Some family friends from Finland are headed to Vegas for vacation. They want to purchase prepaid SIM cards for 4 phones so that they can call and etc. in the U.S. They also want to have access to the internet via their laptops wherever they might find themselves in California. They were hoping to find a SIM card solution in the U.S. that also connects to their laptops (like they do in Finland). I'm lost when it comes to mobile broadband via SIM cards. What is the best way to achieve this? Links?

5/22/2010 12:04:28 PM

AT&T has this - but I remember it being pricey. ~$70/month or something.

Does their carrier not offer international roaming? In my travel experiences the prorated international plans were waaaaay cheaper than going the prepaid route. But I also have a worldphone, so I didn't need to change out phones or anything.

You may also want to consider http://www.datajack.com/home for data.

5/22/2010 12:33:36 PM

Yeah I'm thinking the DataJack or the Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go are the best bets. Possibly the Novatell Mifi?

http://www.novatelwireless.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=75&Itemid=622

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband

[Edited on May 22, 2010 at 12:48 PM. Reason : .]

5/22/2010 12:46:06 PM

datajack and virgin look exactly the same.... including the hardware

And I'm pretty sure they're both GSM so spotty service comes bundled. However it shouldn't be bad in Vegas and California's city centers. You'll probably be graced with HSDPA when you're lucky enough to find a tower with enough backend to handle it.

5/22/2010 8:26:20 PM