Thinking about tethering your cell phone for internet service?

[thunder rising]

I'm posting this to help folks decide what's up with tethering.

All my communications go through my cell phone now. Phone, texting, internet connection using a Samsung Rant.
I purchased a cradlepoint wired/wireless router for $100

I had twice in the past tried AT&T but their service was unreliable and although performed well on BIG downloads (Wow 3/4G) the DNS was so bad that regular web pages took forever to load. I returned the equipment both times. The cost of the experiment was close to $22 both times. This time I decided to give Sprint a try (screw that iPhone, owned one .. it got wet)

I'm about 3 mi from the tower with trees in between. The phone is hanging from a self-fashioned bracket in a window. The window closest to my computer, where it is hanging now, is not the best spot, but I use an ethernet cable on one of my computers. That said, I have seen it compete head up with DSL in an experiment where I hung it outside at the most unobstructed path to the tower (which is where I also hung the AT&T Razor for the WoW experiment)

The bracket is such that I can move the phone around to find the latest "sweet spot" which can be just a few inches one way or another around my establish center. I have seen the download speed ring up 178mB/S where it is (There is a tree branch out there making my life miserable). I just downloaded an Ubuntu update that stated expected time was a little over 10 min for 100mB/sec DSL and 3hr+ for 56K modem. The actual download time was 24 minutes. That's a little under 1/2 speed of the expected DSL time.

The bottom line is that I'm happy. I have reasonable service without being stuck in my house. The phone and connection go with me if I need it. And, the single bill is right at $100/mo.

Oh, I don't watch TV. Except for the superbowl that I can get off the air. But I play WoW almost all the time I'm not here harassing folks.

It seems the myth of ISP cost competition does not take into account you can't get Internet service outside of a package. The closest I've seen to a standalone package was High Speed Cable (and this is a fairly new development), but the connect was not reliable and they spam called me mercilessly to get me to subscribe to TV services. Every other form of ISP is dependent on some other package and basically locks you in your house.

Just wanted to let folks know.

[MH1]

1. Good info. Thanks for posting.

[thunder rising]

2. I would have loved to see such info before I did the experiments...all you find is Corp advertising

This message is sent over my cell phone.

[darkstar3]

3. Tethering with an iphone is GREAT.

If you pull it off correctly, you can even do it wirelessly. I did this on vacation, and I loved it.

There's only two problems.

1. EVDO is the slowest damn internet connection known to man. And it's the only one available in much of the rural areas where I travel.
2. TCP packet loss over 3G means that streaming video can be a problem. And if you need to take an interactive class over the internet, it can be difficult to do on a 3G connection.

For me, I love having mobile internet, but I will never give up my cable internet at home. I don't have to purchase any kind of package to get it. All I get is internet, no phone or cable, and I pay a ridiculously reasonable amount for my 5Meg connection.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

4. cool deal...on a nitpicky note that you might just ignore

Mb is megabits and likely what you meant...
MB is megabytes

sP

[thunder rising]

5. caught me being lazy. 100lbs of lead is much heavier than a ton of feather ;-)

The message was like
3 hrs yy min zz sec for 56k
10 min for 100mB (I'm sure they use mB)

The math works out (very roughly) to a comparison to a 1mb rate.
x = 180 * 56 / 10 -> 1008kb/s (which is reasonable for DSL or high speed)

However, 3 hrs compared to 10 minute, well that must be incredibly fast!!!

The message units caught my attention in the past and I blew it off.
I'll pay more attention to the message next time.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. don't change a thing on my account

i just did protocol analysis and bandwidth consumption studies for a living and just notice crap like that. in the grander scheme everyone who knows the difference knows what you mean and everyone who doesn't know the difference doesn't care...i am just anal that way.

we have not gotten to the tethered point yet. we still have wired hi-speed but given the fact that the tower that serves our home is a quarter mile away it might be something to look into...

thanks for the cool info!
sP