Dan Robinson
On Sunday's chase, my friend Tom from Charleston tagged along with us and brought his laptop with a Cingular internet card. This is the first time I've used cellular internet on a chase so I thought I'd post a review.
Tom's Cingular card was a pcmcia card with no external antenna, just the small flip-out antenna on the card. Tom pays $60/month for the unlimited data plan. The Cingular card roams at no charge, that is it will still connect to any carrier it finds with no extra charge.
We used the connection to get SPC outlooks, MDs, mesoanalysis data, hires satellite imagery, and even read ST on the way back. We also were able to upload live updates of our GPS position and a few photo updates to the web.
The card worked in all but the most rural areas. We had connection problems along I-64 in eastern Kentucky, a few spots in southern Indiana, and several stretches between St. Charles and Hannibal in Missouri. But for the most part, we had a signal more often than not. When we were in motion, the connection speeds were very slow, most of the time slower than dialup. But it worked and we could still access the web just fine. When we were stopped, the connection seemed to be faster.
Now it wasn't reliable enough for me to rely on it over WxWorx, but this all really sold me on cellular internet. Especially being able to broadcast our position and up-to-date photos for the web site which was really cool. I know the coverage in the Plains will not be as good as what we had in MO/IL, but I'm going to look into this more in the coming weeks.
Tom's Cingular card was a pcmcia card with no external antenna, just the small flip-out antenna on the card. Tom pays $60/month for the unlimited data plan. The Cingular card roams at no charge, that is it will still connect to any carrier it finds with no extra charge.
We used the connection to get SPC outlooks, MDs, mesoanalysis data, hires satellite imagery, and even read ST on the way back. We also were able to upload live updates of our GPS position and a few photo updates to the web.
The card worked in all but the most rural areas. We had connection problems along I-64 in eastern Kentucky, a few spots in southern Indiana, and several stretches between St. Charles and Hannibal in Missouri. But for the most part, we had a signal more often than not. When we were in motion, the connection speeds were very slow, most of the time slower than dialup. But it worked and we could still access the web just fine. When we were stopped, the connection seemed to be faster.
Now it wasn't reliable enough for me to rely on it over WxWorx, but this all really sold me on cellular internet. Especially being able to broadcast our position and up-to-date photos for the web site which was really cool. I know the coverage in the Plains will not be as good as what we had in MO/IL, but I'm going to look into this more in the coming weeks.
