Yes, I still recommend the Internet in Motion, but would say you have to get the external long range antenna to make a difference. The couple of times that I have called them for service, they’ve been fantastic, and even sent me a free set of antennae when there was a problem with mine. They also sell a satellite version now, but I haven’t looked into it, or know what network it’s using.

Also, for the USA where AT&T is really quite patchy, we picked up a Verizon MiFi with no contract for $250, which gets us a second network, pretty much ensuring that 85% we always had some network.

There is still that other 15%, so if you are counting on this for emergency communications, don’t. But if it is for staying in touch, planning travels, and working/blogging, then the two combined work great.

My experience has been that the USA has some of the worst cell service in the world, so once you get to the “less developed” countries, you’ll actually have better service.

We had no issues changing the SIM card in the Internet in Motion when crossing borders. You need to spend about 10 minutes reconfiguring the hardware to match the new network carrier with the details you can get from their call center.

btw – we also carry an Iomega 2TB NAS, for storing our photos/videos, and it is great for backing up laptops while on the move. We ripped all our DVD’s onto the NAS before leaving as well, so we can have movie nights without filling the truck with DVD’s flying around everywhere.

Hope that helps! I also hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to post this answer up on the main thread so others can see.

Cheers,