1. Frontier is the reason flights out of Denver are so inexpensive.

This probably applies to their other hubs/focus cities (Kansas City, Milwaukee, Omaha) however Denver is the point of focus as that’s where I live at the moment. Southwest is often caught having to match Frontier’s fare sales rather than the other way around.

An example of this behavior is the pair of $39 (plus taxes and fees) one-ways I got between Denver and Austin…on Southwest, using their rewards program so my out-of-pocket cost was $5 for the round-trip plus a paltry amount of Rapid Rewards points. Granted, the flights were on a Tuesday and Saturday outside of the peak travel season, but I guarantee you that Southwest handed all of their “producer surplus” (sorry, economist lingo) to me, and then some, thanks to the heated competition in DEN over every passenger on most major routes.

Such competition might not be sustainable (at least at those fares), however Frontier can take the heat better than Southwest, due to Frontier’s lower cost structure (they’re aiming to be a “ULCC”, or Ultra Low Cost Carrier), versus Southwest. This is why the airline is still around in Denver; Southwest can’t engage in predatory pricing aggressive enough to smoke them out.

2. Frontier allows you to pay for the services you want, and offers them at a reasonable price.

Frontier has three fare categories: Economy, Classic and Classic Plus. The cheapest option tends to be comparable to Southwest’s cheapest in price, but includes a few less amenities: no free checked bags, and changes cost $50 plus the fare difference. Then again, if you don’t check bags (me 90-plus percent of the time) and don’t change your flight (me 90-plus percent of the time) I’ll take the risk with Frontier because they’re a little more convenient when flying out of Denver, and are more comfortable while en route (wider, more comfortable seats, chocolate chip cookies instead of hundred-calorie snack packs).

The delta between Economy and Classic is usually $25 or so, and if you want no change fees and checked bags you can get both with that fare. Or you can buy some of the components (DIRECTV, checked bags) a la carte if you have a cheaper fare. Add a few more dollars on and you get frequent-flier treatment (seating up front with more legroom, a free alcoholic beverage, priority security lanes and boarding) without needing to meet the airline’s (low) qualifications for such tiers. Or, again, you can pay for STRETCH seating (United calls an inferior product Economy Plus) and the beverage on a lower fare…and these upgrades cost less than, say, Economy Plus’s upcharge on United.

As an added bonus (for me anyway), if you want snacks on board (beyond the cookie) you can buy them, at a reasonable price and with known good quality (I’ve tested this out a few times). The good thing (if you’re a customer) about buy-on-board is that the airline has to work to make the product good enough to convince customers to buy it, and Frontier does a good job at achieving this. Try buying anything other than liquor or a Monster on a Southwest flight and they’ll look at you funny and walk away.

Speaking of Southwest, they have three flight tiers just like Frontier. The difference is that there is very little that you gain from upgrading fare classes, and the upcharge cost is steep in many cases. Case in point: I’ve never bought a Southwest fare above their cheapest category. I have (once) bought a Frontier Classic ticket, and have bought on-board items, checked bags and seating upgrades on Frontier multiple times, and been happy with what I paid for.

3. Frontier is expanding smaller-city service.

Going back to the competition again, AirTran (now owned by Southwest) used to serve a number of airports where it operated more mainline flights than the rest of the airport’s tenants, combined. AirTran contracted out labor (or maybe had a few staff based locally) and everyone was happy, despite the tight Economy seat pitch of AirTran’s 117-passenger Boeing 717s.

Then Southwest bought AirTran and, since their labor agreements don’t allow subcontractors on the ground, started killing these smaller bases. Plus some big, redundant ones like Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami (served respectively by Dallas-Love and Fort Lauderdale). In many of these cases, AirTran was the only low cost carrier to serve those airports so, absent new competition, fares of competitors will increase.

In contrast, Frontier is actually adding service to smaller airports, in some casesreplacing what Southwest has left, in others experimenting with entirely new service. Frontier doesn’t seem to want to wring every last penny out of these new markets on a per-person, per-fare basis (unlike legacy carriers) and tends to have larger (and thus more comfortable) planes than the ERJs or CRJs that tend to frequent airports of that size. The airline tends to fly into destination markets (e.g. Orlando) or into Denver, which is a nice airport (the best hub that I’ve been through, compared with DFW, Miami, Charlotte, Houston-Hobby and Chicago-Midway) with a high level of efficiency and a low level of sitting on the ground, waiting for gates to become free (ahem, Atlanta). So Frontier coming into a market is a win for anyone wanting to fly to or from there, even if they only serve a city or two nonstop (versus Southwest, who tends to serve a half-dozen from any given airport), and those on a sub-daily basis to start with.

