3G Baby!

I travel a lot. A lot more than I ever thought I would. On this last trip to Vegas, I finally got sick and tired of paying for bad Internet connections in hotels and airports.

After seeing one in action on my last trip to New York, I decided to picked up the AT&T USBConnect 881. The little USB device plugs into any laptop and connects to AT&T’s UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA network.

Install was a breeze and I’m getting about 1.5Mb per second in Seattle where 3G coverage is plentiful. I know that AT&T doesn’t have the 3G coverage of Sprint or Verizon, but I really didn’t want to sign up for a contract with another carrier. I took a hard look at AT&T’s 3G coverage map before I decided on the USBConnect and it looks pretty decent. They cover most cities that I tend to travel to.

The only down side so far is that the data plan is pretty steep. At $60/mo for unlimited data on top of my normal phone service, I’m paying the price for convenient always on connection.