GPRS in North America *Solved*

cmsamo

I'm flying out to Providence, RI in a few days on business. I am going to try and implement a demo system over there that does the following:

Reads output from a seperate system, uploads that data to a web-server, then transmits the data to smart phones / PDAs via GRPS protocol.

We are based in the UK and our demo system is running here with no problems. The UK cellphone service providers all provide GPRS so we are able to connect to the server and read data.

What I don't know (and surprisingly a google does not seem to help much) is whether the major US cellphone service providers have GPRS, and will I be able to buy US pay-as-you-go sim-cards in Providence and slot them into my PDA and then connect to the web server?

I'm specifically looking for info on how much the sims might cost and what are the actual charges for data rates? Which are the best suppliers? What ist the coverage of GPRS like? Basically I guess I am looking for people's experiences using GPRS in North America and which networks are available.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice, In the meantime I'll keep trawling Google.

EDIT - Solved -> spoke to the nice people at T-Mobile North America and they are sending us some sim cards

Lewisham

Presuming your PDA is unlocked, AT&T once sold me a SIM card straight-up. It's a GSM network, and does have GRPS IIRC, but I would really hope if your business depended on this, you would know from someone better than I.

embrik

I can't speak intelligently about prepaid SIMs in the US, but I know they're harder to come by then they are in Europe. However, I do know that the GPRS coverage is just fine in Providence. I have a coworker who was there for a conference a month or so ago, and he had his Cingular Blackberry with him, which runs on GPRS, and it worked great. The two major GSM carriers in the US are Cingular (actually now AT&T again) and T-Mobile.

cmsamo

Thanks Embrik.... Good to hear there is nice GPRS coverage there. I'll check out the tmobile web-page and see what kinds of deals they do - a quick scout shows they do an "internet-only" sim card with unlimited downloads etc. Looks good so far, just have to work out how to sign a contract with them seeing as my company is UK based