Continuing TechRepublic’s look at the latest crop of wireless broadband PCMCIA cards for laptops, we take a first look at the offering from Verizon Wireless. The Qualcomm 3G card connects users to the Verizon Nation Broadband network using cell phone technology, but it can also connect using the standard 802.11 wireless protocol, depending on which is more advantageous.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Just like the other wireless broadband cards we’ved looked at, the Verizon version comes in a DVD-like case — an easy form factor for shippling.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Inside the case we find the card itself, a small instruction booklet, and a CD-ROM with the connection software.
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Mark W. Kaelin
The card itself is made by Pantech and includes a Qualcomm chipset. It is very similar to the Sprint card we looked at earlier.
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Mark W. Kaelin
The Verizon software installed very smoothly. If you follow along in the booklet and/or instructions on screen, installation should be a snap.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Personally, I had a little trouble, but it was with the network not the software installation. The Verizon folks were very helpful. Apparently, an identification number on my account was not entered correctly.
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Mark W. Kaelin
But once that small glitch was fixed everything ran fine.
As you can see, the Verizon card can be very fast. These are the results from the first speed test.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Running another test on DSL Reports to a different server gave a result for upload speeds I found suspicious.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Running another test to the West coast was also very impressive, especially the upload speeds. I can’t buy it.
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Mark W. Kaelin
So I try again and get similar results.
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Mark W. Kaelin
I run a speed test one more time, only this time I use the Java version of the DSL Reports test. Again, the test returns similar results.
Those are some high numbers for upload speeds, but the high number was consistent so it must be true.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Using the internal Verizon Connection Software I was able to get a graphical representation of activity while watching a YouTube video. The results are definitely broadband speeds.
Like the other two broadband cards, the Verizon delivers broadband anywhere the service reaches at a reasonable price.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Verizon has pretty good coverage in the Louisville, KY, area.
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Mark W. Kaelin
Mark W. Kaelin has been writing and editing stories about the information technology industry, software, hardware, gaming, finance, accounting, and technology geekdom for more than 30 years.
