I won a 60-day free trial of Sprint's mobile broadband service. I was given the choice of several different cards. I opted for the Merlin S720 by Novatel Wireless. Interestingly enough, the cards range in price from free to just over $200. As long as you get a card that supports the "EV-DO Rev A" speed, you won't really notice much difference. The card that I got is GPS enabled but it doesn't help with point-to-point directions. The GPS can only be used to find the nearest hotels, restaurants, etc.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how great this technology works. I think I was skeptical because my only experience with wireless data from a cell phone company had been when I used to hook up my laptop to my cell phone. Using a cell phone as a modem was painfully slow; even slower than dial-up. This wireless card is awesome! I've used it on the train, at restaurants that don't have Wi-Fi and, most recently, I used it a few times at one of our satellite offices when our network went down. It was nice to be able to just pop the card in and continue working whereas everyone else had to sit and wait until the network came back on-line.
$50 per month for the service isn't too bad, especially since you can cancel your home ISP. The speeds I'm getting with the Sprint card are fast enough that I don't think I'd miss my 6mbps cable modem.
I should also point out how impressed I have been so far with Sprint. In the post below, I discussed how after my Nextel phone was stolen, I switched to Sprint. I haven't had a problem with dropped calls or no signal since I switched. What really impresses me though is their customer service. Though Sprint and Nextel have combined, they are still on separate networks and they have different technical support groups. The people I talk to at Sprint seem to really know what's going on and they've taken great care of me. I even sent an email to them with a technical question and the guy who responded gave me his direct email address in case I had further issues. That kind of personalized service and accountability is something I don't see too much these days.