So…what do you think about Frontier?

I’m writing this post from a Google Cr-48, which appears to be limited-edition material nowadays, thanks to the introduction of “Chromebooks” at retail just over a month from now from Samsung and Acer. For the record, I was calling my machine a Chromebook before Google was, but I digress. Anyway, I may upgrade to a for-pay model…maybe…because the difference between an Atom N450 (in this machine) and an N570 (in the Samsung model) is significant. THen again, I like toting around an unbranded notebook with a removable battery and a completely matte black color scheme.

Sitting to my left is my Samsung Epic 4G, which I switched last week to the Android Creative SYndicate’s latest ROM, which runs significantly faster (albeit buggier) than Samsung/Sprint’s standard ROM. I still can’t get a day of battery life on a charge with that phone, but that’s probably because I use it too much…

Further to my left, through my apartment wall, is the Colorado School of Mines campus, where I am now halfway through a graduate degree in Engineering Technology Management. I took my last test of the semester online this morning, and attended presentations for some of my fellow Entrepreneurial Finance classmates in the afternoon. Most of the rest of the day was spent hanging out with friends in some form or other. NPretty much nonproductive but that’s okay; I’ll be working hard tomorrow.

So where does all this leave me? Sitting at a table given to my apartment by a friend who’s graduating tomorrow, if you’re going by days that start at 12:00am. Posting to a blog that I haven’t updated in awhile. Wondering what I’m going to use my newest Virtual Private Server purchase (from Encept) for, other than proving that I can set up nginx with PHP from a bare-metal Xen container. Not wanting to go to sleep quite yet because I had maybe 100mg of caffeine and 150g of sugar from high fructose corn syrup between 10:30 and 11:30. Pondering what exactly it means to be done with a bachelor’s degree, halfway done with a master’s and not really being decided on whether it’s best to shoehorn myself into the well-paid establishment of some corporate environment in the Denver area or to somehow make the next big thing on my own…

The server also seems to be more snappy; not sure whether it’s because the Virpus server is packing more VPSes onto a machine stocked with four dual-core Pentium 4 based Xeon chips (at 3 GHz) versus the QuickWeb Xeon 3220 VPS count or what, but the QuickWeb server feels…well…quicker. Sure, I’ll be limited to 1TB of transfer (yeah I know, *limited*) per month (versus 1500GB for $7 or 3000GB for $12 at Virpus) but that 1TB can be transferred over a fire hose of a connection: a gigabit port, to be exact. Needless to say, if I need to deliver some files quickly to a bunch of folks they’re going on this server.

But back to the title of this post…here are some quick VPS-related tips…key words will be linked…eventually…

1. If you’re doing file serving, do it with nginx. It can be installed via the command line from apt-get and runs smoking-fast. I’ve heard that the Cherokee web server is similarly awesome but haven’t tried it out yet.
2. Need a “virtual desktop” experience for web browsing? Install xfce4 and tightvncserver packages. If you don’t like GMail freaking out on you (saying your browser isn’t supported) and/or want to use Flash without bending over backwards, grab Firefox. For something fast, light and still compatible with most sites you come across, grab Midori. For a text-based browser, Links is awesome. For Firefox, the flashplugin-nonfree package will get you Flash goodness. NOTE: Chromium (Google Chrome’s geeky twin), when I tried it, didn’t work.
3. If you want to change the text displayed when you log into your system via SSH, edit /etc/motd (make a backup first, just for kicks). You’ll need to restart your SSH daemon (/etc/init.d/ssh restart) to get the changes to register.
4. To change your server’s host name (for example to align it with the domain name you’re using to access the server) type in hostname NEWSERVERNAME (including the domain) and you’ll be good to go.
5. To change your root password, log in as root and type in passwd. Yeah I know, that one’s a gimme but never hurts to state the obvious, right?

Y’all have a nice night now, ya hear?

1. Symmetric encryption (AES etc.) is fast but you have to get the key from point A to point B securely
2. Asymmetric encryption (RSA etc.) negates the key sharing requirement but is slow
3. Asymmetrically encrypt a symmetric “session” key, then use the session key to encrypt the file/message you’re trying to send and you get the best of both worlds!

