Re: Wireless, routers and mobile broadband.
SBN, as in most things, there is a balance. As I read this thread just now, there's excellent descriptions and advice.
When I connected our PCs into a network, I considered going wireless. I would have had to buy a wireless card for each device (PCs and a couple printers); hard-wiring was much less expensive at that point. So I've chosen to hard-wire my home network (Cat5e) for security and the fact I just haven't gotten used wandering around the house with a laptop .. the fact all my PCs are desktop models affects that. Since my home is near a major retail area, I would need to ensure I use a pretty tight encryption / security mode. With wired, I don't need that -- I'm not talking antivirus, spam blocker etc here.
If I wanted to compute from the back deck, front proch, or (..) then wireless would be much more valuable. I understand that one you get used to it, you don't want to give it up.
I've chosen to go with DSL as (for me) the optimum balance between cost and speed. AT&T offers 3 or 4 speeds at different prices, but I've gone with an economical one.
I did not choose cable because we do not use cable for TV, and in our area the cable service is very expensive. A coworker uses cable for his internet connection and has eliminated his telco land-line. Another coworker who lives in a rural area uses cellular wireless because he can't get other broadband at a reasonable cost.
Wireless service is not necessary because we have dependable wired service at a much lower rate. If we were at our cottage in northern Michigan, I might consider the wireless service because DSL is not available there, and cable would cost almost as much, from what I've heard.
The other factor to consider is how dependable your cellular service is. Even though our home is within a block of the county's major retail area, our cell service will go from no signal to 4 bars and back within a few minutes. Going from our living room to dining room may keep or lose signal. At our cottage, I can see 5 cell towers from our dock -- and the closest is about 1 mile from us-- but sometimes we get signal and sometimes we don't.
Consider these factors, too.
