In-Home Wireless Vs. Mobile Broadband

mklickman writes "I've been hearing more and more about mobile broadband offered by the big wireless phone providers, and for the first time came to ask myself how it compares to using a wireless router. Since my wife and I both have laptops, and we're out a lot, would it be wise and/or worth it to do away with the standard cable-modem-plus-router setup and switch over to mobile broadband with (for example) AT&T or Sprint? I'm not really concerned about the cost of the PC cards themselves; they're not much more expensive than a decent router. Also, the cost of the wireless service per month is only (roughly) ten dollars more than my current ISP is charging me. Is it a good idea?"

Wirless and/or Mobile BB

[ghostpirate_jay]

I work for a public sector org in the UK, and we have a community team of around 30 users, each with laptops running 3G data cards to give them access to our network (via VPN) when out doing what they do. This also allows them to work from home or wherever they choose - and allowed us to free up space in their offices by removing terminals. However, we quickly encountered problems with the mobile broadband connections having signal problems; various users complained about no signal at home or in certain areas of a city, or worse, in the office. I made the decision to put in wirless access points in each of the three team offices, and set up the laptops to use these instead of the mobile broadband when the connection was found. We also set up a separate VPN that didn't dial out on the mobile broadband, that they could tie into their own wireless conncections at home - this approach was a resounding success. So to summarise...I'd use both! You have to ask yourself if you are going to be using your laptop away from home enough to justify the mobile broadband option - if your staying at home, you can't beat using a wireless set up.

For "typical" use only

[Lifyre]

If your primary use is for web and email then mobile broadband may be more useful assuming you have reliable cell service in all parts of your house. If you like to download much of anything I think you would be better off with the landline service still.

Don't

[johnjaydk]

No. It's not a good idea.

First of all the announced throughput is a best case figure. You'll never see it in actual use. Inside steel and concrete buildings you're certainly not going to see those figures. It all depends on the radio reception. The speed also depends (at lest with GPRS over UMTS and EDGE/GSM) on the number of active users on a particular cell.

Second, even if the throughput is ok the latency really sucks. It takes a while from you request a web page and until it actually starts flowing in. I've worked on this tech for a number of years and it's not nearly as good as marketing wants you to believe.

Re:How much do you download?

[mrbluze]

My experience... at lease here in Australia... is that Mobile broadband works very well (remember much of our country is unpopulated desert).

Additionally, there are pretty terrible contracts for mobile broadband (telstra is asking for 24 months last time i checked), so early adopters are once again subsidising later (smarter) takers. Rental properties can easily get ADSL connected without the landlord needing to know about it, because no modifications need to be done on the property.

Mobile broadband, in my opinion, is something that only makes sense if you need it for your business. When it comes to personal/recreational use, such as on holiday or something to check emails and whatever, it might be easier to plug (or bluetooth) your laptop into your 3G mobile and surf the net that way, or just check into a hotel or cafe with wifi. That's what I have done up until now and, basically, it doesn't cost me $500+ extra per year to do it, in contrast to the mobile broadband.

I suspect the demand for mobile broadband in Australia has not been as big as was hoped. Actually I am still at a bit of a loss why they are rolling it out when the alternatives are so cheap and so adequate at this point. It doesn't make financial and practical sense to me unless it's a tax deductible thing and you are making money from it in excess of the cost of ownership.

Data Limit, Reliability.

[splutty]

A coulpe of points that you should look into (including the fine print):

- Is there a data limit on the connection you're looking at (X GB/week, month, anything?).
- Is there an issue with encrypted traffic (some ISPs/Telcos will throttle or cut encrypted traffic to fight P2P, which will also impede your VPN)
- Will you have the coverage that you need, and will the coverage also extend to all the rooms in your house?
- How important is connectivity to you? (For me personally, I need to have at least one place where I can be 100% certain to be able to login through my VPN to my job) Does the roaming wireless fail often, or not? (This also relates to point 3)
- Assuming you're looking into this for work also, are you allowed to use relatively open wireless networks (I know that I'm not, since I work in the financial world)

I personally would keep the static line, despite the extra cost, just to have a 'base' to go to when things don't work elsewhere. This also gives me the possibility to log onto my home server and retrieve/store important data through my own VPN.

Lots of things to think about :)

On a totally unrelated note: Why do I have 10 (and not 5) moderator points??

Share the connection!

[dsmaher]

I've got Sprint's mobile, and I love it. But then, I'm in a rural area and NOTHING else works. Satellite is a joke - unless you ONLY do web surfing and email. Anything with encryption is PAINFUL (including online banking). With Sprint, I get varying download speeds (I'm getting 860Kb now, but sometimes I get less). Anyway, I've got several computers in the house (I've got at least 2 running full time, plus a laptop). So, I'm SHARING the mobile connection using an EVDO Router (mine's from D-Link, but Linksys makes one, too). I plug the mobile card into the router, and the router provides Wi-Fi and LAN connection to my network of computers. Aside from the obvious cost savings, the difference is that communication between computers on the network is easier and faster, and sharing printers and other devices is possible. Try sharing a printer across the internet - you can do it, but it's not easy. If you have separate cards for each laptop, you might as well be in different countries. Communication between computers on Mobile broadband works the same between computers whether they're 6 feet or 600 miles apart.

What about the toaster?

[sunking2]

At some point it and the refridgerator are going to want to be connected to the internet. In all seriousness, between computers and game consoles and directv receivers I have 6+ things that can utilize the internet. And that number is only going to go up.

Re:How much do you download?

[Thugthrasher]

Lower class DOES have a meaning, fairly equivalent to working class, depending on which exact definition you use (there are some variations). I GUESS lower class could imply that they are 'lesser people,' but what it REALLY means is 'of lesser FINANCIAL worth than the middle class and upper class.' And the reason that MANY people (myself included, and I have spent many of my recent years floating around the property line) don't like to use working class as an equivalent is that it implies that all of those in that class work (which isn't true) and it implies that all of those in other classes (middle and upper...which I REALLY want to know what you call those because if lower is negative, upper is just as negative because it implies those other classes are lesser people in the same way) DON'T work, which isn't true.