Using cell phone for internet??????????

[jackhartjr]

Hi folks, we are considering getting rid of the house phone which also has our broadband internet.
We can go with our Alltel account for unlimited internet for $30.00 a month, it is not as fast as broadband, not as slow as dial up.
Anyone had experience with Alltel or any other cell phone providers doing this?
Thanks in advance!
Jack
PS...it basically eliminates a $73.00 monthly bill.

[boogiethecat]

I used to use Verizon, which allows you to teather your computer to the phone, getting you 128k speeds. It worked amazingly well, and cost is the same as a call.
Until Iphone came along.
Now I have ATT who presently doesn't allow teathering, but soon will for a price.  But with the iphone I find that I no longer need my computer when out on the road.  It serves every purpose I used the laptop for, and LOTS more- mostly useful on the road is the maps it provides, up-to-date with real time traffic congestion reporting not to mention reasonable GPS services.  If it weren't for the iphone I'd go right back with Verizon though, because ATT's coverage around here, and most places I go, is horrible as compared to the big V"s....

[TomCat]

Jack,

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but this site describes how to teather your ATT/Cingular cell and computer together, using the cell phone as a broadband modem.

The 3G cell phones offer really fast connections speeds.

I did it for a while, but don't travel much anymore with the high cost of fuel, so I dropped my $19.00 cell unlimited Internet plan.

http://www.golod.com/2005/03/cingular-wap-dial-up-networking-settings/

HTH

Jay
87 SaftLiner

[Dallas]

We got rid of our land lines when before we left South Carolina. We've been using AT&T since back when it was still Cingular.
We tether one of our cell phones to the computer and then use ICS to share the connection between Cats computer and mine.
We have an external antenna that we use to connect to the back of our LG phone which really boosted the TX/RX power, but our new LG phones don't have an external connector so I am looking for another new phone that will connect.

By the way.... According to the AT&T website, the Iphone cannot be tethered, but AT&T does allow tethering for all the phones that will accept that connection.

Our data service is a different bill than the voice/minutes and is unlimited. I've heard that some companies limit the "Unlimited" service to 5Gb/mo, but with AT&T I've transferred over 20gb/mo with no problem.
Data plan I got is a little higher than most.. 2 phones, 550 shared minutes w/rollover, nights after 7PM on Cats phone and after 9PM on my phone and weekends free, unlimited Data, text, media, video and some other stuff I don't know how to use, costs us $155/per month, total, with the data service being $50 of that

Our connection speed is usually never slower than 144Kbs and usually in the 394-475Kbs range. When we are in the 3G zones, around large population centers, I have connected at 4.5Mbps with no problem. The 3G system is growing by leaps and bounds, we even found a 3G connection about 20 miles outside of Springfield, Mo which isn't all that large a population center.

Have no fear of using the cell phone for a connection... It's worked well for us for the last 2 years, except when we are way out in the boonies and can't connect to the external antenna.

Dallas

[Ed Hackenbruch]

For 4 years we used the verizon mobile office setup with our cell phone and it worked well most of the time. Our phone was starting to die and i was told that you could no longer get the Verizon Mobile Office kit so we opted for the millenicom air card for the computer and got Jitterbug phones.....no 2 year contracts for either one, they are both on a month to month basis. For 5 months out of the year our aircard  speed is way faster than what we had with Verizon. For the 7 months we are in Yuma we are running at a slower speed.........which is what our fast speed was from verizon.