My wife and I just purchased and installed a new product “Autonet Mobile” in our motor coach which uses cell phone signals from ALL suppliers and creates a 100 foot radious WIFI. The unit cost $399 and then there is a monthly subscription choice of $29 for up to 1G and $59 for up to 5G.

Installation is simple as pie…two wires (red to positive lead, black to negative block – done).

We have now traveled from Maine to Georgia and have not encountered one “black-out” spot, although in remote areas we have seen some lag time uploading picues.. We are using 2 laptops, writting a weekly blog and uploading daily pictures plus using 2 cellphones without a hitch.

People should check them out at http://www.autonetmobile.com.

The only reason we went with Verizon instead of Sprint (and they would have sold us either one) was because of the places we plan to travel, and the sales rep discussed the differences in regional coverage with me in some depth before we made up our minds. The only drawback I can see to any of this is the Verizon 5GB limitation (Sprint has the same), which some older plans seem to avoid, but watch out for when you renew your contract! I betcha it won’t be that easy to avoid in the future.

FAP’s can be a bit confusing – I have Hughesnet and it is a per 24 hour period limit (200MB) and they throttle you – I understand that WildBlue is a monthly limit (5GB) – if you acheive 80% of your limit, they send you an email, with follow up serivce termination – I’ve never exceeded 5GB/month (heavy surfer, lots of email, program downloads – very infrequent video), but it’s easy to exceed the 200MB – I kinda wished I had gotten WildBlue, although I haven’t been FAPed yet – as was noted, there is a 3 hour window of umlimited bandwidth on Huhghesnet –

I don’t understand all the ins and outs of the FAPs – on the surface they make some sense – if Hughesnet used FAPs to keep the traffic down on a satellite and keep access speeds up, it would be a good thing – but I understand that what they do is put in FAPs and then can load more users onto a satellite – the bottom line is that the FAPs benefit Hughesnet in generating more income and really don’t benefit the users at all –

I didn’t think AT&T had a limit, but they may have implemented a change when I wasn’t looking – I’ve had it for years –

I was looking at the WiFi in Motion – sounds great and simple enough to implement, but I thought the price tag a bit steep –

They may not be available anymore, but I have a PCMCIA card that uses an external antenna – the key is the external antenna – I’d be willing to bet that it will out perform an amplified signal any day – I think the ground plane was about $60 – If I am near populated areas, the little antenna on the card is fine – but remote areas, I put up the ground plane and plug it into the aircard – I’ve received signals when I’ve had no cell phone service pretty much all over the country – The White Mountains in NH is one such area that comes to mind that I couldn’t get cellular internet access –

A simple ethernet switch for $20 will make wired network connections (I personally prefer a wired connection) – a $50 wireless router will make wireless network connections – and internet connection sharing is a snap in WinXP – it’s built into the OS –

For less than $150, you should be able to accomplish what WiFi in Motion provides, with at least as good and probably even better signal quality – I know you can amplify a weak signal and improve performance, but a high gain antenna should get you a much better signal without all the electronics –

I just wish my cell phone had an external antenna plug on it, which is one benefit from WiFi in Motion – if I understand it properly, WIM will increase the cellular signal and a cell phone may work with the amplified signal –

Also, to be honest I dunno if you can obtain the newer express card slot aircards with external antennas in them –

Another point, it used to be that a tethered cell phone wouldn’t perform as well as an aircard, but with the newer Quad band 3G phones, I’m not sure that is still valid –

One of the problems with the aircards is getting help – the young folks in the stores know every nuance of what this phone or that phone will do, but not many know much about details of what an aircard will do -

total for 450 mins, plus UNLIMTED INTERNET IS 112.00 a month, well worth the $$$
have been super happy, and it is fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!