Having only recently moved from the "Dark Ages" of Dial-up to DSL, I survived quite well on a 4gig/month data plan thru Verizon on my Droid phone, and used FoxFi to connect the laptop to the "world" for over 2 years... no extras needed! No streaming videos, etc., but email, banking, forums, uploading pics to Picasa, etc. I did watch my data usage, but never had an overage - either at home or on the road. Not sure what folks call "remote" - but I venture to lots of places without ANY cell service - both here in the east and on trips out west. Actually nice to know you CAN get away from it still! ST