cloud anywhere

A Wi-Fi connection is pretty easy to find just about anywhere these days.  There are however times when it might become necessary to get into the cloud by other means, and luckily the folks at Google were clever and kind enough to equip the Cr-48 with the means to do so with its Gobi 2000 3G radio and 100MB/mo of free Verizon Wireless access.  So I set out to activate this cloud anywhere service.  This was a very easy task with one tiny hangup that made it just a little annoying, but still simple.

I was able to view 'Activate Verizon Wireless' from the network status menu in the upper right.  I clicked it and a page opened with helpful information about how the service was being activated...it might take a few minutes...and it was quick and easy (along with a friendly comment about how they were striving the make it quicker and easier).  Sure enough a few minutes passed, I had a couple of bars showing I was connected to Verizon, but my account settings showed "partially activated" with an  message stating there was a slight problem (I can't imagine how partially activated wouldn't be) and a number to call if the problem persists.

Not being one to call customer support the first time I get an information message like this, I clicked 'Activate' again and was greeted again with the friendly connecting message followed by the unsurprising "there was a problem" message.  So I called the number.  I was greeted by the friendliest computerized voice telling me the number provided is not available in my area so I should call a different number (awesome).  I did that got in touch with Colin (or something) who kindly asked my situation but cut me off when I said anything related to Google, Cr-48, chrome notebook, and asked "is that like a tablet or something?".  Clearly he was not the person to talk with, but I eventually got patched through to technical support and Nick who had clearly dealt with this before. After I dodged the standard up-sell to a higher data plan, I was granted access to the 3G wonderland (at least what 100MB/month will get me).  

The connection has not let me down yet.  In my few days of testing I have shut down my wireless connection and the 3G seamlessly picks up and quickly eats into my data plan. I can see the options of having unlimited all day access ($9.99) or a higher rate (up to 5GB/mo for $49.99) to be quite tempting if I were ever: a) stranded somewhere without Wi-Fi and really needed to get in the cloud, or b) I did more than go from Wi-Fi at home to Wi-Fi at the office.