Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Great idea. Wasn't sure it would work well. Needed to be able to use a modem in a variety of countries, with a variety of local cards, to avoid the incredibly high data costs that US carriers tend to charge when you're using cellular data services outside the U.S.
The Zoom unit is solid. Nice simple design.
It's a little tricky putting the SIM card into the slot - after you take off the back cover, you have to carefully position it so it will slide under a thin metal band. But you eventually get the hang of it.
Unfortunately the AT&T voice/data card that I use in my smartphone didn't work in the Zoom modem. I couldn't connect with the network. I called Zoom tech support several times. The Zoom tech support people were helpful, but this unit is really new - they admitted that they haven't gotten a lot of calls on it yet. I finally talked to "Dennis," who said that you have to get a "data only" SIM card from AT&T. Unfortunately the reps at AT&T say there is no such thing - that you can only get a data SIM if you also buy a PCMCIA modem. Called tech support back at Zoom and they said you can get one if you go to an AT&T store. I was getting tired of the AT&T runaround, so I checked T-Mobile online.
It turns out T-Mobile has an unlimited data plan for $39.99/month. Went to the local store with my laptop and my Zoom modem, signed up for the plan, and got the SIM card. Didn't have to get a contract, or buy a modem or phone. Plugged the card into the Zoom modem, and plugged the Zoom modem into the laptop. Bingo. It downloaded pages faster than my cable modem - tough to believe, but true.
The Zoom software is nicely designed. It shows you your usage rate, in case you're watching your megabytes. Makes it easy to receive SMS messages - which comes in handy when you're registering on the T-Mobile site, for example. We'll see how this works with local SIM cards in other areas of the world, but so far - thanks to T-Mobile - this is pretty encouraging.
Update, June 2011 - Still chugging along. The T-Mobile plan is now $49 a month, which may or may not be related to ATT buying T-Mobile (sad). In any case, this thing works beautifully with all SIM cards so far, and gives me almost-cable-speed wireless in a variety of settings. The software is elegant and intuitive. One note - when you remove it from your computer with the power on, first disconnect it from the network, then go to the Z icon in the system tray, right-click, and hit "EXIT." THEN you can "remove the hardware" using the remove hardware icon in windows. If you don't do it this way, you can get the blue screen of death due to IRQ interrupt conflicts.
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