Since my wife and I both have a need and desire to stay connected while traveling, I brought along a Cradlepoint PHS300 wifi router for use with cellular aircards (USB based) and an AT&T 3G mobile broadband stick. With this setup we don't have to load up software on our computers and we can simultaneously share the Internet connection, as well as having the security of placing a firewall between us and the Internet. We've used this setup for a couple of years and it works great when we have mobile 3G available (it also works on the older and slower Edge network).
A couple of years ago I had tried an Autonet Mobile device. This device has an embedded Verizon cellular radio which connects to their 3G service. As much as AT&T has a bad rap for cellular coverage, in northern California, particularly at state parks/campgrounds and traveling to them, the AT&T units have almost always had better coverage. When we camped in Yosemite for New Year's 2009, AT&T was the only one that had any service in the valley of the National Park. When we traveled to Montana by way of Nevada and Idaho, I found coverage to be comparable between the two and speed tended to be slightly faster with the AT&T, whether it was on Edge or 3G. After the obligatory year of service with the Autonet Mobile, I cancelled the service
.For this trip the service with AT&T was about what we expected--we'd get 3G and good speed in and around towns of ~3,000 people and Edge in between and several complete dark spots, even on I5 up through Oregon and Washington.
For the Canada portion, instead of paying the exorbitant international data plan rates, I had scoped out Virgin Mobile Canada as having the most suitable solution--another USB stick available with a prepaid plan. Now this was not inexpensive, but it was far cheaper than the alternative, being international data plan with 100 MB from AT&T. I did use the AT&T international voice plan seeing as how I expected a few work-related calls during our days in BC.
The results for voice and data? Interestingly enough, I found that my voice international plan had me on Rogers and Telus, two of Canada's larger mobile services. While on the two, the only period during which I was without cellular signal was on a super remote stretch of drive lasting ~15 miles on the way to Tofino, BC. Other than that, I had 3G data and full voice the entire time in BC, in areas far more remote than Yosemite, any of the California State Parks, and rural Montana. It was frankly amazing! My mobile broadband using the Virgin Mobile card was identical. I haven't looked into it but I would assume that there isn't even an Edge network or low speed mobile broadband. Very interesting and now I'm quite envious!
What was more challenging than expected though was buying and activating the Virgin Broadband card. I could buy the USB card/stick outright no problem but I couldn't simply buy the 1 month/1 Gig prepaid because it won't work with a US credit card (we tried 3 different ones). Finally, I had to buy 're-up' increments, 3 of them at $15/each, then I had to login to the Virgin Mobile site and apply each one to my account, then I had to call Virgin Mobile (which is interesting because it sounds like they're trained to use hipster slang) and they activated the card's account on their end. However, it still wasn't ready... Then I had to use a Windows XP computer to activate it. My Mac wasn't loaded with virtualized XP machine so I was out of luck on that and my step-dad's Windows 7 computer didn't work, gratefully his wife's work computer was with them and it runs XP so I was able to activate the card itself with her computer and then uninstall all the bloatware that comes with the thing. At last, I had working prepaid Canadian mobile Internet! It only took about 2.5 hours but it worked great with my broadband wifi unit and we were good to go. In fact, just like the coverage with my iPhone, we had service all over the place, only in a couple of remote spots did we not have coverage, and this is with one of Canada's relatively small mobile players, Virgin. Telus and Rogers are huge by comparison.
After 6 days on the road using the Virgin card, it was in fact painful to come back to the US and find the slow broadband speeds and the dreaded return of the Edge network.
In sum, if you're planning an international trip and you need to have broadband available to your wifi devices, the Cradlepoint PHS300 is an excellent device for doing that. I'm reasonably satisfied with my AT&T USB broadband stick. For me in northern California, the coverage is the best of the majors over here and between here and Idaho, Montana, & Nevada, the coverage is as good as Verizon's and as fast or faster. Keep in mind that just because a network is '3G', it may not be any faster than old school Edge, at least based on my experience.
If you're traveling internationally, research ahead of time. Check for options on prepaid mobile broadband and wifi at your destination(s). It's expensive to buy a specialized broadband device for the country you're in but it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper than incurring roaming charges.
A note to the US providers, please check out Canada's networks--they have equally challenging terrain and lower population density across a larger swath of land. How do they get the 3G coverage that they do but we can't?
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