Yeah stay the heck away from Verizon, I've heard they'll cancel your account without warning if you exceed 5GB of bandwidth use a month.
I'm using Alltel EVDO rev. 0 and have been pretty pleased with it. We actually pay $25/month for unlimited use. I don't use a broadband card, but rather plug my phone into the computer whenever I want to get on the internet and dialup that way. If this sounds like a good option for you might want to check if Sprint will let you do this. You can still receive calls while online, but you'll have to disconnect to take the call. Or you could just not answer and it will forward to your voicemail.
Download is typically 600kbps (although I've seen 1Mbps+ with download accelerators). Upload is typically 100kbps or so. The major downside is the latency, which is typically about 400ms to US servers. Makes the connection useless for most low latency applications, such as VoIP, gaming, etc. Also I've noticed that sometimes when I attempt to make a lot of connections (such as BitTorrent and other P2P, or using a download accelerator) it'll disconnect me. I think this is something that Alltel does. It has to do with how EVDO works, I guess it's half duplex or something, and they don't like it when you make a whole bunch of connections. I won't try to explain it because I can't, search Google and you should find some helpful info. That being said, I've been downloading probably 20-30GB/month and Alltel doesn't seem to care.
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