3g cell phone dongle for tablet?

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

I am getting tired of having to drive a friend to the local Walmart or Micky D's for the free wifi for updating facebook, or getting the latest "candy blahblah" games that she wants to do on her tablet..she doesn't want to have to pay for constant on demand internet when she only wants to update her games mostly and as an afterthought maybe update FB once in a while.

So, I'm thinking of getting her a 3g usb dongle as 3g is starting to be reasonable in price but do not know what is the best to get for At&t and verizon.... Specifically will I have any trouble with a dongle that is HSDPA and GSM compatible?
I have seen some on Ebay buy it now for around $11.00 U.S.... some even have TF card slots as well as the SIM slot.
I seen one that connects, and also acts like a router

I would prefer one that would run on tracfone's network (verizon?)

I first posted this in the tablet section but figured it would get more attention here.
Any help/advice is most welcome, and thanks in advance,
Doc

 

[petteyg359]

If it's going to connect to a tablet, the main thing to make sure of is that it is "USB OTG" (on-the-go) so that the tablet knows it needs to act as the USB host. I think that can be accomplished just by a micro-B to A OTG adapter cable, but I'm not sure as I've not used any OTG stuff yet.

For Verizon, you need a CDMA modem, not GSM, for anything below 4G LTE. 4G LTE should be the same hardware regardless of carrier.

 

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Thank You...still not sure what to get..so many choices.

 

[Mpegger]

USB OTG is something that the Android kernal must support in order for it work, so you would have to look into whether her device does support USB OTG (many do). But on top of that, it must also support the device on the other end. Keyboard, mouse, USB sticks are no problem, and the drivers/support are also built into Android (unless the devs stripped it out of their specific build for that specific device). But other USB items could be hit or miss.

Would be easier with a WiFi dongle instead of a USB one. I know Virgin had such devices that were data only, and their data only plans for the device were relatively cheap (compared to theirs and other carriers cell phone plans). All that mattered was if you were within their network coverage area to take advantage of such a unit.