So I made a command line utility, using the Chilkat Visual C++ library set, that did the above for file encryption, with automatic signing built in so the recipient knows who sent the file. The application is rather basic, but it works very well (and pretty quickly for encryption/decryption…my IdeaPad took about seven seconds each to encrypt and decrypt a 100MB file) and is easy to dissect for anyone who wants to do that sort of thing.

For more information, download the package below, which includes the Visual C++ Redistributable (I think it’s required to run the encryption/decryption applications, but you might already have it), encryption and decryption binaries (EXEs, sorry non-Windows folks), sample public and private keys, the source code for the project (all ~120 lines of it) anda report about the application. It’s an EXE file because 7-Zip does a much better job of compressing the encryption/decryption binaries than plain old Zip, meaning that the file, self-extractor included, is still 500+ KB smaller than the equivalent ZIP file. In other fun news,both encrypt.exe and decrypt.exe are under 1400 KB each (floppy size!), both sipped are around 1100 KB, and both 7-zipped (without self-extractor) are less than 500 KB!

Questions and comments are welcome…post below. As far as licensing on this goes, just attribute me and tell me that you’ve done so. Thanks!

Download Package

I should also note that I ran for Student Body President here at Mines. This isn’t the first time I’ve run for such a position; I ran last year for Junior Class Treasurer (a friend was running for Junior Class President and I didn’t want to split the ticket), and in fall 2007 I ran for Freshman Class President. This is the first time I was soundly defeated; the other two positions were won by a handful of votes by my opponent.

To be clear, I’m not bitter, just solidified in the supposition that the whole thing’s just a popularity contest; people vote for their friends, not on issues. For what it’s worth, I’ll probably end up doing nearly as much this coming year through <non-presidential ASCSM position> by saying “yes” to tasks that the guy who won wants to delegate. Or that I think up.

Sorry for the broken links in the tweet; didn’t see any use keeping up the Facebook campaign page that I had up. If you want to see the campaign poster I had, comment (Openness, Efficiency, Free Bagels were my three legged stool of stumping prowess).

1. SIP VoIP, over 3G and WiFi, with Bluetooth and in the background
I’ve successfully run phone calls over AT&T’s HSPA network, so assuming the processor on the iPad is “all that” this shouldn’t be difficult. If I can get a SIP client that connects to a Bluetooth headset and allows other applications “up front” without killing voice quality then I’ve got a very versatile system for nformation gathering while “on the phone.” This is particularly useful when you see my other requests below:

2. Full-fledged RDP, SSH and VNC clients…and either GoToMyPC or LogMeIn if at all possible
The iPad can be an excellent remote access tool; its screen has enough resolution to run any modern OS without having to scroll around. Add in the keyboard accessory and you’ve got a lovely little remote terminal that works anywhere AT&T has service (I’m talking about the 3G version here). Or any other non-AWS GSM or 3G carrier for that matter; the device is unlocked. SSH would be a godsend for doing command line heavy lifting, though you’d need a host to SSH to in this case (not a big deal for me). Even nicer, all of the above will likely be available for the iPad as App Store apps; no jailbreaking required.

3. A high-quality PDF viewer
I want a PDF viewer that can search and copy text, preferably at least as good as Preview. Yes, Preview can be outdone with PDFs…it’s not the most compatible piece of PDF reader in the world unfortunately.

4. File download capability, preferably with an FTP/SFTP client as well as your standard HTTP access
The iPad has an accessory port, and that accessory port already allows for an SD card reader and a USB port. If you could mount that USB port or SD reader as a drive letter (possible with the OS, but probably will need to be hacked) then there’s a TON of stuff you could do with the iPad, though things start to get kludgy once you realize that you can’t hook up a keyboard and a hard disk/SD card simultaneously. Hmm, maybe the keyboard dock could have a pass-through dock connector…or have an application that would use internal memory as a cache for editing files so you could unplug the drive, edit the files with the keyboard attached, then plug back in and write the files. Heck, wile I’m at it, why not let shares on AFP and SMB be mountable to the device?

5. WiFi printing
This will likely be implemented in short order as an application, though hopefully it will be available throughout the operating system. THat way I can go to a website, grab a PDF of some sort (documentation, textbook, whatever) and send it to a networked printer. No muss, no fuss.

