Wireless internet access while travelling

[z4955]

is it possible to connect to the internet with a laptop computer from a moving vehicle while going down the highway and if so how? someone informed me that all you need is for the laptop to be wifi enabled and to purchase a wifi card for it.

 

[russ_watters]

is it possible to connect to the internet with a laptop computer from a moving vehicle while going down the highway and if so how? someone informed me that all you need is for the laptop to be wifi enabled and to purchase a wifi card for it.

Aside from a self-pointing satellite dish on the roof (its not wifi, but they do exist) and a handful of special cases, no. Philadelphia is considering a plan to cover the entire city with free wireless access and somewhere in the midwest (Kansas?) is a 1000 foot tower that provides a 30 or 50 mile radius of coverage, but other than that, there just isn't the same kind of coverage of WiFi as for cell phones (some cell phone companies offer internet access through the phones though).

 

[Anttech]

Dont know about the states, but in Europe we have GPRS and GPRS cards, that you can plug into a Laptop and connect to a GSM network and surf the internet... Actually I have been in this excat senario, I was driving and my colegue was using MSN messeneger on his lappy while I was doing 120K/H down the freeway.

http://l8shop.net/Products/Vodaphone_Mobile_Connect_3G_GPRS_Data_Card.aspx

 

[PerennialII]

Dont know about the states, but in Europe we have GPRS and GPRS cards, that you can plug into a Laptop and connect to a GSM network and surf the internet... Actually I have been in this excat senario, I was driving and my colegue was using MSN messeneger on his lappy while I was doing 120K/H down the freeway.

http://l8shop.net/Products/Vodaphone_Mobile_Connect_3G_GPRS_Data_Card.aspx

Yeah, this is a really fine way, and with the late spreading of GPRS can finally get a decent amount of bandwith to really get the essentials done pretty much anywhere.

 

[franznietzsche]

Dont know about the states, but in Europe we have GPRS and GPRS cards, that you can plug into a Laptop and connect to a GSM network and surf the internet... Actually I have been in this excat senario, I was driving and my colegue was using MSN messeneger on his lappy while I was doing 120K/H down the freeway.

http://l8shop.net/Products/Vodaphone_Mobile_Connect_3G_GPRS_Data_Card.aspx

We have GPRS here too, its just basically only used in cell phones.

is it possible to connect to the internet with a laptop computer from a moving vehicle while going down the highway and if so how? someone informed me that all you need is for the laptop to be wifi enabled and to purchase a wifi card for it.

No, that's really not true. You do need that, but you'll also need a signal from a wireless transmitter. Most cards on the market only have ranges of about 300 feet or so (wireless B cards anyway, new ones might go farther, i dunno).

Incidentally, once while riding in a car through Santa Barbara traffic was so bad, and the houses so close to the freeway that i was able to get internet access on someone's wireless network for a few minutes.

Of course, this is a bad thing for whoever's network that was, because i shouldn't have been able to that. Unless they want people to be able to view their network traffic and try to steal their credit card numbers.

 

[loseyourname]

You can already get GPRS access through http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/2226761 here in the states, but the bandwidth is very limited compared to WiFi.