Review: HSPA+ Rocket Mobile Internet Stick (Nokia CS-18) on Rogers
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 1:55PM 
By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
USB-enabled Internet sticks solve many problems and offer instantaneous connectivity on the go. The best thing about this sort of mobile Internet solution is that it doesn’t draw much power from notebooks and since it is a USB device, it can be used across different machines. Rogers’ Rocket Mobile Internet Stick, AKA the Nokia CS-18 HSPA + .is a prime example of this solution.
Digital nomads and serious road warriors who need a remote Internet connection can simply plug and play the device to their existing notebooks. The beauty of this HSPA+ Rocket Stick is that Nokia also bundled in built-in microUSB slot which makes this a two-in-one device, a mobile internet stick and a flash memory drive.
Not much larger than your USB thumb drive, Nokia’s Rocket Mobile Internet Stick is a completely plug and play affair. Whether you have a PC notebook or a Macbook, software to get up and running is already included and installs directly from the USB stick.
We tested the Rocket Stick on a Lenovo Thinkpad x100e portable as well as a MacBook Pro. In both cases, installation took around three minutes and the device was easily found and chosen as the default way to access the Internet.
For grabbing e-mail it is reasonably fast although surfing graphic intensive websites takes a bit longer. We used the Rocket Mobile Internet Stick successfully in Toronto as well as in Halifax.
In terms of transfer speeds, Rogers expects you can get 21Mbps downloads, but 0.79Mbps down to 12Mbps seems to be the norm under normal usage.
Available from Rogers for $0.00 with a three-year contract or $174.99 outright, The Nokia CS-18 HSPA+ Rocket Mobile Internet Stick is a great solution for anyone needing mobile Internet on-the-go. Its a simple solution that works well and efficiently.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Related review: Huawei E1691 data stick on Mobilicity
Reader Comments (7)
very interesting and valuable article. thanks for posting good information on nokia mobile phones. I have nokia N series phone but i want change.
Succesfull blog, and I like your text. I came across your website on msn when searching for a compartment. Best regards from the my faterland, great germany.
A colleague bought one late last week and signed up for the 1.5 Gb plan. In less than a week of use, he has exceeded 1.5Gb of data transfer. No streaming videos or large downloads. Just some searches on the web for work related information and e-mail (no large attachements). The usage log shows a lot of outbound data. All this does not seem right and thus I am holding off on getting a Rocket stick.
My experience with the Rogers call centre has not been stellar. One lady (out of the Vancouver call centre) transfered me to a second call queue once it became apparent that my call was going to take longer than normal.
November 5th i purchased this Rogers internet stick. I live in rural east central Alberta. On a farm. So far i have not been able to connect to the internet from my home or else where on my property. Traveled to the town where i bought this, there i was able to connect within a few minutes but them [Rogers] saying
connect anywhere is wrong. If you can't get a connection over 20k away what good is this stick. Their call center didn't help at all, they kept telling to connect for Roger.com etc etc etc. well how can i connect if the stick is out of range. guess will have to stick to slowwww dial up forever.
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