VERIZON WANTS 4G EVERYWHERE, even remote rural areas. Well, as someone who has their 3G broadband I have to say that they’ve done a good job deploying it even in quite remote areas.

UPDATE: Reader Deb Call emails:

I followed your link and just wanted to throw in my two cents on Verizon’s 3G mobile hot spot. I work from home and live in very rural Iowa farm country. I’ve exhausted every internet option that has come down the pike over the last 10 years and finally ended up with Verizon’s 3G when it arrived here in late 2009. I transcribe for a large hospital in Kansas City, 250 miles away, and as electronic medical records (EMR) has gained traction and become more interactive, it has been a struggle to keep up with the speed requirements. The company I work for has migrated from a batch format to real-time in the last couple of years and the latency issue was becoming a huge productivity killer for me. I almost had to close up shop about a year ago because I was using HughesNet and the latency was so bad I was spending more time waiting than typing. (I only get paid when my fingers are moving). At that time HughesNet was the fastest and most reliable of all options available in my area, and that is not saying much.

Right around that time, Verizon expanded their 3G coverage out here and I signed up without much confidence that this was going to be the solution. It was! While it’s still the limiting factor in my productivity, the lag is drastically reduced. I do occasionally run up against the 5 gig monthly limit, which can be an issue, but otherwise I can’t say enough about their service. Even in very bad weather, ice, blizzards, etc, I rarely notice a difference in the download speed. That was definitely not the case with my prior service providers. I used to literally plan my workload around the weather forecast so I wouldn’t miss a deadline due to loss of connection, especially during winter months. Not anymore. I even took it with me on a trip to Kauai last year and had great service in spite of being on the north shore, shrouded in rain and thick cloud cover for much of the time. It may take a couple of years for 4G to make its way out here but I’ll be first in line to upgrade the minute it’s available in my area.

Yes, my sister deployed it as a solution to living out in the sticks where she couldn’t get cable or DSL. It worked great for her.