and Sue · 11-22-2007, 05:19 AM

We have 2 Cingular/ATT air cards, one in the laptop--which worked so much better than our Hughes Sattelite (we live in the middle of a corn field and also travel, LOL) that Verle decided to get one in his PC. We have had some problems with the new one (different type of card, but IL towers were being upgraded, so chalked it up to that). We were wrong, apparently the air card was bad (not the sim chip, just the sim chip holder part), so ATT sent us a new one. Our aircards work so much better/faster/more reliably than Hughes we dropped Hughes and just use the air cards, even at home. Sue and Verle Castle

VanMan · 11-25-2007, 04:52 AM

I just recently got an ATT aircard - pretty impressive. The card was free after rebate, my company discount is 20% off on the service with no activation fee. I'm going to drop my ISP ($20+/mo.) and use a free e-mail (GoogleMail, Hotmail, etc). Our stick house is right on the fringe of a good signal, so sometimes I lose it. I'll probably eventually put an outside antenna (magnetic on our metal roof). With retirement in January, we'll find out about the performance while travelling.

DonandJudy_12 · 11-25-2007, 02:43 PM

We just got the Verizon air card (USB). So far, so good, I have a months free trial. Of course we like it. Haven't been too many places we wouldn't have coverage yet. Yuma, Wellton, and Apache Junction, AZ. We were able to use it in Strawberry, AZ (15 miles north of Payson - in the mountains), that is our only test. Will keep you posted. I am interested in a router, so both Don and I can use our laptops, he can be on MOC for 5 hours sometimes, and I would like to get on myself, also! Judy

Alex Sian · 11-25-2007, 03:03 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by DonandJudy_12

We just got the Verizon air card (USB)....
I am interested in a router, so both Don and I can use our laptops

judy, which verizon usb modem did you get?
if its the usb720/727, it will work great with the tiny CTR350 router shown below.

2 Sinks · 11-26-2007, 02:19 AM

I got the Sprint U727 usb model with flip up antenna.The cord is aprox 16" long and will hook on top of your screen or wherever you prefer to locate it.Sprint told me it will roam off of any carriers tower and the roaming is free.So far so good,it has roamed & worked super fast in some Verizon only areas (Virginia & N.C. mountains) and picked up the signal and locks it into memory as long as your in the area.It also displays a box when other providers signals are in an area.Click on the box and the choice is yours.

Philip
07 336RLT Mountaineer 5ver
06 Dodge 2500 HD 4x4 Cummins Diesel

Driftwoodgal · 11-26-2007, 04:10 AM

Subsailor,

We have the AT&T aircard and are very pleased with it. We have unlimited minutes on our card and use it for hours at a time without being kicked off. We had great coverage from our trip from Texas to Tennesse. We also have AT&T cell phones and have used them in lots of states and haven't had any coverage problem. My thinking is that if we have had good coverage with our phones, we will have coverage for the air card.

Colleen

SUBSAILOR · 11-28-2007, 06:23 AM

Thanks so much for the info. Guess we'll go with the AT&T card, since we have cells with them. Probably get a better deal.

sreigle · 12-14-2007, 06:00 PM

Our phone is Cingular and we're very happy with it. However, we went with the Verizon aircard after hearing so many bad reports about the Cingular/ATT aircard from friends. I have no firsthand experience with that card, though. We're very happy with the Verizon card and the Cingular phone.

Verizon's monthly aircard service cost is now the same whether you have Verizon phone service or not. It used to cost more if you did not have their phone service. But no more.

Cyrus · 12-15-2007, 12:14 AM

With my laptop I had wireless service for camping when it was available but we camped at places it was not available or only in certain spots. We moved into our new home this year. We had used dialup for years but the speed at our new home was unacceptable. In our photograph business I had to have internet access to transfer files and review prints online. I bought the Verizon Aircard but did have some concern because cell phone reception is not that good here at the house.

The aircard was a huge improvement in internet speed. We were only connecting on National Access running at beast 200MB but after years of landline speeds it was great. Using it camping I got on at Broadband speeds which are really great even though the speed seems to be area dependent with the fastest I have seen being 1200MB.

We have just started getting Broadband here at the house I am running over 500MB. I am happy with the Verizon card and it works at most of the places we go even if only on National Access which is plenty fast for most things we do on the computer.

sreigle · 12-19-2007, 04:12 PM

Cyrus, Verizon does not yet have broadband for the aircard in all areas of the country. But they are expanding pretty rapidly, or so they say. We've been surprised how many areas we do have broadband access. In other areas it is slower but still far better than dialup. We have a 3-watt booster on ours and have had usable service even when the signal strength was as low as 3 out of 31.

This park has wifi for $$$ so we're both using our aircard on a router as I write this. At broadband speed in Benson, AZ.

tbhd2 · 12-19-2007, 05:01 PM

We had the AT&T air card and had problems with it right from the start. It just wouldn't work. Don't know if it was defective or not. We took it back and now have a Verizon card and it works very well. We have AT&T cell phones and have had no problems with those but the air card just wouldn't work. We called tech support and they would tell us there was no service where we were. But their cell phones had service. We were near Glenn & Lorraine in Montana this summer and their Verizon worked good. So we now have a Verizon.

richfaa · 12-20-2007, 01:12 AM

Verizon aircard users..try this..it helped.

http://www2.verizon.net/help/fios_settings/optimizer/

Alex Sian · 12-20-2007, 06:25 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

Verizon aircard users..try this..it helped.

http://www2.verizon.net/help/fios_settings/optimizer/

rich, can you elaborate? what does it help? and how?

richfaa · 01-20-2008, 11:43 AM

It sets various settings in the computer to obtain maximum throughput. Check with your tech staff and they can go into detail.

sreigle · 01-21-2008, 01:44 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

It sets various settings in the computer to obtain maximum throughput. Check with your tech staff and they can go into detail.

It has to do with matching the incoming packet sizes with your computers receiving buffers. That's a bit oversimplified and not entirely accurate but should give you the general idea. Most windows computers default to settings optimized for slow dialup connections. Faster connections are somewhat throttled by those settings. Matching settings can cause an increase in throughput, sometimes small, often significant.

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