Advise for a newbie....

I use a trac phone, voice calls excepted. Data very little it simply piles up. Texts is where it's at. Go through about 300 a month.

My cost works out to about 6 bucks a month, I have a few thousand minutes of voice to go if I ever needed to.

I discarded landlines and sprint, att etc. I did talk to ATT for basic flip phone service to see if it competes with tracphone. Found out that it will be almost 50 a month for everything, and 50 for the phone. The tracphone cost 20 plus tax and the numbers to it are disposible at any time. I will never return to any of the big cell providers. There is no reason to. And yes I carry a smart phone for whatever good it's worth. (Not very good...)

Our decline in celluar stuff started when we were first told about 12 years ago that the old dual band voice phone that could not even recieve a text was no good and we needed to upgrade to then new flip. I think we paid about 600 dollars for a pair outright and then 80 a month for service occasionally getting hammered with for example a 1000+ plus dollar bill one month when the phone roamed to Canada towers from Seatac airport. They wrote off the bill.... but the damage was done.

Before that we carried a stack of cheap mexican phone cards. And before that had a honest to goodness charge card from ATT which was a gold mine for them. That got stopped. All issues were referred to dispatcher. Heh.

 

You could save yourself about $30-ish by dropping the Jetpack and using the Hotspot on the phone for wifi access for your laptop.

As an O/O everything I do,.. from booking my next load to emails, using google maps for last mile routing, parking info etc and of course calling home,.. all of it depends on my phone.

I use Verizon,.. Unlimited plan. They have the largest coverage area and work best for OTR drivers.

I have tried them all,.. with the exception of ATT. Verizon's cell coverage is 25% larger than ATT,.. and they both offer the same exact package deals with the same types of limitations,.. so imo Verizon is the only one to use.

I've never been anywhere that the rare time I didnt have a signal,.. it was because there was no signal to be had,.. by anyone.

Hurst

 

I don't understand the terms Jetpack and Hotspot.

I assume these are apps to connect or are devices used to connect?

One final question.

Most smart phones including my own have some internet ability subject to limitations in data. (Which itself is not really a limitation when it's made to bottom feed thw ay this one is doing.)

 

When you order broadband internet service at home,.. they usually provide a router that not only does the hardwired networking (RJ45 cables) but also does wireless,.. aka Wifi for devices like your phone, laptop, tablet etc. This is called a hotspot. Or Wifi spot. Same thing.

Most all smart phones are now capable of providing hotspot,.. or wifi access to share its data (Internet) connection. My phone will allow up to 8 different devices to share its internet connection. I have it locked down to only allow my laptop. A feeble attempt to stop other from stealing my bandwidth.

Anyway,.. a JET Pack is a stand alone device that does the same thing. You turn it on,.. it connects to the cell network and opens a wifi hotspot for your devices to connect to the internet with. They charge extra for this. It makes no sense to me to pay extra for this when your phone can do the same exact thing.

Originally it was called tethering. Some phones older phones used to need a USB cord to create a USB network hub and shared data that way. Most all can now do it wirelessly,.. wifi.

Not the best description,.. but hopefully understandable.

Hurst

 

The old phones to me. Was long before usb even came around.

Ii can't remember the name of it. But my sprint flip phone screwed into the port on back of my laptop. I think it was the same port that printers used before usb plugs. After some technical configuring. I could use my flip phone as a dialup modem. Using my AOL internet software. This was when i first got my cdl and started OTR. BAck in 2000. Then sprint came out with software to load. You'd hit connect and it would dialout. Without really dialing out. It was about that time that pcmcia cards came out for internet. You plugged into your laptop and open up the software and it connected the card to the airwaves.

On another note. If anyone is thinking about signing up for some type of service and commiting to a new 2 year contract. DON'T. Next year the scenery is going to change dramatically for phones and tv. And coverage is going to get bigger. And a whole lot faster. With a lot more options for tv.

The days of no cell coverage and cable tv are about to end.

 

I understood you fine, especially when you brought out the old networking words I understand.

So basically these wonderful little devices are mindless now. Turn on, plug in and enjoy a movie instantly without all the configuring that goes with setting up such things.

That was one of the reasons I ran screaming from the networking class. Wireless was my Alamo or waterloo if you please. Stacks of numbers to configure and establish a device was very very pain ful back in the early days of wireless. I am pleased that the new devices simply plug and go.

That also means the bad guy can be between you and the device even easier if you are not careful with your network at home or work.

I like my ethernet cable, I'll hang on to it for many more years yet.

You did good writing, I understood you well and now feel that I can see where all of this is going.