I'm very limited on internet access in my area. Up until now the only broadband access has been satellite and the latency is horrible with VPN. Also a cloudy day can cut work short.

Anyone have an opinion on this....

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobilebroadband/?page=products_mifi

I've heard good things about them from various podcasts, but these are from people using them in major cities. Reception in your area may mean much slower speeds. There is also a monthly cap of 5GB, though I believe most satellite access is also capped with daily limits so it may not be a problem for you.

Their coverage map, and a real live person (called them to be sure), both said I was in a high speed zone. I know up until a few months ago I was not in a high speed area. Maybe it's stimulus money????

Yea. the 5 gig has me worried, If I get into FAP (Fair Access Policy - using too much bandwidth) the satellite people smack my hand by lowering my speed. Verizon will be smacking my hand by charging me more money.

I also have to put up with all the cell phone fees (911, taxes, etc)

For home use I would think you'd be happier with a router that supports a mobile broadband card that supports an external antenna. The mobile wifi products are designed to cover a hotel room, not a house.

The only one I know off hand is made by sonicwall for about $500, but that's a business level product. There are others that google will find for you.

Matthew

Thanks. options are good. I was not aware of such an animal.

The laptop (which will be connected directly to broadband) is about 20' away from the second PC. But yes, that may change in time and I might not have the power.

I've been looking at this Netgear, the Ericsson W25 and the Proxicast for use at work. The Netgear and the Ericsson have their own 3G modems but the Proxycast takes a PC-Card.

The most important requirement for me is upload speed, so being able to choose the best 3G card I can get hold of (plus the ability to swap to a better performing one later on) is a big plus, so I'm probably going to spring for the Proxycast one. However the other two look great if upload speeds aren't as important.

EDIT: Looks like the Ericsson has been superseded by the W35.

I was also thinking about using a Network Bridge, just using the laptop, and its ethernet connection. I do this now with the satellite. However when I called Verizon they said only one PC could use a broadband card. That was probably just a script answer but it scared me off.

You can still share that one PC's connection with other PCs. Windows is not an ideal router, but it should work.

There is also the option of putting an 3G USB stick into the USB port on some routers. For example I have the Draytek Vigor 2820n that offers this feature. It does mean making sure that your 3G stick is supported by the Draytek firmware though.

There was another Netgear product that did something similar. But on further investigation I came across quite a number of people complaining that it didn't support the latest model of USB sticks one of the US carriers was now selling.

That's what I thought but the Verizon guy seemed sure that the broadband card wouldn't share. He probably just didn't know or care.

I guess that can be a fallback if the WiFi doesn't have enough strength or doesn't connect fast enough.

Sharing the sat. connection works good enough for the daughter now.

Or he's been told to say that, so he can try and up-sell you.

Or makes for easier support...
DSL/Cable didn't support anything other then one PC connected to the modem for quiet some time.

They may not have supported it, but it's always been possible by adding a NAT firewall/router behind the modem.

Cheers

Thats actually what got me started with Linux. I had signed up with one of the first broadband providers in my hometown. Initially, I had asked for 3 IPs, one for my PC, one for the roommates PC, and one for the Windows server we had. IPs were cheep enough for 3, but when I bought a laptop, I didn't want to pay more for another IP, and worry about changing network configuration on the laptop all the time. I looked around, and found that commercial routers with NAT were still outside the consumer space and very pricy. So I looked into SuSE Linux, and eventually turned the Windows server into a Linux router and file server. I picked SuSE back then due to the boxed version including a decent manual and 6 CDs worth of software.

It wasn't until I moved to Austin a few years back that I switched over to using a commercial router.

Which, of course, they would have been happy to provide if you'd like to upgrade to their business plan. If I'm not mistaken, running a NAT was supposedly verboten under many ISP contracts.