6. Network diagnostics, both standard and wireless (including 3G)
I’m not just talking ping/traceroute/speedtest, though those would be nice. I’m talking about field-test-level stats on wireless and 3G. Why 3G? Well, for one AT&T isn’t the only 3G carrier out there, and if network engineers on smaller carriers can troubleshoot their cellular deployments on a cheap-ish, small device then maybe there will be more field testing going on. On the WiFi side, an iStumbler-esque application would be lovely, complete with a signal strength history graph, with geotagging of signals if at all possible (though this would take a toll on battery life). Heck, add the geolocation to the 3G field test if at all possible and just for kicks port WireShark to the iPad and you’ve got one powerful network analysis device in a pound-and-a-half package.

7. Voice recorder, preferably with backgrounding
I’m guessing this will be included when the iPad ships, but it would be lovely to be able to take the iPad to a lecture or an interview and use it to record the conversation. Even cooler would be an application that would combine a text editor with the voice recorder; in “review” mode you could seek through a recording by going to a place in the text notes, and the other way around.

8. OneNote-like application
Capacitative styli are available. Make an application that allows for text notes, handwriteen notes/diagrams and even voice notes all together. Great for school and for college newspaper writers like myself

9. Access to a bash shell on-device
I’m sure this will only be available when the device is jailbroken, but it would definitely be useful. A full shell, complete with nano for text editing etc., would make the iPad a lightweight BSD workstation, and who doesn’t like lightweight *nix workstations?

Sure, I’m reaching a bit for the above things, but the hardware is all there; you just have to either open up the software or make an application. There are a few subsystems that would be nice to have,a dn they might even be available inthe upcoming iPhone OS 3.2. In all honesty, I think Apple is going to have to make this device rather hackable for enough people to buy it; they’re blazing the trail for a new category of device and if they shun the “Woz box” mentality they’ll be selling very few of these things once the fanboys and their contituents finish buying (which should take about 45 days).

Traceroute to Google:

traceroute to google.com (74.125.159.104), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  64.sub-66-174-185.myvzw.com (66.174.185.64)  82.040 ms  71.681 ms  140.969 ms
2  127.sub-66-174-184.myvzw.com (66.174.184.127)  85.990 ms  88.710 ms  93.889 ms
3  146.sub-66-174-44.myvzw.com (66.174.44.146)  94.923 ms  99.735 ms  92.011 ms
4  235.sub-66-174-45.myvzw.com (66.174.45.235)  120.975 ms  88.777 ms  86.127 ms
5  194.sub-66-174-45.myvzw.com (66.174.45.194)  86.937 ms  99.731 ms  92.958 ms
6  98.sub-66-174-44.myvzw.com (66.174.44.98)  89.816 ms  92.702 ms  91.968 ms
7  6.sub-69-83-96.myvzw.com (69.83.96.6)  88.964 ms  90.749 ms  101.982 ms
8  3.sub-69-83-96.myvzw.com (69.83.96.3)  91.973 ms  89.745 ms  92.877 ms
9  253.sub-69-83-97.myvzw.com (69.83.97.253)  86.946 ms  87.701 ms  86.078 ms
10  gigabitethernet3-0-0.gw1.dfw7.alter.net (65.208.8.17)  93.040 ms  86.646 ms  86.916 ms
11  0.ge-2-1-0.xl3.dfw7.alter.net (152.63.103.6)  99.833 ms  102.809 ms  89.928 ms
12  0.ge-6-0-0.br2.dfw13.alter.net (152.63.96.181)  89.939 ms
0.ge-4-0-0.br2.dfw13.alter.net (152.63.96.45)  91.661 ms
0.ge-6-0-0.br2.dfw13.alter.net (152.63.96.181)  89.622 ms
13  te-5-1-0.edge2.dallas3.level3.net (4.68.111.121)  99.987 ms  116.649 ms
te-5-2-0.edge2.dallas3.level3.net (4.68.111.173)  90.885 ms
14  ae-83-80.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net (4.69.145.180)  92.662 ms
ae-73-70.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net (4.69.145.116)  92.622 ms
ae-63-60.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net (4.69.145.52)  97.740 ms
15  ae-7.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.134.22)  115.793 ms  137.608 ms  130.824 ms
16  ae-11-51.car1.atlanta1.level3.net (4.68.103.2)  120.070 ms  117.856 ms  116.900 ms
17  google-inc.car1.atlanta1.level3.net (4.78.209.194)  133.861 ms  118.900 ms  117.002 ms
18  209.85.254.241 (209.85.254.241)  122.982 ms  116.700 ms  119.880 ms
19  209.85.254.2 (209.85.254.2)  113.964 ms  120.700 ms
209.85.254.6 (209.85.254.6)  137.883 ms
20  yi-in-f104.1e100.net (74.125.159.104)  109.804 ms  129.913 ms  131.328 ms

