Novatel Wireless U730 Card question

I have been looking for a PC card modem in use for my Cingular service
for about a month, and stumbled upon this Novatel Wireless U730 card on
eBay, and puchased it for $70.00

http://i11.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/7e/fc/59af_1.JPG

Since I have been browsing Cingular's website to view their latest
cards, I see that the Sierra Wireless Aircard 875 seems to be exactly
like it. Is the card that I purchased about the same thing as this new
one that looks like it? Are the speeds the same?

I currently just have a regular 64K SIM card, and I'm curious as to
what will happen if I manage to run into a 3G area with this card. Will
I get 3G speeds out of this card with a 64K SIM card? Would I be
experiencing faster speeds than EDGE if I upgraded to a 3G SIM card?

Thanks,
Drew

Drew wrote:

> I have been looking for a PC card modem in use for my Cingular service
> for about a month, and stumbled upon this Novatel Wireless U730 card on
> eBay, and puchased it for $70.00
>
> http://i11.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/7e/fc/59af_1.JPG
>
> Since I have been browsing Cingular's website to view their latest
> cards, I see that the Sierra Wireless Aircard 875 seems to be exactly
> like it. Is the card that I purchased about the same thing as this new
> one that looks like it? Are the speeds the same?
>
> I currently just have a regular 64K SIM card, and I'm curious as to
> what will happen if I manage to run into a 3G area with this card. Will
> I get 3G speeds out of this card with a 64K SIM card? Would I be
> experiencing faster speeds than EDGE if I upgraded to a 3G SIM card?
>
> Thanks,
> Drew

Nope! The U730 is hardware limited to 1.8mbs whereas the AC875 is slated to
do at least double that and could likely go to 7.2mbs if Sierra released
the firmware. That said, the hottest card out there right now is the
Novatel XU870 which is an ExpressCard/34 but also has a pcmcia caddy
available which does not hinder it in any way. BTW, most Novatel cards look
like what you have, this is a first for Sierra to have a built in antenna
completely housed so yes, the AC875 looks similar to the other 90% of the
cards that came out in the last several years.
Whether you can get 3G depends on if your area even has it yet and I have
never tried 3G without a 3G sim so that part I cannot tell you but
upgrading and activating the new sim and deactivating the old one is
trivial enough. In any case, you won't be able to take advantage of the
7.2mbs tower upgrades that are supposed to start happening this month. Your
card has the original hsdpa capable chipset, the Qualcomm MSM6275 which
caps out at 1.8mbs. The newer cards such as the Sierra Wireless AC875 and
the Novatel XU870 use the Qualcomm MSM6280 which has a limit of 7.2mbs. I
don't know if Sierra Wireless will actually release firmware to allow the
full 7.2mbs, Novatel has already committed itself for 7.2mbs with a
firmware upgrade for the XU870. What you paid for the U730 isn't bad
though.


Dave