Uk Phone Contracts And Bluetooth Tethering With Pandora

[gibberish]

my phone contract is up next month, and ill be getting a phone that supports HSDPA (which i think is most of them now anyway).

ive been into a few shops and asked about unlimited data tariffs and ive found a few for £5 per month. however, every shop has said that it wont work tethered to a laptop via bluetooth unless i pay an extra £12.50 (or more in some cases) for the privelege. can anybody clear this up? are they talking bollocks or is it genuinely something on the phone which will need 'unlocking' in order for this to work?

some of them also said that it would be horrendously slow if i did that, but the speed would be fine using the phones browser. wat? bluetooth 2.0 is fast enough surely? its really annoying that i cant get a straight answer out of anybody in the shops... i feel like a 60 year old buying his first computer from pc world.

any info, or tariff/provider recommendations would be appreciated... ta.

 

[cools]

Sounds like BS to me, but it's something I'd not put past them. Buy the phone SIM free and you eliminate the risk.

Bluetooth will be plenty quick enough - but it's not capable of hitting the same speed as HSDPA is capable of.

 

[Butterman]

I think you can get 2Mb/s in a best case scenario on Bluetooth 2.0, that's about 256kB/s. They're probably right in that it will be slower via Bluetooth, but it wont be that slow. I was still on 1Mb/s broadband up until last year .

Either way, I wouldn't mess around with HSDPA, it's messy. I know you can get some really good deals on mobile broadband if you look around, I've completely forgotton who it was, but I saw, £30 for Modem + £15 top up included (3GB?). Then, it's just pay as you go with no time out on your top ups. Well, that's what I'm doing.

Yay, I found it.

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-bro...WT.mc_evt=click

 

[benjymous]

Most phones won't support tethering out of the box - you'll often have to get access to a service menu and enable it.

Basically the hardware supports it, and there's no change required from your phone company, it just needs enabling (for which they'll charge)

You might be able to find information on the net about how to do this yourself (there's a website with lot of useful info out there, but I can't find it off the top of my head)

Of course, this will be breaking the terms of your contract, so if they notice, they might cut you off, or start charging you extra.

For the speed thing, the limit on Bluetooth2 is about 2mbit/s, which is potentially slower than the speeds possible nowadays, so yes, you may find the phone's browser is still faster. 2bit should be fine for regular browsing though!

The other option is to get one of those mobile broadband dongles - as long as you get one that's tested as working on the Pandora, that should just be plug and play.

 

[spinghed]

Just a quick reply on this

- if you have a nokia and want to tether, try joikuspot.

You install it, run the app and it turns your phone into a wifi router - no need to sod about with bluetooth and cables. Plus you can share your connection if you like, or encrypt just for you. I use it all the time and its perfect for when I meet clients out of the office.

I'm on O2 in the UK on a £20/month sim only tariff with the unlimited internet and never had an issue with my usage being questioned even though I use it for work...

CODE
http://www.joikuspot.com


Rick

 

[Tor]

Most phones won't support tethering out of the box - you'll often have to get access to a service menu and enable it.

That must be a UK thing, surely? (and US too, from what I gather).
I'm in Europe and I've never owned a phone (locked or otherwise) w/BT that didn't provide tethering out of the box.

 

[gruso]

I've found this difficult to research too. Most people I've asked have just said "yeah, I tether with such and such phone and I've tethered with the three before that too." But the phone companies aren't volunteering this information, and unless I just get one of the exact phones my mates have, it's hard to be sure.

Some companies tell you that you need a separate data plan, and it's usually bullshit... usually.

Thankfully we have a great resource in Australia, the Whirlpool forums (aka Whingepool):
CODE
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/
It's an independently run site where you can get all your info on (or have a good bitch about) internet and phone services. It's all Aussie of course, but it might still be worth searching the boards for general info.

 

[Pleng]

ive been into a few shops and asked about unlimited data tariffs and ive found a few for £5 per month. however, every shop has said that it wont work tethered to a laptop via bluetooth unless i pay an extra £12.50 (or more in some cases) for the privelege. can anybody clear this up? are they talking bollocks or is it genuinely something on the phone which will need 'unlocking' in order for this to work?

'it won't work' it not necessarily the correct term.

As resellers of the contracts they most probably aren't allowed to tell you the truth which is 'it may or may not work, but it violates the terms of your contract'. Tethering your phone to a laptop/desktop or any other device is outside the terms and conditions of pretty much any 'unlimited data' bundles in the UK. The idea behind these plans is to allow access to internet sites on your mobile phone. If you want to tether then they want to sell you the more expensive USB-dongle data plans!

