Willie Nelson has tossed the satellite dish off the back of his corn-powered tour bus in favor of a little box that fuses wireless data cards from a variety of networks into a single connection.
Which is to say Willie is on the net again, seeing things he may never see again.
Satellite connections can be made anywhere, but they are expensive and have strict usage caps. Network data cards offer all-you-can eat broadband plans, but any given company's — AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint — doesn't work everywhere. The solution? Use an array of network data cards from several companies. What Nelson has done is to tie four wireless USB cards into a Mushroom Networks PortaBella 141, which makes them into a single, fast and robust connection that can power a roving or remote network.
That means if Willie wants to see how well he played "Whiskey River" at Farm Aid 2009, the packets from YouTube flow through all of the cards at once.
"Because of the diversity of the cards, you don’t get the patchy up and down of wireless cards," Mushroom Networks CEO Cahit Akin said. "It smooths out the experience."
Run a single ethernet cable from the second-generation Portabella to a wireless router and you've got internet for an entire tour bus, construction site or outdoor concert.
That means Willie's friends Pancho and Lefty don't have to worry about using too much bandwidth as they try to escape the police, and Willie Nelson doesn't have bandwidth caps always on his mind if he's listening to new music online.
Willie's a big catch for the upstart, San Diego-based company — and a heavy user. He averages 200 days a year on the road, including the just-finished Farm Aid concert. And that means his team is constantly uploading new media to his website, and keeping in touch with friends and family. And they seem happy, having ditched the satellite connection just like they ditched petroleum for bio-fuel.
"We rarely lose connection even in rural areas or if one card goes down," said David Anderson, Willie Nelson's tour manager.
Mushroom Networks makes a range of gadgets that turn many connections into a single. That's different from load balancers which distribute users among multiple connections — but assigns each user to a given connection. The PortaBella's advantage is that users don't notice as one connection gets weak or slow, since their traffic is then handled by a less congested card. Most data cards now come with a 5Gb per month download cap, so bundling the cards together let's users not worry as much about blowing through that cap.
The unit weighs a bit more than a pound, fits in your palm and has a battery pack option — with about a claimed four-hour life. Mushroom Networks wouldn't provide a price for the unit, but did say leasing options start at $50 a month. That's just for the PortaBella, and currently wireless data cards run about $50 a month as well.
That means a total cost nearing $300 a month for 20Gb of pretty fast, very mobile internet. Those who need short-term mobile internet can turn to re-sellers such as Internet Anywhere.
Who else besides a traveling musician with an entourage would have need of such a thing? A small band could just use the Mifi 2200 which runs off Verizon's wireless service.
Well, companies that can't get a wired connection, outdoor events, videographers streaming live video, and transportation services including commuter shuttles buses, ferries and passenger trains.
And, hell, if it's good enough for Willie Nelson, it's gonna be good enough for you.
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