About three years ago I beta-tested a wireless PCMIA card for the then-new Ricochet network. The service worked very well, but folded anyway in the dot-com bust. We were told to keep the now-useless modem as a thanks for testing it. At the time the cost of the modem was $400, so I put in my desk drawer (too expensive to simply toss out) and forgot about it. Now Ricochet is back and covers my home town. Access speeds average 115Kbps, with bursts to 400(may need to do some tweaking to get the advertised average of 174). Got a free month of service for providing my own modem, and will spend about $45 a month for wireless access anywhere in town. I'm writing this from Coco's restaurant.
At the same time I've upgraded my laptop to a Toshiba Pentium 4 2.0Ghz with Windows XP Pro. So now I enjoy a blazing fast computer with a much faster connection that I can use anywhere.
I'm in geek heaven. A big boy with new toys.