This is pretty cool. I’m sitting at a picnic table on Sucia Island, a jewel of a State Park at the far north of the San Juans. It’s been a busy summer day here, as it often is in someplace as special as this. We power-boated up from Anacortes this morning, slowing for the tongues of fog running in between the islands.
Okay, so there actually is a gear and gadgets angle here. I’m online with a Sprint EVDO card in my laptop, at near DSL/Cable speeds. You have to be within a coverage area, but it’s getting pretty good here in the Northwest. This is actually a really nice way to gain greater mobility. $60/month is a little on the expensive side, but it’s been worthwhile for me to be able to use my cabin in the woods near Port Townsend as an office. At the cabin, we share the data card to our other computers with a EVDO to Wifi router, the D-Link DIR-450. This could be a nice solution for sharing an internet connection on a larger boat as well.
If you’re interested in a service like this and Sprint high speed coverage isn’t available in your area, Verizon also offers an EVDO service, and Cingular/AT&T has a slower data service as well.
Fair Winds!
2 responses so far ↓
Tim Flanagan, Managing Editor // Aug 12, 2007 at 7:01 am
That’s pretty dang cool, Aaron. $60 a month isn’t cheap, but if you use this in lieu of a conventional broadband ISP at home, you’re only paying an additional $20 or so for an awful lot of extra mobility.
I noticed that, depeding on where I was at Fossil Bay, I got either good cellular connectivity or none at all. It appears that there are some antennas atop Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island; whenever I could see the mountain, I could make phone calls. Does this agree with your experience using EVDO?
Guest Live Blogging from the Port Townsend-Edmonds Freight Ferry // May 10, 2009 at 11:40 pm
[...] 12:00 – I’m posting these updates while underway as we make our way down Admiralty Inlet and into Puget Sound and ultimately to the Edmonds ferry terminal. I’m using a Sprint wireless broadband card on my laptop, and the connection has been pretty good along the way. I’ve found Sprint to be a good choice for wireless internet in the Western Washington…even Sucia Island! [...]
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