mobile laptop internet suggestions

[SUPRAPHAT]

I just took a job as a medic on oil rigs and seismic operations in Northern Alberta and other parts of Alberta, I just purchased a new laptop and would like to have internet access while I'm out there cus it'll be the only thing to keep me busy.

Anyways, I've been looking into "Air Cards" for my laptop to be able to connect to the internet while I'm out there and was wondering if anyone has any experience with these or has any suggestions for me since I am pretty new to this idea.

I might be able to pickup a wireless connection out there but that's iffy at best and even when I can get a connection, my company would prefer I not use it so they told me to look into something else for internet connection.

So if anyone has any suggestions for me that would be great or even any experience with this kind of stuff, I'd like to hear what you think!

Thanks

Jason

[mo_virgin]

My dad is an engineer and travels in northern Alberta extensively. He has a sierra wireless aircard and it runs on the telus mobility EVDO network which is very fast (they call it wireless broadband) but very few areas actually support EVDO up in the north. So where it can't acess the EVDO network it runs on the slower 1X network. I think that telus may be the only carrier that even offers coverage in remote areas up north. If you wanted to look into rogers and fido they also have a wireless card that runs on the GPRS and EDGE networks but again the coverage might be quite sketchy.

Speed wise this is how they networks rank:

1. EVDO (telus)
2. EDGE (fido, rogers)
3. 1X (telus)
4 GPRS

Telus
Rogers

[Davetronz]

I am running a wireless air card as well for when I am away from a wired or wireless connection. Its quite pricey. With Rogers its $100/mo for "unlimited" usage, with $5 extra for VPN access ability and the cards run in the range of $349.99.

Its not "high-speed" that we are all used to, but it beats running home when you get paged / called. You obviously wouldnt want to do much more than check E-mails, visit web pages and talk on MSN. If you are looking to download etc then I would reccomend another solution.

Just to let you know, most rigs have Internet connections now. I used to do quite a bit of work for oil companies in regards to fixing their Toshiba and IBM units from the rigs and I did not find a single person who didnt have Internet at their site.

[Ariakas]

I am using EVDO air card through Bell, very speedy. Telus are using older firmware for their EVDO card, Sierra wireless cards. Bell uses Kyocera. Currently only major cities have EVDO available. Anything outside and in between will be 1X.

[Ben]

http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wire...map.asp?map=12

I have an EDGE Card from Rogers, Same plan and situation as Davetronz

[SUPRAPHAT]

yeah I have talked to Rogers and Telus and the plans are almost the same, I just did my first rotation on a rig site and it looks like you can get cell phone service just down the street from most camps at the site so this looks like an OK solution to not having internet at all up there.

I'm gonna check around and see if I can find someone trying to get rid of their card and kinda go from there I think. We'll see I guess.

Thanks a lot for your help guys!


Jason

[coolme]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't CDMA networks better (as in faster) at transmitting data compared to GSM networks? I think Bell and Telus uses CDMA and Rogers, Fido uses GSM.