Hi,
What is the cheapest way to get onto the fastest wireless internet there is, and I mean fastest.
I understand that Telstra has two or even three types of modems that affect what kind of speeds you can access, and am looking for the one that can get me the fastest speeds and latency. Also what would be the cheaper option if I am looking for 500mb to 1GB of data a month, pre-paid or post-paid?
Thanks in advance
Trance N Dance
Telstra's modem comparison table is here.
The fastest is Telstra Elite™ Modem which is $299rrp or free on any of the post-paid business data plans. The cheapest of which is $29 for 1gb, followed by $39 for 3gb. Possibly $10 less if you have other services with them + the ExpressCard version may be slightly faster due to the faster bus speed.
They appear to be cheaper than the pre-paid plans.
There are also shared plans which could be very cost effective if you have 3+ associates willing to operate an account co-operatively, and buy/provide their own devices.
Remember:
Once you start down the dark path,
forever will it dominate your destiny.
Bus speed is irrelevant. The Internet access speed is the bottleneck in the process by a large margin. At best you're going to get 21mbps, most likely more like under 10mbps in the real world. usb2 runs at a theoretical maximum of 480mbps, even in the real world at around 30% of that figure (150mbps), there's plenty of overhead.
Ie on USB1 the Bus might be a bottleneck in the real world. On USB2 however, the internet will be the slow point.
IIRC, the 'fastest' modem you can get is the Telstra Turbo 21 Mbps (unless technology has caught up). But getting this speed from the NextG network would be near impossible unless you stand right next to the tower. Also congestion would normally prevent you from getting anywhere near this speed. As for latency, you would only see very small and often unnoticeable differences between different modems. Higher latency is normally caused by poor network quality, distance you are to the tower, etc.
And for the pricing, sorry I'm not familiar in this area for NextG services. Perhaps whirlpool might help?