Now I have successfully tethered on data plans that were not designed for doing so. I don't think the phone companies have any way of detecting that you're doing so, other than the amount of traffic being generated: if large amounts of data is flowing over long periods of time they may get suspicious. Not exactly sure what they'd do though to prove that you're NOT browsing the web on your phone...

 

[DaM]

I put a £5 a month internet package on my company phone (a Nokia 6300 ...might upgrade...) with the hope of tethering to my Pandora. I'm sure I read somewhere it was possible.

There are some not bad dongle offers at the moment though, if I can't get it to work quickly, I'll get one of those.

 

[gibberish]

thanks for the info so far. one other thing, are there any "unlimited" tariffs that arent subject to a "fair use" policy? a lot of the unlimited tariffs i've seen are limited to 3GB per month... how they can get away with calling that unlimited i have no idea.

 

[Trip]

You might want to check out CODE
http://www.internettablettalk.com/
for info on this. They use tethering all the time for the Nokia internet tablets and will have tons of posts about it on the forum

 

[gibberish]

thanks man, will have a look.

 

[MDave]

o2 seem to be ok, as long as you don't go overboard abusing the unlimited data plan tariffs with contracts (like the one I have for my iphone). If you use it as much as you would on your phone, then you should be good to go. Just don't even think about torrents or downloading anything big.

 

[mosschops]

I have recently spoken to Orange about this. they do not support nor condone it but they wont do anything unless you blow their "fair usage limit". which i assume means no torrenting, no newsgroups, no isos. just the kind of browsing Mr/Miss average would be doing.

this is not legal advice, your dealing with orange may vary.

 

[Butterman]

I have recently spoken to Orange about this. they do not support nor condone it but they wont do anything unless you blow their "fair usage limit". which i assume means no torrenting, no newsgroups, no isos. just the kind of browsing Mr/Miss average would be doing.

this is not legal advice, your dealing with orange may vary.

Sky say the same about their broadband. It's unlimited, except if you go over their fair usage limit. I easily blow 3 - 4gb a day on HD TV shows alone. Straight on to the PSP, somthing to do on the long commute!

 

[Richo]

I'm with T-Mobile in the UK and pay £7.50 extra for web and walk. I tethered my NC10 netbook via bluetooth with no major problems. I don't pay any extra for using my data connection, however i only do light browsing so maybe it's because I don't hammer the connection.

I used this site to help me get up and running

CODE
http://www.filesaveas.com/gprsconnect.html

 

[Chip]

Absolutely anything you could ever want to know about cell phones, data plans, tethering or unlocking can be found here: CODE
http://www.howardforums.com


Poke around, read the stickys and use the search function. There is a thread there somewhere explaining what you can and can't do (and how to do it) for just about any phone/carrier combination in the developed world.

Personally, I rooted my G1 and installed an app that allows it to be used as a wifi hotspot. It works great and I know for a fact it will work with the Pandora. T-mobile's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding tethering means it doesn't cost me any extra money either.

 

[PhonicUK]

I'm with TMobile (UK), Web'n'walk on my phone is free (unlimited) with the base contract. To tether it it costs me an extra £12.50 a month for 3GB of data. Theres also a cheaper plan for only 1GB.

Tethering is something that actually has to be enabled at the provider end, the connection is done differently when its direct on the phone and when its acting as a modem.

Mine works very well over bluetooth (Nokia 6650 Flip) with my laptop or my PDA. I wish that the PSP had bluetooth so I could use it more. Its pretty easy to get it to work under linux via USB, as it just appears as a CDMA modem. Over bluetooth on Linux I've not tried yet.

 

[hobbyman II]

or you can buy a "3" usb modem with 12gig of usage included for £100, then when that runs out its £15 a month for 3 gig pay as you go, that is what my desktop connection is, yes, that`s right, the one I am using right now.

for portable use, the odd download, update, youtube, email etc, 1 gig a month works out to be plenty (although tbh I am not a big video/streaming fiend, your mileage may vary compared to mine).

edit, just to mention, I have a Nokia on T-mobile and that works fine as a modem via bluetooth for my Palm tungsten-e, not been disconnected (yet)

 

[Chip]

Tethering is something that actually has to be enabled at the provider end, the connection is done differently when its direct on the phone and when its acting as a modem.
That's not true at all. As far as the service provider is concerned, either they send you raw data or they don't. The ability to tether and pass that data on to a PC is something that most internet-capable phones can do, it is just usually disabled in software on the handset by the service provider.

Many phones can have tethering unlocked by entering the service menu on the phone. Browse www.howardforums.com to find out if your phone can be unlocked.

The only problem you might run into is that some carriers monitor the ammount and type of data that your phone is downloading, and if it is obviously the the type of data a PC would be using while tethered, they will charge you the tethering fee. Policies vary considerably from carrier to carrier, so poke around Howard Forums to see what results other people on your carrier have seen.