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Earthlink laptop wireless service.

We needed some basic internet access while on the road. We settled on Earthlink’s Laptop wireless. The  pre sales service was excellent. We chose the $20/month plan. That gives you 10 MB of data transfer per month.

The initial costs are a little steep. The aircard is about $300 and you have to sign a 1 year contract.

By the way, don't confuse this service with a wireless A, B or G card that you would use at a wireless access point. The aircard is a cell phone type of card that will work anywhere where there is coverage. you don't need to be at a wireless hotspot.

The service is not available in all areas, be sure to check with Earthlink. We ordered the service and express shipping for the card. It arrived on time and the software was easy to install.

You need to be very careful with your usage. At this time, Earthlink does not have a system in place to keep track of your usage. Going over your allotment can be very expensive Currently the cost is about $3 per megabyte. You need to take a note of your usage every time you connect. If you shut down without noting your usage, there is no way to retrieve that information.

Some hints to keep your usage down:

The service is not inexpensive. You might want to take a few precautions to minimize the data transfer when you are connected.

• If you are running Norton antivirus or Internet security, disable liveupdate prior to using the card on the road.

• Disable the automatic downloads of Windows updates. Downloading a windows update could end up being very expensive. The same goes for any other application that would try to update itself when the internet is available.

• If you have windows XP you might want to set up another user and make sure that user is ‘bare bones’. In other words, set the user up and make sure that there are no extraneous programs running in the startup that might want to phone home for updates. Do you really need the latest quicktime update at $3/megabyte?

• Use a web based email client and not outlook or outlook express. If you use outlook or Outlook Express it will try to download your messages. You will be paying for all of the idiotic spam. If you use a web based client you are only looking at the most important messages.

• Go into Tools, Internet Options, Advanced and turn off pictures. Look for the "Show Pictures" box and uncheck it. Most webpages have alternate text for graphics. If you really need the graphics, you can turn them on for a particular page.

• We think that you should probably not connect if you have a poor signal. If you are retransmitting packets, they probably count toward your usage.

Summary

We found their pre sales and regular support to be helpful courteous and efficient. Unless you are wealthy, you will want to make sure that you are careful with your usage. We used the card on the train from Philadelphia to Florida mostly to check email. I was actually getting service for the card in areas where my cellphones were not getting service. Unfortunately we didn't know that we could have checked Amtrak's website to see just how late our train was going to be. The service exceeded our expectations.

Last modified:  11/10/06