A while back, I had talked about the issues I had with my
EVDO express card purchase and my macbook pro, a lot of you asked me to sum up my experiences with the card, and to comment on whether the speeds are worthy of being a primary connection or not, so here’s my answer.

Definitely, maybe.

I know, such definitive answers make me sound like a politician don’t they? Well.. politicians would probably skirt the question completely..
Here are my experiences with the Sprint USB card since late June 2007.

EVDO/3G data cards and plans are the most liberating technology ever sold. Seriously.

I am no longer confined to the house. I am no longer confined to starbucks and other places with stable wifi (Panera) (usually).
I can work, or play anywhere (more on that later). This technology allows one to connect to the internet from anywhere, with connections much faster than some DSL connections I’ve seen. The advertised speeds of “average download speeds of 600 kbps - 1.4 Mbps and average upload speeds of 350 - 500 kbps.” are not false. If you happen to be in an EVDO Rev A area, you will be close to advertised speeds. I’ve downloaded software at about 300K/sec before, and I’ve uploaded photos to flickr at about 80-100K/sec.

Nothing earth shattering, but I was in a hotel in McAllen, TX where the wifi of the hotel was $9.99/day and only worked in the lobby.

If you know me personally, you know I work remotely. I “tele-commute”, if you know me well, you know I’m rarely at my house. It’s not because
I’m on location or “on site”, but because I have this sprint card, and I can work from anywhere. Example:

I was one of the crazies that stood/sat in line for the iPhone, I got in line at 7:30AM, but I took my laptop and power cord with me, while waiting for the phone to be ‘released’, I actually got about 6 hours of billable time in. Work was happy, as they didn’t lose me for a day, I was happy as I could bill, while I was in line.

.

Without the card, I would’ve had to call in sick, and I wouldn’t have been able to make money that day. So, enough of the “anecdotal ad” for the EVDO cards.

So, how does the card fare up to travel and regions? Well.. since I bought the card, here is a table of places I’ve been, and what a standard wifi connection would’ve cost me.

Since I use a MacBook Pro, my development environment goes with me. I have PHP 5, Python, Apache and MySQL all installed
and with test data on my laptop. I wrote my PHP Gallery script and uploaded it to my server in McAllen, TX. Yes, I’m a nerd.
This also helps from a non nerdy perspective, I’ve been able to look up things to do, movie times, and alternate routes via google maps, though with the iphone, I don’t need the laptop to do any of those tasks, except maps when I need to get birds eye view of the city I’m in.

I’ll be in NJ first week of November, Vegas in December, El Paso in January, I no longer have to worry about connectivity anymore, I can choose to be as connected as I want to be.

For those who think this is just encroaching more and more into my life, or their lives, the technology isn’t bad, it’s your lifestyle. I have no problem defining when and where I do not want to be contacted, and the people I work with respect the boundaries I set. The card doesn’t make you a slave to your job, it doesn’t force you to check and respond to emails, it’s you.

Also, the reason why I said definitely maybe earlier, is that this connection as fast as it is for work, is not ideal for gaming, and is no where near as fast as the fiber running to my home, downloading songs and shows off iTunes is not the fastest thing on these cards, I can download songs from iTunes in about 3 seconds, on the card, it takes me about 2 minutes.. not terribly slow, but 1:57 .. I could’ve heard an entire song in that time.. :).

A thing to note about Wifi hotspots, sometimes they do not allow you to establish PPTP VPN tunnels (Panera), so working from these places is impossible if you need to connect to the corporate VPN.

So, I’ve been traveling a lot due to work this year. One of the things I noticed in my travels, was the lack of free/reliable wifi around the country. Hotels charging $9.99/day for shittyband. I decided, I needed something different and more reliable, so I decided to try out the EVDO network of Sprint, they claim to cure “connectile dysfunction”, and their coverage maps seems say that they’ll work wherever I want to be. According to the forums and other people on the ‘tubes, Sprint is your best bet right now, from a coverage and quality of service standpoint.

So, I got this expresscard from them.. my laptop comes with an expresscard, so I figured I should get the expresscard, and actually use the slot. I put the card in and VOILA!!! the laptop rejects the card..no, not the software.. but the actual hardware.. rejects the card. It spits it right out, with gumption too. I can’t find the exact phrase to search for this on google, so it looks like I’m the only one with this problem. I take the laptop to the Apple Store, and try to talk to the apple genius.. the store is empty, and he says he’s going to take the laptop in and then they’ll get back to me in 3 days.

I look at the sign behind him… it says Apple Genius.. and then I look around the store.. there are 5 salespeople, and 3 customers.. 3 days? To even look at the laptop? It was obvious this guy wasn’t genius material.. he seemed afraid to delve into the hardware side of things..so I assumed the hardware geek was off today.

Anyway, I’m a little pissed, I can’t live without my laptop for 3 days, as I don’t have 3 days of vacation. Plain and simple. I don’t have a backup laptop, my data is backed up.. but I don’t have a spare 17 inch macbook pro laying around.. or even a macbook.

The sales experience at an Apple Store is great.. the support experience from these so called geniuses is not. Apple, you’re about to get an influx of customers due to the iPhone.. if this guy is still working when those customers have issues, you’re going to have some very irate customers, who are going to tarnish your name very quickly.

I’m done ranting.. sorry for all 3 of you who actually read this blog, just in case you’ve experienced a similar problem with your macs or expresscard slots.. please let me know if there is a simpler fix than handing it over to the idiots who know they aren’t even capable of diagnosing problems beyond an iPod reset.
Apple, you have a problem.. and it’s your new staff.