The other day I blogged that maybe carriers aren't getting a return on their investment with respect to 3G wireless data. While that might be true from a mobile phone perspective, it's an altogether different story when you consider mobile data cards. I am writing this blog from a Borders near my home and skipping the T-Mobile HotSpot because the Verizon Wireless EV-DO Rev. A wireless broadband service is faster.That's not a scientific calculation, but an actual real-life observation. To be quite honest, my experience with coffee shop Wi-Fi networks has been rather poor across the board, and T-Mobile HotSpots have been among the worst Wi-Fi connections I've seen. Now, I may simply have stumbled upon over-crowded hotspots again and again. But I find that unlikely.

All that aside, my browsing experience sitting here with a Rev. A card sticking out of my laptop is impressive. At $60 per month, it better be. That's twice as much as my FiOS connection at home. What I like is that the connection is mine, all mine. No sharing bandwidth with other surfers nearby.

Right now I have 10 Web sites open (tabbed browsing), two of them different email accounts. Pages are loading quickly, email is popping up instantly and the connection is keeping up with all the sites, and even refreshing CNN.com and NYTimes.com regularly.

Sprint offers its EV-DO Rev. A service in my locality (metro NYC region), too. According to Cingular's coverage map, though, its HSDPA 3G service does not extend to my town with the exception of a tiny femtocell-sized dot on the map that is probably the nearby Cingular store.

My question is, how many data card customers are the wireless carriers signing up? Enough to recapture some of that pesky CAPEX from the build out of the high-speed networks?

Now that I am finished writing this post, I am going to pack up and see how strong the signal is at my local auto shop while I wait for my truck to be repaired. Being able to work anywhere definitely has its appeal.