CrunchGear

Where is a list of the country’s supported?

“yes, the plan is $59.99 in the US, but I wonder what it costs internationally?

Truth be told, there’s nothing extraordinary about Sierra Wireless’ latest EV-DO USB modem. It plays nice with Rev. A networks, includes a microSD slot, and comes with TRU-Install to simplify the setup procedure. Granted, it is “the only product in its class to include a connector for an external antenna (saywha?),” and it is remarkably small, so it’s still worth a look if you’re currently doing without. As expected, you’ll reach downlink speeds of up to 3.1Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1.8Mbps, and the built-in GPS antenna is a nice bonus, too. Unfortunately, we’ve no idea how costly this one will be, but be on the lookout for a Q2 launch.

The Sierra Wireless Compass 597 will be available this April for $49.99 after a $50 rebate and a two year contract with Sprint.

The Sprint EX720 ExpressCard should available pretty soon for as low as $179.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement. If you’re willing to sign up for a two-year contract you should be able to get unlimited usage for $59.95 a month. If you’re not running that rich, then $39.99 a month gets you a 40MB cap, while that same unlimited data contract with a one-year subscriber agreement is a not-inconsiderable $79.99 per month.

Set-up is about as simple as any plug and play device, maybe simpler. The graphic set-up program is quick, easy, and simple to follow. We were able to connect to a U720 and a U595 in well under 2 minutes. We used both a Dell and an HP laptop, and both recognized and configured to the router with either card easily. Machines with Vista take a minute to find the wireless network settings, but once connected set-up is smooth as well.

I found the Cradlepoint router to be very feature rich small office or home
router. It has 2 USB ports and 1 PCMCIA Express slot for EVDO cards, it also
has an Ethernet WAN port and 4 LAN ports. It has N wireless as well.
I found that the router did a good job failing over from the Ethernet WAN
connection to the EVDO connection. However it did not switch back to the
Ethernet connection after it came back up. I had to unplug the EVDO card to
get it to switch back to the Ethernet WAN connection.

When making your decision for mobile connectivity, the AirCard 595 could be a great choice. When you need to do work out of the office there is no substitute for mobile broadband, though the added expense of a broadband card and a plan is something to consider given that most users will probably already have a mobile phone and possibly a data plan with that as well. If you can get over the hurdle of another monthly expense (or you can have an employer take care of it) and you have a notebook with a PC Card slot, this could be a great way to go. At this point you may want to consider a USB card though, as this will be able to work with any device, regardless of the size of the expansion slot.