Us Pandorites, How Will You Mobile Internet?

[Drack]

I've been researching this a bit myself (I'm in the USA, so I'll be discussing options there). It really depends on what networks have good coverage in your area, what policies allow tethering, and whether or not you need voip.

-Mifi from Sprint or Verizon looks to be the best option. $50/month and better battery life than tethering from a phone (I hear 3-4 hours of use for mifi). I think voip is allowed on Verizon's mifi policy, don't know about Sprint. Still 3-4 hours is not enough to use as a primary phone if you need to be available. I believe battery life is significantly better if you link the device via usb instead of wifi.

-Tether from AT&T. If you use an iPhone, this requires jailbreaking and is against AT&T policy. Not a good option, but it gets brought up a lot.
-I believe AT&T either now offers a tethering plan, but it's costly (I think $30/mo on top of the regular plan) and capped at 5GB/month.

-Tether from T-Mobile, using an N900 or Android phone, for example. Unfortunately, tethering is against T-Mobile's policy.

-If your area has a WiMax provider like Clear, that's an option as well...

My solution? I'll probably have a plain old phone (I don't have a smartphone) and a mifi. Verizon does not have good coverage in my area, I don't know about Sprint...

 

[gadgetoid]

I tested the MiFi at 4hours 30mins from a fully charged, brand new battery. I've got two other batteries to try, and the battery life can allegedly get better after a few charge/discharge cycles.

It's certainly better than wifi tethering with phones, but I can't definitely say the same about bluetooth tethering.

Either way, it'll surely conserve your phone battery life for things like, well, phone calls.

I wish it ran for 8 hours though. I can't help but feel that the MiFi could be considerably bigger without being a burden and a lot of people would appreciate the extra longevity.

The new MiFi is due some-time-in-the-future and will run embedded linux for built-in helper applications such as email notifiers and whatnot. If it has a GPS (like the 2532 [or 2732 in the states I think]) then this could mean built-in GPSD functionality which would be a killer feature for Pandora users.

GPSD, or GPS functionality on anything without OSX/Windows seems unlikely on the current gen, though... and is still unavailable on Win/OSX.

 

[Kaze0110]

I have and own an HTC Kaiser / ATT Tilt. its an HSDPA compatible phone, and I have it configured to only accept those types of towers, and just flat skip over the gsm / EDGE towers from the get go. Of which gives me a mobile 1.5 Mbps download, which is perfect for watching mobile tv, even while driving, and bouncing off of towers.

(And no, I don't gawk at the tv while whirring down the road, I just like having it on as back ground noise, and when its dark, the peripheral vision of the picture is enough for me)

I pay 45 for phone, which is 450 day-minutes, and 5000 night / weekend minutes (of which I'll never use, and requested a smaller plan, this was the smallest they had to offer) and 30 for their "PDA Unlimited internet" bringing it to about 90.00 USD after all's said and done. Point being that I asked specifically, and they told me directly "yea, you don't have to by the voice service with this phone, you could buy it just as a wireless device that only has internet, but... then why are you buying a phone?" I agreed, and paid for phone service as well. My thought was that originally, I'd just pay for the data service, and use PocketPC Skype to make calls (which I have successfully done) but then could never receive calls or texts, so I bit the bullet.

But I have yet to determine if I'll be able to utilize this feature of it being tethered to my Panda, and if I can't, might be a clenching factor for opting out of the extra 50.00 that I pay per month for the internet. I originally was using it as my complete internet access point, because I live(d) in bumfuck Texas, where the nearest paved road was 2 miles off, and yet we conveniently had an HSDPA tower like, a hundred yards off. Even made a Cantenna to boost the signal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna

I'd also read that on the Non-PDA ATT phones, they offer unlimited internet for 15, because those aren't as data intensive, and are slower phones, they would be stuck on the EDGE towers, which, if memory serves, emitted in the 312Kbps range.

In all the time I used it, including with torrents, home internet, youtube's, streaming this and thats, over 6gigs of data persistently for a month, never a flag, or a question, just a bill. I don't live there anymore, and have home internet as it is, so have no need for phone internet, but have still kept with the plan anyway.

 

[atomicthumbs]

 I have a Treo 700wx. It's a Verizon version, registered with PagePlus Cellular (a prepaid MVNO). One of the coolest things about them is that they've enabled QNC, which is a free (no data charges, no minutes used) 14.4kbps data service.

It's slow, but it's free and it's everywhere!

If I want something faster near my house I might homebrew something with radio modems or packet radio with amateur equipment.

PagePlus says they charge ~$1 per mb on prepaid?
http://www.pageplusc...ard%20Plan.aspx

That's EVDO/1xRTT. Expensive and fast. Like I said, QNC is free (but undocumented).

 

[TheRain]

I'll be tethering to a Jailbroken iPhone running on T-Mobile network. Might require some hackery to accomplish.

 

[Prestidigitator]

Thanks guys for your tips.

Oops. When I typed "Us pandorites" it was supposed to be "US pandorites." I'm in Southern California and really wish I could find a cheaper solution.

I've read through your guys' opinions. ntelos doesn't offer subscriptions where I'm located. I've seen some recommend mifi with Verizon. That's again paying the $60 data plan argh.

Being that I'm on an iphone 3g with at&t at the moment, it looks like I should make it my priority to learn how to tether with it; I'm jailbroken on 3.0. I just don't think the phone's battery life will keep up, however. Does anyone know if the Pandora will carry across enough power over USB to be able to provide power to the iphone? I know internet will not tether over USB; this is just to extend the phone's battery life.

When tethering gets boring, annoying, or blocked by at&t, I guess what follows is Verizon and mifi plus... prepaid minutes? ...with additional minutes over voip? sigh...
Oh, and again, does anyone know if the pandora will carry across enough power to extend the duration that the mifi unit will last?

If answers aren't available, maybe someone can point me to the specs I'm supposed to be comparing.

 

[MonkeyChops]

the pandora will supply 5v through usb just like a regular usb port on a desktop. If you can charge your iphone and mifi through usb, you can charge it with pandora.

Also, with verizon, I'm pretty sure the data plan for the mifi wouldn't require minutes. If its like my phone, I pay for "unlimited" data and it doesn't use my minutes. Unlimited is NOT really unlimited tho... be careful.

 

[juniorm33]

I live in the UK and am hoping to get a non smartphone with wifi so that I can tether.
Seen the sony erricson w995 and c905 I think they where. With a Pandora I'll not need a smart phone and would rather the smaller size, and when I've not got the pandora on me a basic phone will do (with decent enough camera).
Unlimitted in the uk are usually 3 or 5 gig a month on the mobile networks from what I've seen. I'm willing to risk tethering on the plan even if they say you shouldn't as I don't intend to do downloading or anything massive.

Rather wifi than bluetooth for the greater speed unless bluetooth is faster than the actual network speed, anyone have a view on this in London UK? I'm sure battery life will be ok for me as I'll just charge it in the night or run it bluetooth if I get low on battery.

 

[Hotchy]

Looks to me like you can only buy the service from Virginia/West Virginia, but you can use it anywhere? They're all CDMA/EVDO so I guess they piggyback off of Verizon/Sprint towers.

If you're in one of the neighboring states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland) you can sign up with mycricket.com instead. It's also CDMA/EVDO.

I live in Pennsylvania, and Cricket's rates look good. Is their usb modem compatible with the Pandora (It only lists Windows and Mac as supported on the site)? If not, is there another way to get cricket service (It's a CDMA meaning no SIM cards, iirc.)