Just a follow up to my posts above now that I have a few hours on my new tethered LG8360 cell phone.
I noted concern above on whether my laptop USB 1.0 port would work since USB 2.0 is the more current standard. It works fine.
Speed seems very similar to my DSL home line.
Gaining access to the Internet is quick. Select the Verizon Access Manager icon on your desktop, click on 'Connect', and within 5 seconds you're online. Your home page opens along with a separate window, which gives you a summary of your monthly usage to date, nice to make sure you know where you are.
When you want to suspend the service to avoid paying when you are in homeport, call in on #611 and cancel it. Activate the next time you want it live.
Simple as that.