I can vouch that having a usb net connection in your goodie bag is a good thing.

I have an old netgear ea-101 (only 10mb) - but it did the trick for me when the wifi in the hotel in london I recently stayed in was down.

Wired connection worked, and yes my nokia n800 powered the ea-101.

As long as you can find the right kernal driver to load and support the chipset - go for it.