so i’m going to this business convention that lasts a 10 days. i dont want to pay the convention center the exorbitant rates they charge for their in-house wi-fi.
so i’d like to get some sort of temporary wi-fi for my laptop. i was in an at&t store today asking about it. i can pay for a plugin device and return it when i’m done. Basically i’d be out $70 ($35 for activation/ $35 for restocking) in addition to the proprated portion of the usage of my 5gb plan. so in total, it’ll probably cost me about $100-$150 to get internet for my laptop for the 10 days.
does anyone have any better alternatives? suggestions?
I assume they were offering you something like a USB modem same size as a USB pen with a mobile/cell phone style SIM inside, with either a prepaid or pay-as-you go option. For a specific amount of data/bandwidth usage. To be honest it might be possible the in-house Wi-Fi might be cheaper over the 10 day period. It all depends upon what bandwidth you expect to use, etc.
I have a Droid Incredible with Verizon. I am able to use my phone as a 3G WiFi hot spot by adding the $20/month service to my plan. I only need to activate it when traveling and they pro-rate it for what I used. It works pretty well.
The cons:
It’s not lightning fast, but not terrible either.
You can almost hear the battery draining when using it
If you have a smartphone, that may also be an option to explore.
