How about this idea...

[Kristopher1129]

Well, as some of you may know...I've been looking for a solution on the road with mobile to be able to book my appointments, answer emails, etc.

With the addition of my mobile service, it will put me on the road quite a bit.

So, what do you guys think about this. I was looking at sprint, and came across the Dell™ Inspiron™ Mini 10. It's only $50 with a two year contract, and runs off the 4G network which is about $40 a month with 500 mb of usage.

If I'm just booking appointments and such...will 500 mbs be enough?

Good idea, or bad idea???

[Ted S.]

maybe, you may want to consult with one of the sales persons that is actually familiar with data usage. As long as you use it for just business, like emails and such, you should be great. Photo's and music is where it gets iffy, and don't even think about videos.

[jbgrant]

That's pretty competitive. You will probably be roped into a contract with or without any hardware promotions with virtually all carriers. If you have a close friend or family member that is tech-savy, you could consider a smart-phone plan with unlimited data (this is what I use with sprint). MANY smart phones offer tethering capabilities, which means they will talk via bluetooth (usually) to your netbook or labtop and allow you 3g or 4g internet access. I pay about 45$ a month for unlimited data and more voice minutes than I ever use, but this is because I am on a group rate with a corporate discount. You do not need a dongle or card for your mobile computer to have cellular internet like most providers lead you to believe. Using your PDA as a tethering source may not be allowed in your contract, but I have friends with Sprint, Verizon, and ATT that all do this routinely without difficulty. Usually sprint has the best unlimited data plans, but I dont know what they're running now. I've pulled a couple GB down in a month before when traveling a lot. Tethering is possible with windows mobile, palm, iPhone, and Droid to name a few, but it take different levels of software knowhow (more difficult on Iphone) depending on the phone. You need to research it before making a decision. Some providers offer specific tethering plans and add-ons, these are usually not really necessary if your data plan is sufficient.

[Kristopher1129]

Yeah, I've been told about the tethering thing. But it sounds like a pain in the ass to me. I'm not real tech savy to begin with.

So is this just a software I download, and I can run the laptop off my cellular service. Or is this some sort of hacking I have to do?

[jbgrant]

It depends entirely on the service/phone setup you go with. On my windows mobile phone (WM is a pretty bad OS, not sure about the new "7"), it was as easy as downloading a 10$ program and syncing blutooth with my macbook. No, it's not seamless but it can be pretty easy. On an iPhone Im pretty sure you need to be a lot more aggressive about it.

Another sprint benefit is the free mobile to mobile no matter what carrier you are calling (not just in-network). I also use skype on my phone (which works really well) when making extended call to landlines to avoid using any minutes if I'm concerned about it, and this is not even stretching my contract to my knowledge.

[03z71]

A lot of places has free wifi. Write them down then when going to another job stop input them then goto the next. Just my opinion.

[john b]

take your phone and labtop to your cell phone carrier and they will give you a demonstration on it

[jbgrant]

take your phone and labtop to your cell phone carrier and they will give you a demonstration on it

Perhaps, but I have found they are usually much more inclined to try to sell you whatever will bring in the most money.... many will tell you you need multiple devices when you absolutely do not to get you into a secondary plan ($$$). You won't be able to tether easily without a pda phone of some sort in most cases. However, that's not to say it isn't possible (I did for years before 3G towers even existed).

[Kristopher1129]

Does tethering give you a strong signal though? It seems like maybe it would be a bit lack luster. I'm looking for convenience for my customers. I don't want them waiting on the phone because my connection is slow as hell.

[Kaleb G.]

You can set it up to where all you do is plug your phone into your laptop, start an app on your phone, then get to surf away.

Tethering with my phone I can get about 3 megs downloading and 2 uploading, which is about what I get with comcast in my apartment in the middle of the day.

[jbgrant]

Does tethering give you a strong signal though? It seems like maybe it would be a bit lack luster. I'm looking for convenience for my customers. I don't want them waiting on the phone because my connection is slow as hell.

For ease of use and reliability, the dedicated receiver card/dongle is the way to to go. If you want to be taking calls while your wifi/blutooth is actively sharing internet this wont be possible with all hardware combinations. There are probably many tethering setups that will work very nicely, but it would take some research to determine which are most stable.

I don't think the antennas in the cellular wireless cards are going to be much different from the one in your mobile phone. If the provider you are using has good coverage in your area (make sure it is 3G or 4G), then you should get pretty good performance if the hardware/software performs nicely (you need to get some advice from another forum or article on this).