New Verizon Data Plan Prices

Why not just get a smart phone and tether it to your laptop. Unlimited data for $29.99 a month. Sent from my verizon phone

 

Verizon limits tethering when they know about it. You CAN do it on your own without the fees.

Get an Android OS phone (the Motorola Droid, Droid X, Droid Eris, lots of options) and root the phone. This is not a simple task if you're not familiar with technology, but it's fairly easily done if you're the computer-type. Alternatively, get a WinMo phone (windows mobile OS), and unlock it. Same principles apply. I have no idea if Blackberries can be unlocked in the same fashion, to be honest.

Once you have full control over your phone things like Tethering & GPS nav work just fine without Verizon having any idea what you're doing, or being able to charge you for it.

My Droid Eris has been a parking-lot internet service for me for as long as I've had it, and I've never paid a data-overage charge, just the standard $29.99 unlimited data plan that I was required to have with the phone. Turn the app on, my laptop connects to the network provided by my phone's app, and I'm online.

You DO void the phone's warranty in 99% of the phone choices by rooting or unlocking, but that's part and parcel to opening up the phone.

No, it's not lightning fast, but it's reasonable for non-twitch gaming, watching YouTube or Hulu, VoIP (which I use to cut down on minutes when I'm parked), among a variety of other possibilities. My ping times depend entirely on a) signal strength and b) location. Things like WoW, EQ2, and SC2 leave me in the 100-200 ms ping time range, which is perfectly fine for anything short of PvP. If I'm parked in a bad location, it can be finnicky, but otherwise works just fine. Reminds me of my second generation DSL modem for speed (~2-800 kb/s down and ~128-256 kb/s up, depending on signal).

You'll want a standard app ("WiFi Tether" search on google will provide a multitude of answers in that direction). The one I use is free, and updates somewhat regularly, although i haven't updated the app in months to be honest.

As far as tethering and not being online? True enough, it's just that when you're on the phone you have no internet access (like being connected to a wireless router while the modem the router is hooked to is down). There's nothing fancy to switch when receiving (or making) a call, and nothing to do afterwards. That's a limitation of Verizon's CDMA // EV-DO network, it's unable to transmit data *and* voice at the same time in any reasonable fashion. Text messages will get through, but they take ~5x as long to 'download' to the phone while it's in use.

With their upcoming quote-unquote 4G network, release TBA of course, this should be a thing of the past as it's one of the big things for iPhone users, to be able to be on the phone and still do things like navigation via google, or whatever they like. Whether Verizon will be able to provide what they're promising is anyone's guess.

I'm very much looking forward to picking up a new Droid phone when they make the change and seeing how it performs.

Footnote: I have used my phone to replace my internet connection for raiding in WoW when I was at home and the cable had been knocked out, it provided stable service for myself & my girlfriend for three hours until the cable was back up.