What Are AirCards for Laptops?

An AirCard is a wireless adapter that allows a computer to access high speed broadband Internet from anywhere within the provider’s wireless network. Sierra Wireless originally designed and manufactured aircards, but they are now available through virtually every major cellular service provider in the world including AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. AirCards require a data plan with a cellular service provider and may be purchased on a monthly, daily, or prepaid basis.

How AirCards Work

AirCards are similar to wireless adapters, but instead of receiving signals from a wireless router or access point, it accesses a secure connection to nearby cell phone towers just like a cell phone does. Anywhere that a cell phone would have signal with any particular cellular service provider, access to the Internet is also available through an AirCard data plan. Because AirCards connect to nearby cell phone towers and can do so over significantly long distances, the user is not required to use WiFi hotspots. This allows the user to have uninterrupted access to the Internet while travelling or away from home.

Applications

AirCards can be used to access any webpage, software, database, etc. that the Internet has to offer and is not limited by 3G, 4G, or other cellular frequencies that cause some functions to be unavailable when accessing the Internet through a mobile phone. AirCards use a combination of long-range Wireless-N technology and data encryption that routes all incoming and outgoing data through the cellular network.

Advantages

AirCards generally cost around $60/month, the average cost of domestic Internet service. While AirCards were designed for laptop computers so that users could access the Internet while travelling, they can also be connected to desktop computers as a standard Internet service. AirCards do not use any more CPU than wireless adapters and are able to connect to the Internet from a much longer range. Additionally, AirCards are relatively inexpensive and are extremely easy to use.

Disadvantages

AirCards are unable to connect to the Internet in areas that the cellular service provider’s network do not cover, which are the areas where cell phone reception is unavailable as well. Likewise, AirCards only allow one computer to access the Internet at a time, making it a poor choice for regular Internet service in cases where the user has multiple computers.