WiFi On The Road IS An Important Tool

If I relied on just wi-fi, I'd only have internet 2 maybe 3 nights a week. Jack in the box may have free wi-fi, but show me a jack in the box with truck parking.

As for what brand of laptop, any brand will do, but I always make sure I get a business class laptop, not the consumer grade you find at the retail stores. For instance the Dell Latitude over the Dell Inspiron, or the Toshiba Tecra over the Satellite. The Latitude and Tecra (Dell and Toshiba are the only two brands I have owned) are both models tailor-made for business users. They are sturdier and can hold up to the beating riding around in the truck will put on them. Plus they don't really cost any more than their retail counterparts, you just have to order them online. My first Laptop was the Toshiba, and it's at home in a closet right now. It's about ten years old, has Windows 98 on it and still works like it did when it was brand new. Since then, I've had 3 different Dell latitudes, the first two I sold. As far as I know they are still in use today.

 

Don't know if I mentioned it in this thread, but using the wife's T-mobile plan, we can add a blackberry 8020 for $99 (two year) or $150 (1 year contract) and $10 for the extra (third) line and $25 for the wifi. It will tether to a laptop, so I'll have a phone, PDA, and internet with or w/o the laptop, for $35/mo.
Looks pretty sweet to me.

 

On good laptops, I agree they are all pretty good, but ones i do not/would not go for are HP and DELL. DELL changes there models too often and have the fastest decline in value (it seems) and HP is having a "bad day" across their entire product line except for printers. This is only my personal opinion. The TOSHIBA's are pretty good, they were the first in the world to make em' but for the biggest bang for the buck, the SONY VAIO is a great deal at the SONY Outlet Stores. $2,000 + new machines are around $1,000 and many are way under that with real powerful ones for 8 or 9 hundred. They are discontinued's, store returns and trade show demos that they can't sell as "New". Clean as new and full warranty too with big hard drives.

On reception, the antennas in laptops are like little strips of Scotch Tape and are not real powerful, and the transmitter/receivers are 50 or 60 mW or so (as i have been told) Thus for real powerful in/out, good signal, you need to have a an external antenna with USB or ethernet connected device. And yes, they cost money, but if you way the difference of the cost over time, they become more reasonable for the ability.

As far as signal problems, most if not all TS's do not have a real high end Tech Dept. and do not stay up on technology and/or customer needs. (it seems to me) They are on the weak side (transmission/reception) and need to be upgraded to the MAX FCC allowable power, 1,000mW or 30dBm (same thing). Also, your position in relation to the antenna is critical due to all of this AND, if you are trying to get good signal inside the cab, this can be frustrating, because the signal bounces off steel and the laptop internals are weak. Thus, the external antenna with amplified transmitter/receiver - which makes all the difference in the world.

As far as free WiFi, considering people are unhappy with the service that is poor, paying for the service that is poor and the fact that an interface and a transmitter/receiver is extremely cheap to buy and operate, I feel it would be greatly advantageous for them to all consider and provide free WiFi. And prices do not need to raised on any other services at all. QWEST has cheap 20 meg Business DSL - and they all have followed this service pricing across the country and it would be a great thing to provide to customers. And also, the on-board system with a bigger antenna and free WiFi I was referring to also goes way beyond TS's, I find open WiFi everywhere I go. It's all over the place, but yes, you do have to have the box and antenna set to see them and use. And many states are adding free Wifi to all their rest stops.

It is MY opinion, that "Pay WiFi" will go the way of the "Pay Toilet" LR

 

I've been told that tethering the BB may be problematic, and not to call the company (Tmobile) because tethering is discouraged because it can slow down the network if everyone does it. So they may be little help there. The 8020 model they offered seems to be a lost sheep of the fold: I can find very little on it. It could be that since it doesn't have a camera, it wasn't that popular. Came out in 2004 I think.
Using just the BB alone for net will be very problematic too, as it has a slow scroll function from reports I've seen. I'm looking for other options yet.

 

I called T-Mobile a while back to get the info on tethering my BB Curve to my laptop and they gave me the info that I needed with no problem and told me that I could use all I wanted because it was part of my plan. (of course I was talking on the BB and couldn't get it to work with my own hand-written instructions once I hung up, but that's another story)

 

All wireless carriers offer this now. Problem is the blackberry browser is not the same as used on a laptop so when you connect as a tether you will see basically your blackberry browser on your laptop and is not nearly efficient as laptop wirelss card connection to internet. I have yet to find which one is the best option but i am looking to do something almost right away. I have been researching this for awhile also and have almost drawn my conclusions. Will let you know what i decide to do.

 

I successfully set this up and tested it a few minutes ago. Basically just open the Blackberry software on the PC, then create a dialup connection and dial "*99#" using the Blackberry as the modem. Disabled "IP Header Compression" in advanced tcp/ip properties and it worked like a charm.

For the user I just used my email account login for tmo (first part only, no @blahblah.com).

 

I'm not following you. The Blackberry is setup as a modem. The computer only knows it has an internet connection, so any browser you choose to use works. It's not that bad compared to other forms of connecting, I don't know how hulu would work on it however as I never tested the speed (needed a driver for my Sprint wireless card after vista sp2 update).

 

Not sure what my coworker was using with his. All I know is when he was showing me how it worked from his blackberry it was not like just being connected from a laptop on a normal connection. He might have been doing something wrong too. Not sure.

 

I do not want to start an argument here and I am not going to comment on any of this gentleman's post. I merely want to point out that it actually costs an incredible amount of money to run large scale hotspot services.

There is a lot more to it than a "Gateway" and a "DSL Line".