Best Solution for Data in the US?

[Landis]

Hey,

I have a K800i UMTS Phone and I'm looking for a way to use it for Data Connections in the US. Whats the best Card to get, now that WIND became that expensive? A good coverage outside of major cities would be nice too.

Thanks for your help,


Landis

[Stu]

Cingular ("The New ATT") is the the currently the only provider with UMTs in the US. Tmobile's is due later in the year. US UMTS is on a different frequency than in Europe so be warned. I have a Nokia E61 which can easily access UMTs in most places in the World. I can only get EDGE in the US.

Cingular doesn't seem to offer any decent PAYG packages with the exception of the ones that come bundled with notebooks. If you buy a new notebook in the US it is likely to have EVDO or UMTs card built in. You can get prepaid on those. I have not found a hack to trick the system into getting the benefit of those plans on other equipment.

One MVNO on the Verizon CDMA network offers prepaid high speed data, but I don't think this will help you.

[Landis]

What about GPRS Coverage? I never used it in the US but I believe my Phone showed GPRS availability most of the time. It doesn't have to be UMTS, just looking for a cheap way to send some E-Mails through the phone. Do the regular Prepaid Cards have Data Service activated?

[Bossman]

I know cingular has full GPRS/EDGE and you are charged per Kb just like most other prepaids. Tmobile does have limited data (CNN, ESPN, abcNews) though and it's free.

You can check here for more info.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

As per this thread, looks like cingular is the only option for full data and it's 1 cent/kb

http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/876505-1.html

Originally Posted by Landis

What about GPRS Coverage? I never used it in the US but I believe my Phone showed GPRS availability most of the time. It doesn't have to be UMTS, just looking for a cheap way to send some E-Mails through the phone. Do the regular Prepaid Cards have Data Service activated?

[Landis]

Originally Posted by Bossman

I know cingular has full GPRS/EDGE and you are charged per Kb just like most other prepaids. Tmobile does have limited data (CNN, ESPN, abcNews) though and it's free.

You can check here for more info.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

As per this thread, looks like cingular is the only option for full data and it's 1 cent/kb

http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/876505-1.html

Hmm.. Sounds like I'll stick with my WIND Card then. I'll get ~16mb for about 0,2cent/kb, and I'm not limited to a specific Network. Thanks for your help everyone!

[Bossman]

Looks like you plan on roaming. You phone should latch onto the network with the strongest signal, and that will probably be tmobile in most places, due to your phone's lack of the 850 band(used a lot by cingular). You might actually be better off making sure you use tmobile by selecting the network manually.

Originally Posted by Landis

Hmm.. Sounds like I'll stick with my WIND Card then. I'll get ~16mb for about 0,2cent/kb, and I'm not limited to a specific Network. Thanks for your help everyone!