In the last post we talked about the tactic of searching for available WiFi while on the road and looked at a tool to help with that. But there is a wireless alternative to WiFi, and that of course is through utilising the mobile networks.

3G vs. WiFi

If you need a reliable connection and you need it from just about anywhere not just your favourite coffee shop, then WiFi is not really going to cut it. You will spend more time searching around for a connection than you will actually doing anything online. A more reliable approach that will work from just about anywhere including on the commuter train for instance is the mobile data services.

Just plug a 3G card such as the 3G-Gprs Vodafone Mobile Connect Card into the card slot of your laptop and you are online and good to go. In most cases it will be as simple as that. 3G will give you and bandwidth of five or so times the bandwidth you can expect from a dial up connection. While this will general not give you the bandwidth you would get from a WiFi connection back in your favourite coffee shop, it will normally be perfectly adequate. Even in the worst cases where you loose 3G, the card will fall back to Gprs which will still effectively support your ability to read email.