Is there a PCMCIA card that will let me connect to the Internet wirelessly from anywhere without carrying a cellphone?

Verizon Wireless has a broadband PCMCIA card. Some laptops come with the card built in. My Son says there is a Linksys router that supports the Verizon card. I have Verizon broadband on my pocketpc. Sounds kinda neat, no longer looking for a WIFI hot spot.

Haven't been overseas with this combination, have we? Verizon hardware sadly on works in US, no one else uses their modulation scheme it seems. Might want to look into any offerings from AT&T/ Cingular. While no big fan of theirs, their netowrk is more globally compatable.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

You guys with your antique CDMA or whatever it is. :-) You'll need a tri-band PCMCIA mobile phone card, and for good luck an

802.11b/g wireless card. Plus a phone company with good roaming deals. It'll be a heck of a lot cheaper to get a decent triband phone and a modem cable tho....

Mark McIntyre

Or a phone and a bluetooth link... None of those nasty cables.

Possibly. My own experience of bluetooth phones has been pretty awful - I found they kept losing connection. Mark McIntyre

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

Dead reliable here.

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

Internet anywhere

phone. Not everywhere

to be. Cost and

Windows XP Media

connectors, device, etc.

card, it is bundled

wireless networks.

Sony Ericsson GC89 will give him GPRS/EGPRS(EDGE) and Wi-Fi in the same card.

Can be used in the USA on Cingular or T-Mobile. Cingular will give better speeds due to widespread EGPRS(EDGE) coverage. T-Mobile will be cheaper.

Would that be the Phone-GPRS connection (which wouldn't change with a USB cable on that particular phone), or the phone-PC BT connection, which I don't recall ever having mysteriously disappear.

My phone is within a foot of the PC when I'm using it... I have heard some complaints of the range of some of the phones to be pretty short, probably in the interests of BT snoop prevention.

Internet anywhere

phone. Not everywhere

have to be. Cost and

Windows XP Media

connectors, device, etc.

card, it is bundled

wireless networks.

So you still need to carry the cellphone to use this. That is what we want to avoid. :)

Problem is, there are a bunch of PCMCIA cards that work on Verizon INSIDE the US, but that's *NOT* what you asked... "Hello! I am doing a research for my father who travels a lot in U.S. and outside of it.".... Note you threw in outside of US, but didn't say where or what type of systems... (Verizon = CDMA, works fine in the US, but only a few specific countries outside the US). Where are you asking about?

Are you saying there are no cards that work BOTH inside and outside of U.S.? Instead, he needs to carry two cards and two services?

snipped-for-privacy@zimage.com hath wroth:

Instead, he needs

Worse. Some countries that do have CDMA cellular networks may not have installed 1xRTT or EV-DO service for high speed internet.

In addition, the US uses 800Mhz for cellular, while most of Europe uses 900MHz frequencies (which explains why there is no part 15 unlicensed 900Mhz 802.11 wireless in Europe. Same with PCS cellular on 1900Mhz in the US versus 1800Mhz in Europe. There's also CDMA-450 in Africa and the new 2100 Mhz systems. Here's a PDF presentation which does a fair job of showing CDMA (actually CDMA-2000) coverage. Note that some countries have both GSM and CDMA.

I don't know of a universally compatible PCMCIA card that handles all the assorted frequencies and modes.

More of the same:

(see list of countries)

Of course there are PCMCIA data cards that work inside the US, and some foreign countries (both sprint/nextel and Verizon sell them), however, as far as I know, the gsm ones, usually require a tether (I have a verzon data card, I'm just going by what other people complain about, that with GSM they have to tether)

However, you may want to rethink your requirements... I'm looking at a Bluetooth cellphone so I can use it as a wireless modem with my laptop AND make voice calls (no cables with bluetooth, can also use it handsfree in the car, and with my PDA - both have BT), have one number and one contract that way.

The requirement was for "outside the US" not just Europe.

GSM - the G standing for "Global", yet another instance where the US was in a world of its own. :)

David.

Something of a mendacious snip - Jeff went on to mention other countries' standards. Mark McIntyre

He did, it wasn't a poke at Jeff, just that the US usually considers the world East coast to West:-

"World series Baseball" "The World's news, East coast to West" (can't remember which station uses that strapline?)

etc.

GSM is one area where the world was everyone *except* the US, they're catching up now though. :)

David.

One caution about using Bluetooth for data. When we are in EVDO areas, throughput using Bluetooth never gets above 200-300 kbps, while the USB cable usually provides 600-700 kbps.

Anybody else compared Bluetooth and USB with the same phone in the same EVDO location?

For what it's worth, I have both Bluetooth AND a motorola cable, was in a 1x area last week (Spokane Washington), now in an evdo area (Las Vegas).. While I can go faster with the cable, I stay with the non data contract/1x minutes of use (no extra data contract needed), and the 1x is fast enuf for my email and surfing (At home, there is a HUGE hotspot - about 220 square miles -Spokane Skynet at

and I don't have to dig thru my boxes to find that silly cable for higher speed.. It's that 1x area at home that makes me not want to bother with tethers/higher speed, and the added expense of a separate data contract. I just use 1x, and if I want higher speed use the skynet.

Since I travel about 98% of the time, can't see the use and extra expense of EVDO, since it doesn't even work in a lot of the areas I'm in.

outside of it.

Internet anywhere

phone. Not everywhere

have to be. Cost and

is Windows XP Media

connectors, device, etc.

card, it is bundled

wireless networks.

Why would you need to do that?