Has anyone here used Sprint PCS Vision for a mobile internet connection?

I have a friend that's in a band. He's on the road roughly 200+ days a year. He's looking for a way to access the internet through his laptop while on the road.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the typical connection speeds are and whether the connection is fairly reliable on the interstates.

If I understand correctly, it looks like all you have to do is buy one of these cards and then pay the monthly plan to get a connection.

I haven't used the card, but I bought a USB cable to attach my phone (a Sanyo 5300) to my laptop for the same purpose. It works, but the reliability is really random. When it's working well, the speed is great -- I've gotten as high as 200 kbps on good-sized downloads.

However, they force all traffic through a proxy server, and it can get slowwwww. They also compress the f*ck out of graphic images, etc. Connection reliability is pretty random. I can get a good, working connection for 2 hours or more, or at times I have trouble keeping connected for more than 10 minutes.

My usage has been primarily from several locations in urban locations in Chicago and Minneapolis. I have not tried using the service from a moving vehicle, so I can't speak to that (although I doubt it would help).

Also, be aware that they do block ports. I could use HTTP and HTTPS without problem, but IMAP and SSH were blocked. I don't use POP3, but I imagine that probably works.

For the extra $10/mo on my bill, is does come in handy on occasion. For the more expensive PC-card plan, I would hope it would be more reliable than I've found it to be.

--Dan.

My father uses the laptop card with service from Verizon. He has no complaints about it and uses it very often (he is in real estate). Personally I would trust the service from Verizon a lot more than from Sprint, but thats just from my experience. He gave me an extra card but I just can't justify spending $79 a month for the unlimited plan no matter how well it works. If I were on the road that much it would be worth it though. If you have any questions about it let me know and I can find out from him.

-Greg