Wireless Broadband

After a long debate, I eventually decided that I wanted to try out Verizon's wireless broadband for myself. I had heard reports of great speeds and reports of slow speeds, but never personally heard from someone who used the service. I also knew that Sprint and Cingular offered similar services, but I found it impossible to get any sort of information about their coverage areas. Once I heard about Verizon's 15 day money back guarantee, I knew I had to find out for myself what the service would be worth.

At home I utilize a Qwest DSL connection, wirelessly, quoted as 7.0Mbps, much faster, and cheaper, than any cable service offered in my area. I expected Verizon's wireless service to get maybe a fraction the typical speeds I receive on my DSL connection, but I was still pleasantly surprised. On average, when downloading updates to my Linux computer I average speeds of 120-200Kbps, not bad for service I could use nearly anywhere. It was probable that I could have even faster signal if I lived in a town of more than 22,000 people; my signal probably came from a cell phone tower nearly 10 miles away.

In order to get a better idea of the service quality, I had traveled from point to point in town with my laptop patiently downloading several update files in the passenger seat, to get an estimated range of where I could find the best signal. Surprisingly, the service stayed constantly connected, and I received a pretty consistent connection speed. To further test my luck, I decided I would go out of town, at least a little ways, to see exactly how much signal speed I would get. I went about two miles out of town, about as far as I would ever go, and found the speeds were still excellent. Overall, the signal quality varied as any cell phone would, but I never completely lost signal, and speeds hardly dipped below 50Kbps.

But, as with anything, there were drawbacks. The first was obvious, the price tag. $80 a month might be a bit much if quality service can come straight to your home or office for half price. And if you don't travel much, its hardly worth it. The second drawback was hidden away deep in the fine print; Verizon's "Unlimited" Wireless Broadband service had a limit, and it was only 5GB per month. If you used more than that they could disconnect you without notice (although they say the service isn't supposed to be used for file-sharing, streaming music, etc). The terse language makes me wonder what might happen if I need to download something big and important.

But so far, even though an extra $80 per month can be hard to come up with, (the service costs less if you have Verizon cell phone service), I've decided that the ability to browse the Internet, work on my articles, and do my homework anywhere would be well worth the price tag.