Who knows wireless broadband?

[SnakeCharmer]

Service contract on the Sprint wireless broadband cards is coming to an end, so it's time to re-up, or get a new provider.  I have a feeling I might be chasing the wrong tail here, since it's probably more of a regional thing than anything else (what may do well in your area may not do well in another).  The Sprint card does 'ok'.  Not great, but 'ok'.  It seems to run about 2x dial up, which isn't bad, I suppose - I'm just not that well versed to know the difference.

In my field of work, there is a distinct trend of moving away from traditional email messaging with regards to communications.  The use of online web based systems is increasing.  To further explain, for company A, all of the communication I send them regarding in port schedule, the arrival, daily updates, and departure is sent through a webpage that has specific fields of input.  We log into their website using a user / pw given by them, we fill in the required information, confirm it, then send it on it's merry little way.  It's faster than the traditional means, it gives them what they need without fluff and bullshit. Anyway, in my business, communication is paramount.  I've always tried to remain one or two steps ahead of everyone else.  This is going to sound a bit wonky or even hypocritical, but I don't want to use BlackBerries or BlackJacks or whatever they're called, and I don't want my guys to use them either.  I don't like the idea of feeling that you're never away from your email - you need breaks.  Having to carry a cel phone 24/7 is bad enough.

But what I DO want is the availability to be online anywhere on our laptops when we need to.  Or if we're just killing time at 3 am waiting on a ship to arrive.  I like being able to pop open my laptop, send my arrival message while still going through government clearance or whatever and being done with it once I walk off the ship.  I don't want to leave the ship, get home, kiss the wife, then disappear to the home office for 20 minutes (or more) while I finish my work.  The Sprint service does ok, but I'd like something better (read: faster).

Long story short:  Who else should I look at in the Southeast?  Typical areas of usage would be:  Pascagoula, Ms; Mobile, Al; Pensacola, Fl; Panama City, Fl. 
I don't expect it to work in armpits like Port Fourchon, Louisiana.  Offshore usage won't be necessary, since we're usually able to tap into the satelite service on the ship.

[Ozzu]

I used Verizon for quite a while in the Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL areas a couple of years ago and it was pretty quick. I'd say it was a little faster than the 2x dialup you're describing with your current service. In bigger cities though, it was actually quite nice. You wouldn't mistake it for something with a lower latency, but the downloads easily topped 100 KBps once you entered into a bigger city.

This was a couple of years ago though, so it could have improved.

Edit:

http://b2b.vzw.com/broadband/coveragearea.html

It looks like it has improved quite substantially since I used it.

[stray]

The Sprint card does 'ok'.  Not great, but 'ok'.  It seems to run about 2x dial up, which isn't bad, I suppose - I'm just not that well versed to know the difference.

I thought Sprint had something faster than that? Like 10x faster? They were trying to sell me on it the other day.

[SnakeCharmer]

From what I've read, most carriers don't reach their advertised speeds.

Remember though, I live in Mobile, Alabama.  While a decent sized city, it lags behind in certain areas such as that.  Also, it's a fair point to remember that where we are using these broadband cards aren't even very condusive to cel phone use due to the structures around us.  It's hard to get a cellular signal inside a ship that has a thick steel accomodation and a little porthole window to get a signal through, much less a broadband connection.  Walk outside the ship?  Perfect full signal.  Walk back inside?  Barely a blip.

[Nerf]

I've found AT&T's 3g to be quite a bit faster than sprints, on my blackjack I get 3-400kbp/s down and 100-150 up, was getting 1/2 that on sprint.  The downside is that instead of $15/mo, it's $50, so you're definately paying for the speed.

Havn't really tried the cards, but I know with the windows mobile devices you can unlock the "internet sharing" program and use it instead of a card.  When Time Warner took a shit on me, I was online tethered to my blackjack for about 3 weeks until it got sorted out.

And you don't *have* to configure push emails and all that other stuff, smartphones really are nice to have, and being able to surf the internet when you're bored is   

[LanTheWarder]

We use Verizon and ATT WWAN cards across the United States. I don't have specifics of which areas work best with which provider, but we generally send out the Verizons 5750 card to begin with and if we get any complaints we send them a Cingular card. We also send out Cingular cards when we run out of Verizon cards.