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David, I think you're comparing apples with oranges. To the best of my knowledge, there are no serpice providers (Sprint, Verizon, Qwest) with Wi-Fi offerings. In fact, they probably don't much care for open access Wi-Fi systems that have been set-up by some communities. The only advantage Wi-Fi has to a servide provider is that it may resuklt in more billable minutes for VPN services they sell to many companies. The big change on the horizon for Wi-Fi is Wi-Max, which will be a service offering. I should probably step back and make sure everyone knows Wi-Fi is not likely to go away, as it's cheap and has great applications for small spaces. Frankly, I'm not drinking the kool-aid yet that says users have an application that needs the bandwidth promised of Wi-Max. Your Verizon service is an EVDO (3G) offering and in the world of data over cellular, there's a laundry list of technologies in use and no clear direction as to what the future (4G) brings. Some are banking on Wi-Max, UMTS, LTE, 3GPP and others. As for VZ trying to get everyone moved to USB based EVDO modems from the PC Card (formerly PCMCIA), that's news. I don't understand their motive. In fact, it could be argued that they don't want everyone to move to the USB EVDO Modem as it has much more wide spread applications. In EVDO cities an argument can be made that EVDO service is cheaper than Cable Modems and it allows you to have high speed services for your desktop while at home and laptop while on the road. Although this may seem like a marketing advantage to get more folks off cable MODEMS, VZ has to be worried that it would negatively impact the already steady fall in DSL customers and would jeopardize the all in one value of the FiOS offering. Anyway, you are certainly correct that a USB attached EVDO Modem provides boaters more flexibility than the PC Card based unit, unless you're one of the ones that have already successfully implemented the KR-1 router with the PC Card based EVDO Modem. Gil ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

Cingular-ATT has a wifi service to suplement celular. Communications MAnager that comes with its card includes wifi support. I've never used it, i think you need to pay a little extra to access Cingular Hot Spots. Not sure if they are truly cingular hot spots or others cingular has agreements with. pascal Miami, fl ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gil Johnson" <dogtrawler@yahoo.com> To: <David@BeaconNet.com>; "TWL" <trawlers-and-trawlering@lists.samurai.com> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:06 AM Subject: T&T: WIFI Card Upgrade > David, I think you're comparing apples with oranges. To the best of my > knowledge, there are no serpice providers (Sprint, Verizon, Qwest) with > Wi-Fi offerings.