WIFi-USB

I found on a recent trip to the US and Canada, I was far better off getting a roaming CRIC dial in account. It costs about $4USD an hour to operate, plus the price of a local call from your hotel room. This is a world wide service.

The wireless enabled hot spots generally want you to feed in credit card details to gain connection at about $10 an hour, and each airport seems to have different vendors.

Qantas lounges give you a free local call phone line, which is very handy. I assume most of the others do this also.

I only got to use my wireless connection once, which was at a Niagra Falls hotel, and is a free service. Just needed to call reception for a username and password.

This was after spending $15 on hotel local phone calls to find out that Niagra falls has different dial in numbers for GRIC roaming, as it borders on the US and CA, and I was hearing little old ladies answering my modem. After ringing reception for a bit of directory assistance, they asked me why I didn't use their free service. :-)

If getting email is mandatory during traveling, I feel hotspots need a lot more development before you can go without a global or national dial in account. Give it another year or two.

Don...

If you have the slot, get a PCMCIA wireless card instead. They generally use less power, have better throughput, plus one less cable. They tend to behave better when your laptop goes to sleep, also.

--Gene