Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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I caved and bought a wireless USB modem

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I’m not quite sure why I agonized over this decision for so long since it’s not like me to be wishy-washy about gadgets I want to buy. But I caved today after yet another commute on the train without Wi-Fi onboard this morning. I shake my fist at you, MBTA!

Although I got free 2-day shipping with my order, I’m quite sure AT&T won’t get around to sending it out until after Christmas, so it will be a little while. This gives me time to find a USB extension cable since I’m nearly positive it won’t fit into the USB port on my MacBook Air with its limited clearance. RadioShack, I shall hunt thee with a vengeance.
Hmmm, I should do a review on this modem. When I Googled for information on it, there wasn’t much in the way of reviews, so there’s definitely a dearth of detailed information from a user’s point of view on it on the interwebs. Geeky girl to the rescue!

I spoke too soon…

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Yesterday, I complained in my blog (compblogged? blained?) that the MBTA seemed unlikely to get around to actually wiring the commuter rail cars with Wi-Fi as they’d previously announced. Well, I was wrong. This very morning, 2 cars on my train had been transformed into moving orange billboards for AT&T Wi-Fi. Once on board, I whipped out my MacBook Air and connected to the network and tried to load a page. I waited. And waited some more. And then… the page finally loaded. Having free Wi-Fi is good, but if it’s always this dog-slow, I will still be considering a USB modem for my Mac. I get better speeds tethering my Mac to my iPhone 3G along the same route than what I saw on the train’s Wi-Fi network this morning. WTF?

Thinking out loud – wireless modem or not?

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If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my cry for help on whether or not to get a wireless USB modem to use with my MacBook Air. I’m tempted for 2 reasons: I spend 2 hours on the train per day for my commute to and from work, and I’ve got a corporate discount that would knock 20% off the monthly plan cost. Of course, AT&T also offers a mail-in rebate that makes the modem I’m considering free after all is said and done. Free Wi-Fi is supposed to be available on most of the commuter train cars by Spring 2009, but I’ll believe that when I see it at this rate given how little money the MBTA has and how piss-poor they’re performing overall despite increased ridership.

Yes, I know I can tether my computer to my iPhone 3G with NetShare, the virtues of which I have extolled before. But doing this regularly will most likely result in data usage levels that will put me on AT&T’s radar and it would be just my luck to get slammed with some massive fees as a result (which would be my fault – I know that tethering is against the TOS for my account.)
Do I really need to be connected all the time? I thought of this some during the power outage after the ice storm this past weekend. Our house, along with just about our entire town and a good chunk of the state, was without power for just over 2 days. I did tether my iPhone a little since we ran a small generator to power a space heater and I took the opportunity to charge up my computer at the same time. A wireless modem would have been peachy to have since the cell towers were still up and running. I didn’t really lack for anything to do – I love to read and have plenty of books at home. We have a modest collection of board games and the dog is endless entertainment 90% of the time that he’s awake as it is. Though I didn’t ask him to, my dear husband did hook up the TV and  Xbox 360 to the generator at one point so we could kill some zombies in the cold darkness of our family room. God, how I love that auto-loading shotgun. But I digress…
Cost-wise, $32 more per month to my bill for the wireless modem plan is not pretty, but it’s not terrible in the grand scheme of things, and can be covered if I’m more diligent about bringing my lunch to work more often (she rationalizes in her head knowing damn well this may very well not take place). What bothers me most is the 2-year agreement it requires – I know I’ll need a cell phone 2 years from now, but I’m less sure about the modem. I could also cancel if I need to and pay the horrific ETF, though it is pro-rated now and would be down to just over $100 after 1 year. On the other hand, I don’t see my need to connect to the internet wherever I may be decreasing over the next 2 years. In fact, if all goes according to my devious master plan, I’ll be spending even more time online than I do now.
Erk. I am usually way more decisive than this. I just need to saddle up and make up my damn mind.
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