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-- Wireless Internet (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=11086)

I finally bought my first PDA. A Visor Prism. I am interested in Wireless Internet. I read a little bit about Omnisky and Yada Yada. I am basically interested in web surfing more than email. My sites of interest would include Yahoo Finance, Fidelity, CNN, ESPN, cnbc.com, etc. I have a few questions.

1. Do these sites have to be optimized for display on PDA for us to be able to view them?
2. Which of the two providers is better (Omnisky or Yada Yada)?
3. How is the speed? Is it a crawl? Do you spend a lot of time waiting for stuff to download?
4. Can I get my email from onebox.com or do I have to have email account on hotmail, yahoo, etc?

Thanks for your opinions

I can help you with some of these questions:

1. No, but it can help a lot as far as speed and ease of use.

2. I went with Yada Yada (they had a free modem deal with 1 year of service, that was the deal closer for me!)

3. What do you mean by "crawl"? At best wireless (no matter who you go thru or how you connect) data via a cellular link is limited to bout 19.2 at best, or about half the speed of a normal phone modem .. So by DSL & cable modem standards it does "crawl", but you also have to look at it this way, you giving up high speed for mobility. Another Plus is the Visor's screen is smaller, so it takes a lot less to fill it.. Another factor is what web browser you use on your Visor, blazer is very fast, but has faults, so I also use Palmscape to make up for blazers few glitches. Turning off graphics can speed things up also.. If you use PQA's (Works with OMNISKY out of the Box, YADAYADA subscribers and OS 3.1 folks i.e. non Prism's/Platinum's need a 3rd party program to use PQA's) they will be the fastest to access the web (they are specifically tuned for speed).. All things considered it's not bad and it's pretty kool to be able to access the web , send e-mail, and chat on AOL IM anywhere I want!

4. I don't know anything about onebox.com, but if they support POP3 access you probably can.

Some things you may wish to consider when deciding between YY and OS. YY does not have a 30 day trial period, OS does. OS gives you a case that holds the visor and modem, YY does not. OS uses AT&T's network, YY uses Verizon and AT&T's network which means more coverage. With OS, sign up for a year at $400 (~$33/month). YY is $40/month w/ or w/o a contract while OS is also $40/month w/o a contract or with a 6 month contract (less if you sign up for a year but have to pay $400 all at once). OS also comes with a $50 mailin rebate and an instant $200 savings on the modem (no mail-ins) bringing the cost of the modem down to $100 at the time of purchase, $50 after the mail-in rebate. If you go with OS's 6 month service option, you have to wait 6 months before the $200 will be credited to your account. YY use to have a free modem option but not anymore. Probably should check to see what their current promotion is, if any. Hope that wasn't too confusing.

Good points..

For me, the free modem was easier to sell to my wife...

Or, you can simply connect your Visor to your cellphone using SprintPCS (or Verizon?) with a home built cable for less than $30.00 (or you can buy one already made for around $30.00 - as described on several other threads)and just use your regular minutes to surf the web and get email with your choice of ISP. No expensive module, and no expensive service with limited coverage.

Ironically at the moment, I don't own a cell phone!

(Had one but transferred the service to my wife's cell phone, I never really used it anyway, was always close to a land line most of the time when I needed a phone.)

I would have gone that route if I could have got a straight answer from the cell phone companies on "wireless data" usage rates vs "voice minutes".. I have Verizon as a DSL ISP but they do not have a "dial in" option for my DSL service.. so I would need to obtain yet another ISP.

I also really didn't want to futz around with cables and such. At the time I made my choice cables were limited.

Re: Verizon DSL & dial-up

You can add dial-in to your DSL Internet service (assuming that Verizon is both your DSL and ISP provider). I've been using their DSL since October 1999, and added the dial-in last spring. Since I only use the dial-in to support e-mail and AvantGo, I've never exceeded the "free" minutes you get for the monthly dial-in charge (somewhere between $5 and $10).

From what I was told, the dial-in option you have is only available in "certain markets", mine isn't one of them ... If I want dial-in I have to cough up another $19.95 / month..

-Eric