Yesterday I’ve subscribed to a broadband wireless connection. This means that you just insert a card

in your laptop and you’re online. I decided to try this service because I spend two hours a day riding a bus.

I had two major concerns:

1. What will be the speed of the connection

2. Will connection be stable without any interruptions.

I type this blog sitting in the bus that moves with the speed of 70 miles per hour.

I’m listening to a streaming internet radio and browsing the internet.

Internet radio works fine.

Then I tried to watch the streaming Flash videos and they were choppy. At this point I’m not sure if

this is an issue with the streaming servers or this internet connection is chocking up.

As to regular Web browsing, it works at least as good as my home cable connection,

but the service was disconnected once and it took me less than a minute to reconnect.

Sure enough, the speed of connection depends on proximity to major metropolitan areas

(this is were the wireless provider build the most of their relay stations.

Here’s the speed connection test results I ran using an independent speed test provider while being 45 miles away from the New York City:

Speed: 326.6 kilobits per second

Communications 326.6 kilobits per second

Storage 39.9 kilobytes per second

1MB file download: 25.7 seconds

Subjective rating: Not bad

Date amp; time Monday, December 19, 7:13AM

Connection type Wireless: 3G

Region New Jersey

Data size 1024KB

Avg. speed: 0.31 Mbits/sec

T-1 speed: max. 1.54 Mbits/sec

And this test I ran right across the river from NYC:

462.3 kilobits per second

Communications 462.3 kilobits per second

Storage 56.4 kilobytes per second

1MB file download 18.1 seconds

Subjective rating Not bad

Date amp; time Monday, December 19, 8:21AM*

Test type IDT4 Free

Connection type Wireless: 3G

Region New Jersey

Data size 1024KB

My provider’s statistics tool shows me the following data (it also fluctuates as my bus moves):

Max transmit rate (Kbps): from 40 to 55

Max receive rate (KBS): from 300 to 750

Oops, the bus is entering the tunnel that goes under the Hudson River… Believe it or not, I’m still Googling!

This test I ran inSpringfield, MA

Communications 109.4 kilobits per second

Storage 13.4 kilobytes per second

1MB file download 1.3 minutes

Subjective rating Mediocre=

Date amp; time Friday, December 23, 8:36PM*

All this feels great, but if I’ll keep this service, I’ll lose these couple of hours a day when I was disconnected from the net. Is this a good thing? I really do not know.