Traceroute to SoftLayer (specifically, the server that hosts this website):

traceroute to echo.mddhosting.com (74.86.48.34), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  64.sub-66-174-185.myvzw.com (66.174.185.64)  73.485 ms  72.917 ms  73.973 ms
2  127.sub-66-174-184.myvzw.com (66.174.184.127)  91.918 ms  94.745 ms  184.212 ms
3  146.sub-66-174-44.myvzw.com (66.174.44.146)  100.537 ms  99.876 ms  95.165 ms
4  235.sub-66-174-45.myvzw.com (66.174.45.235)  94.993 ms  100.098 ms  98.174 ms
5  194.sub-66-174-45.myvzw.com (66.174.45.194)  98.010 ms  99.438 ms  93.713 ms
6  98.sub-66-174-44.myvzw.com (66.174.44.98)  94.994 ms  89.077 ms  85.875 ms
7  6.sub-69-83-96.myvzw.com (69.83.96.6)  100.961 ms  105.189 ms  88.124 ms
8  3.sub-69-83-96.myvzw.com (69.83.96.3)  87.943 ms  96.379 ms  97.863 ms
9  253.sub-69-83-97.myvzw.com (69.83.97.253)  98.888 ms  68.155 ms  87.944 ms
10  gigabitethernet3-0-0.gw1.dfw7.alter.net (65.208.8.17)  86.948 ms  69.442 ms  96.147 ms
11  0.ge-2-1-0.xl3.dfw7.alter.net (152.63.103.6)  112.539 ms  89.027 ms  85.911 ms
12  0.so-6-0-0.gw3.dfw13.alter.net (152.63.100.73)  85.015 ms  91.726 ms  86.006 ms
13  internapgige1-gw.customer.alter.net (65.208.15.230)  113.416 ms  96.205 ms  98.848 ms
14  border3.tge3-1-bbnet1.ext1.dal.pnap.net (216.52.191.22)  125.890 ms  95.198 ms  74.901 ms
15  te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (216.52.189.30)  93.058 ms  94.118 ms  95.968 ms
16  po3.dar02.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.211)  99.913 ms  100.785 ms  107.881 ms
17  po2.fcr02.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.182)  111.010 ms  92.603 ms  121.966 ms
18  echo.supportedns.com (74.86.48.34)  97.877 ms  96.688 ms  153.805 ms

So pings are a bit lower, on average, than either AT&T or Sprint. They’re also rather predictable, unlike those of CricKet. Then again, I have full EvDO signal sitting at the dining room table with the USB727′s antenna extended. For what it’s worth, this traceroute is pretty close, after the MyVZW hops, to what I see on the family’s brand-spanking-new DSL connection, though that can be expected since both services are from the same company.

Here’s a speedtest…

Well gosh, at least at my location Verizon is nearly as fast as AT&T on the downstream, respectable on the upstream and a good bit more enjoyable to use than AT&T. Heck, the EvDO connection soundly beats the new Verizon DSL, though the DSL connection doesn’t cost $60 per month, nor does it have a ridiculously low data transfer cap.

That said, I’m not the only one on the tower…

Still respectable, just not quite as nice.

Now for a ping test…

Right in line with what I’ve seen on Sprint EvDO, except with a little less latency.

The bottom line: Verizon knows how to run a solid mobile broadband network. So does Sprint. Whether one serves you better than the other depends on who has the big pipes to the towers in your area, and who has the towers in your area period.

Well, and there’s the question of whether you want a 10GB cap for $60 or unlimited service for $70, both via Millenicom of course…unless you really, really want to sign a contract in exchange for a free EvDO modem.

