Connecting through cell phone...

Hello, I am thining of buying a new phone as well as laptop. When I looked at smart phones they told me about how I can coonect to the internet with my laptop through the phone. How viable is this option? How reliable or fast is EV-DO compared to dsl? Would it be better to buy a broadband card to place directly in my laptop. I will only use it to web surf and d/l while I work. For more internet intensive tasks I can hardwire it.

Currently I have Sprint but my contract is up in November and can switch to any carrier. I live in the Los Angeles area.

 

Broadband Card is easier and you will have less problems for many reasons.
It also depends on the Phone and Service ETC: ETC: You don't need a "Smartphone" to do so. It can even be done using a cheap Moto V180.

I have tested this out with my nokia 6102 (non-smartphone) and my I-mate SP5 (smartphone WM5). Both worked using my Cingular sim, but T-mobile was nothing but problems.

Best to get a Broadband Card. I think Sprint and Verizon is the Fastest. There cell phone service sucks tho.

But Sprint might be easier or harder to use as a modem, being that it's not GSM.

 

There's an app called pdaNet that works for Palm PDAs. You can find info here for it:

http://www.junefabrics.com/palmnet/

I know a lot of folks who use and like it. FYI, Sprint (maybe more than other carriers) does monitor data usage. Regardless of whether you use pdaNet or a wireless card, you'll need to be in an area with good coverage. If there's no or low coverage, you'll have a slow or dropped connection.

 

this is something i was always interested in but nver needed to do. recently got a new asus v6j laptop and looking to try tethering cel phone to laptop for internet connection anywhere.

preferably would like to do it wirelessly through bluetooth but sometimes that is harder not preferable if its the slower bluetooth 1.0 or just not possible on some phones.

i have activated and im typing this from a motorola Q (smrtphone) on vzw with unlimited evdo hispeed data so right now that would prob be my best phone to try this with. also have a wm ppc phone xv6700 (htc apache) not activated which i use just through wifi but if that phone was better for connecting the laptop to the internet i could actiate that.

i plan on getting both the samsung i607 (smartphone) and the htc tytn (cingular 8125) with unlimited hsdpa highspeed data both of which should be good for tethering to laptop for on the go inet connection anywhere. the samsun i607 is supposed to have bt 2.0 nd something else that makes it ideal for getting hispeed inet connection on laptop wirelessly from the phone through bt. the tytn being full wm ppc phone with fast cpu (for a ppc phone) should also be good for tehthering.

there seems to be more on this subject in cell phone websites like howard forums but it would be nice to get the toic going here.

its just tough with diff laptops & especially diff phones. my main phone with hispeed unlimited inet connection being the Q, my best bt is to check one of the moto Q sites/forums which i forget the name of but there is one good one i know of.

 

http://howardforums.com/

^^^It's as good as this site but for phones. I learned alot from there.

 

w00t! after some work, I have my Asus v6j connecting to the internet wirelessly through bluetooth from my Motorola Q.

Now i can have 3g evdo hispeed connection anywhere I go (where vzw has evdo signal which is mostly everywhere i go)

good stuff. can't wait to see how much and where i get cingular hsdpa 3g data signal and how some of the new smart and ppc phones of theirs work for tethering.

 

im tethered right now using BT and my moto v3i and GPRS...connected at 921.6kbps...but its the only option I have here at work. You can also check out motox.info as a better non flamming option to HOFO

I mod moto's on the side, so if you need any help feel free to PM me

 

it is very expensive to get card from verizon and sign up for its unlimited data plan. it all depends on your usage too, if you don't use it a lot, then its a waste. I personally don't use it all that often expect when I'm outside with no free wifi. and EVEN with free wifi, I'm always paranoid about doing anything on my laptop because its unsecured connection. So I made a one time purchase of pdanet and hook it up to my treo 700w and its pretty fast. I can even play a FPS game on it using that connection or watch tv from my Sling. Plus, I know it would be more secure but I wouldn't do any kind of banking or financial transaction with it. I believe its $60 a month for verizon's unlimited plan with the card, but I pay $40 a month for the smartphone data plan.

 

cool yeah, i know motox.info.

i have a v3i also but wouldn't bothe tethering from that as i dont think it even has edge.
if i activate my xv6700 (htc apache) i would maybe try with that as it has evdo

but going to be getting the Samsung i607 smartphone (Q killer) and htc tytn/cing8525 ppc phone both with hsdpa and hope to be able to tether with that

the samsung i607 should be better then the q for bt tethering as it has bt 2.0 and some other bt aspects that make it ideal for bt tethering at max speed. otherwise the bt can limit your 3g connection.

tytn has 802.11g wifi so that will be great. first ppc phone i know of with G

 

40? hm i thought i was paying 44.99/mo but maybe that was from the 6700 ppc phone so i hope they dropped me to 40 for the Q being smartphone

anyway the other thing with teh Q is that the firmware update for it disables bt tethering even with the hack/reg edits. pdanet works though and is cheaper at one time fee of 20-30 whatever it is then the extra 15/mo you have to pay vzw to have tethering through them. thast on top of the 45/mo unlim data plan which is the highest of anyone and while cing is going to be charing 35-40 for hsdpa, sprint all along has been charing 15/mo for unlim evdo. that is a huge diff from vzw and always pissed me off to be paying mroe then double for same thing but i had to be on vzw for other reasons.

if i'm paying 44.99/mo for data least i can do is tether. bad enough i had to do all these hacks/reg edits to get it working.