Joe, you should know as far as providers' services go, Verizon is
probably the worst because of a fairly hard 5GB bandwidth cap, not to
mention the widely documented problems with their phones every geek/nerd
should know about and try (usually hopelessly in my experience) to relay
to friends and such.
OTOH, generally speaking, Sprint has the best service as far as data
goes, with consistently the best speeds. Their 3G (EVDO Revision C)
also has the widest coverage, but that's no saying much since most
carriers' 3G coverage footprints are a fraction of their voice coverage.
Sprint has a preferred data roaming agreement with Alltel, so your
device will work without any surprises on their network as well. But
there's one thing no one has mentioned that's SOOOO important: Sprint
has a data reseller called Millenicom who has the HUGE advantages of no
contract and that they handle the customer support rather than the
(notoriously bad) Sprint call center.
Keep in mind everything I said is for data only; voice is another matter
entirely.
As far as devices, quite a few USB devices are supported natively in
Linux: just go into the USB menu in the kernel and you'll see the
majority in the USB-Serial sub-menu (as you'd expect); in particular,
Sierra Wireless has been very good the last few years in supporting the
writing of FOSS drivers in the kernel tree. In addition, the device
Millenicom was selling (I can't remember the name right this second) had
explicit support for Linux by including the driver in a USB storage
device on-board: once the driver's loaded, it "switches personalities"
and becomes a serial device. (From what I've seen, this is becoming
quite common with all sorts of networking devices, including WiFi.)
Finally, if you phone does a decent job of supporting 3G and your
carrier doesn't sock you with a contract extension for adding or
removing it (like Verizon does (and maybe T-Mobile?)), tethering to your
phone may be an option that can save from from having to buy a separate
device or get stuck in a contract, not withstanding the above.
Finally, don't forget these data plans are *E*X*P*E*N*S*I*V*E*!! Are
you *SURE* you can't reach an access point?
Mike
On Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:16:37 -0700, "Joe" <
joe@nationnet.com> said:
> Does anyone use one of those 3G wireless network cards with their Linux
> system? If so, what provider and how well does it work. I'm currently
> with Sprint and was thinking about going with their USB wireless card
> for data access and others said Verizon might be better.
>
> Thoughts? Experiences?
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