Which provider would I choose at this point, if I had to pick up mobile broadband again? Tough decision; I own an AT&T aircard and don’t want to sign a contract, so the other options have an added expensve for me. With that in mind, I might end up going with AT&T for a month or two, but Sprint if I needed a home replacement connection. If I didn’t need to use the connection as my only internet and didn’t have an AT&T card already, I’d likely choose Verizon, with Sprint as a very close second.

At this point though, for someone new to mobile broadband, there’s one company I wouldn’t recommend anyone to go with, at least for my area: AT&T.

So naturally I pulled out my HTC Touch Pro, which has WiFi, to see what network they were running on. After registering for an account on the hotspot provider (Less Networks, never heard of them) I checked whatismyip.com to see who I was on. Sure enough, the connection there was GVTC, registered as “Guadalupe Valley Telephone”. Right before we pulled out of the place I opened up my laptop, logged into the WiFi network that way and did some tests. Here’s what I got for a traceroute:

traceroute to softlayer.com (66.228.118.53), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  192.168.169.1 (192.168.169.1)  194.115 ms  181.762 ms  77.970 ms
2  96-8-192-3.block0.gvtc.com (96.8.192.3)  94.851 ms  107.971 ms  146.974 ms
3  12.88.219.169 (12.88.219.169)  47.516 ms  218.308 ms  149.762 ms
4  cr1.santx.ip.att.net (12.123.154.10)  81.998 ms  58.617 ms  64.528 ms
5  cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.30.130)  71.363 ms  55.947 ms  70.918 ms
6  gar6.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.100.65)  52.436 ms  58.138 ms  56.583 ms
7  12.90.228.14 (12.90.228.14)  52.971 ms  48.888 ms  80.834 ms
8  border3.tge4-1-bbnet2.ext1.dal.pnap.net (216.52.191.83)  52.188 ms  51.494 ms  52.917 ms
9  te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (216.52.189.30)  55.883 ms  54.237 ms  55.133 ms
10  po3.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.209)  53.084 ms  84.979 ms  47.910 ms
11  po1.slr01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.138)  66.371 ms  54.266 ms  57.160 ms

I have a feeling that the WiFi conection was flakey, otherwise I would have gotten a better traceroute.

Speed-test-wise I got the following:

I’m guessing the line was provisioned at 8 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, but I can’t be sure.

The IP address, for what it’s worth, was 96.8.236.103.

All in all, not a bad hotspot, and the traceroute is nice and short between where I was and AT&T’s network in San Antonio, which GVTC appears to use exclusively to connect to the internet nowadays. So someone using an AT&T aircard and GVTC FTTH will find themselves with similar traceroutes within just a few hops, at least around here.

I guess I’ll leave it at that…if I talk any more about GVTC I’ll start getting envious of their 20/3 and 40/10 FTTH service, which I have no chance of getting at my place. Can’t even get DSL there :/

One problem arose when I got home: my aircard kept switching to EDGE during the middle of a data session. Not a good thing for a $60 + taxes and fees data plan. So I needed to force 3G on the card. The problem there was that only the Windows Sierra and AT&T clients allow forced 3G. So (not knowing that settings are stored on the modem and thus once I set 3G-only on my Windows computer it would be 3G-only on my Mac) I scrounged around and found this page. I followed those instructions and was able to make sure my aircard was 3G-only.

If you don’t want to read through a (relatively short) page on how to kick your aircard into high gear, you’re in luck. Here’s what you’d do on a Mac to force-3G a Sierra aircard. Note that this procedure was performed on OS X 10.6.1 and with the Apple “native” driver installed (a tiny download from here). This is also with the latest modem firmware, which I had to use the Sierra driver (vs. the native one) to upgrade to.

1. Go to Terminal (Applications > Utilities)
2. Type in screen /dev/tty.wwanCMD 115200 and hit enter.
3. Type in AT!band? and hit enter.
4. If you see the number 02, you’re already locked into 3G-only mode. Otherwise, type in AT!band=02 and hit enter to set the mode. If you wanted to go 2G-only, the code would be 04 instead of 02. AUtoselect is 00.

Hope this helps! Now I’m cooking along with 2-3 bars of signal (-87 dBm right now) and pulling down these speeds:

Though connection quality is quite a bit more variable than Sprint’s (slower, particularly on uploads) connection at my place…

In comparison, SPrint usually pulls down 1.3 Mbps down, 300-500 kbps up and gets a B on connection quality.