ATT Air Card??

I just moved to St Croix from Ct. I had cable in CT and decided to get the ATT air card out of the options I researched. I've been using it for 3 days, and found it to spontaneously count megs and megs of received data even while I am not on email or the net. Usage totals about 1.5 gigs in 3 days.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday with ATT support 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level, to find a reason, and they could not pinpoint anything. I've made certain all auto-update items are not checked in the startup, and all ports were closed in the firewall. The problem still exists. I will give support one more chance, but if there is no solution, the card goes back after the 30 day trial.

I am in the process as we speak of downloading a net counter to compare to the ATT Communications Manager. I'll let you know what I find.

I only know someone on STT who has a Sprint set-up. It's not as fast as they claim but still good.

I love my ATT air card! Online all the way through omar. No outages or slow downs to speak of. Had a problem one month when my husband discovered Hula.com and went on a streaming video spree but the adjusted the $815 overcharge. Wouldn't want to try to day trade on it but it handles my day to day internet business quite well.

Pamela

After downloading Netmeter to compare to the AT&T Communications Manager, I've been working with it all day, and have not been able to get it to repeat the exhorbitant meg counting that I experienced over the last 3 days. Kind of ironic, as soon as I get a watchdog to watch the watcher, it settles down.

I will continue to use it over the next several days and let you know what happens.

Other than this problem, I think the service is pretty decent. Although, I get a weak signal in the bottom condo of a 3 floor concrete resort building. Once I walk outside, five bars. Haven't tried it on the rest of the island yet.

Being kind of dumb in these areas. what exactly is happening. Why is that bad?

Typically, in the midst of normal Internet usage (and I use it a great deal in my business), I will be on for an hour and accumulate only about 2 or three megs of data received. In extreme browser usage, maybe it will climb to 20 or 30 megs. over the course of a month, at an average of 50 megs per day, that would total about 1.5 gigs of usage, or less than a third of the 5 gig max before I have to start paying per kilobyte.

So far in 4 days, I've accumulated about 2 gigs of service. Total over 30 days at this rate would be near 15 gigs, or 3 times the max allowed. The bill will be in the thousands for the month.

I am leaning toward identifying the problem being not with the aircard and service, but rather possibly something on my laptop requesting received data that I am unaware of at this point in time. The netmeter I am running simultaneously is showing the same numbers of megs coming in. This could be the work of an intruder.

My next step will be to connect to the net via a wireless connection nearby, and see if the problem occurs without the AT&T Communication Manager connected.

If this problem is on my laptop, I should be able to track it down.

I am less than great at understanding the "gig"a bytes, but will say when I moved down 2 years ago, did get an ATT air card because I converted over to ATT from Verizon. I use this lap top as an additonal personal PC but the aircard has not been a problem with too much storage.... In general when I use the card it is slower than DSL, but appreciate the safety factor rather than using WI FI. When I use the same card in Florida, it speeds up...still not horrible either way. I can live with it and I am not a patient person.

Is a great asset when we have had the storms, Omar, etc. and is my handy back up to my regular Innovative service - that may be faster but service is down much more often.

Not sure if that helps but my describes my usage and appreciation.

I believe I found the problem with the constant download through Communication Manager. By using the netstat -b command in the command window, I was able to find an exe that was communicating through an open port. I did a search on the exe and found it to be a program I loaded quite a while back. It appears it downloads content even though the process is disabled in the startup. Funny it did not show up in the firewall exceptions either.

Needless to say that application has been uninstalled, and the constant download seems to have ceased. As long as this problem is solved, I would say I am happy with the device and service, and would recommend it as an option. My only suggestion is to do your homework on the quality of the air card you get, as with cell phones, one will get a better signal and strength than another.

Cheers!

which card device are you using on stx?

USB Quicksilver

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phones/pda-phones-smartphones.jsp