The Sierra Wireless AirCard U313 is a full USB wireless modem using LTE technology with an HSPA+ fallback. It is available from Bell and Rodgers in Canada and AT&T in the U.S.

If you can’t find a Wi-Fi hot spot for your laptop and you require access to e-mail or the Web, you need a wireless modem for the cellular network. Wireless modems have been available from most carriers in the form of USB dongles with a data plan. Currently available data modems use 3G technology, but now we’re beginning to see some Long-Term Evolution (LTE) modems that can really blaze away.

The Sierra Wireless 4G LTE AirCard U313 Turbo Stick brings a whole new performance level to wireless data (see the figure). One of the first adopters is Bell Mobility of Canada. Subscribers using the device have seen download speeds of up to 75 Mbits/s with more common speeds in the 12- to 25-Mbit/s range. That’s fast for a wireless data modem.

Sierra claims a peak rate of up to 100 Mbits/s in the future as the LTE infrastructure evolves. If LTE is not available, the U313 falls back to HSPA+. Data rates can be as high as 21 Mbits/s, but on dual-carrier HSPA+ systems the fallback data rate peak is as high as 42 Mbits/s—not too shabby for a fallback.

The U313 operates in the 700-MHz and 1700/2100-MHz AWS bands, standard UMTS WCDMA bands of 850/1900/2100 MHz, and the standard GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900-MHz bands. It uses a 2x2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system for LTE. I/O is a standard USB 2.0 port. The U313 works with both Windows and Mac operating systems, and installation is automatic.

The AirCard U313 is available from Bell and Rodgers in Canada and AT&T in the U.S.

Sierra Wireless
www.sierrawireless.com