It depends (Score 1)

I feel like I should reply to this, as I've used Verizon wireless mobile as my only internet access for over a year and a half, and am very pleased with it. But context and usage are critical. My context is that while I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I live in a rural spot that's never had any DSL options, and while my neighbors have cable, I'm too far from the road to do so (though the cable company 'offered' to run the cable from the road to my building for several thousand dollars.) So after using a very slow dial-up for six years, I switched to the mobile broadband, and it's a vast-beyond-words improvement. Speed varies. Occasionally, I log on and have something not much faster than dial-up, but that usually changes pretty quickly. One thing I've confirmed repeatedly is that if I start to download a big file (350MB, for example), the speed of the connection quickly goes up to maxium. It takes about 40 minutes to download that size file on an average day. As others have said, usage is very much a factor in this. If you do mostly email and browsing, with occasional downloads of music and video files, you'd probably be fine with it. But P2P doesn't really work, in part because you're not always on. (I'm in a tech job and work from home once a week, and have stayed connected for up to 8-10 hours at a time. But I don't leave it on overnight, and try to remember to disconnect it when I'm not actively on the computer.) I've had friends tell me that watching youtube videos on my laptop with my mobile wireless set up is about the same as watching them via DSL. There is some buffering, but it's very possible to do. I like being able to take my internet connection with me when I travel. As long as Verizon has service there, I don't have to worry about hotels charging an arm and leg for their service, or dealing with family members' wireless setups. Some people commented about getting poor connections inside their home, but Verizon, at least, offers a 10 day no-questions-asked return. (And Sprint might well do the same thing.) So you could always give it a try and see how the connection speeds worked out for you. I'm moving this summer, and will almost certainly be moving somewhere where cable or DSL is an option, but I have no plans to switch. Verizon now has a USB wireless stick (instead of the PC card) and when my current contract runs out next fall, I expect to go that route. (Which I assume would work on a desktop as well, should I buy one.) In short, using Verizon's service as my sole internet access has worked perfectly for me, and I intend to continue with it. But it might be very different going from whatever high-speed setup you currently have to the mobile wireless than it was for me going from dead-slow dialup. You don't consistently get broadband speed, but it's fast enough to do everything I want to do, and the convenience of being able to take it with me when I travel can't be overstated.