Travel Technology - Mobile WiFi Hot-Spots

Now on my Christmas list:

A gizmo the size of a regular WiFi router that accepts a PCMCIA cellular wireless data card and distirbutes its signal among a group of WiFi-equipped laptops. Works anywhere you can pull down a cell signal.

Bonus: Telco execs hate it!

The unit currently sells for about $700 but a lower price is expected for a planned consumer model.

NY Times article (registration required):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/technology/circuits/14share.html?8hpib

The Junxxion box was discussed last week in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451300

I can fully understand Verizon hating the device, but they should really reconsider that attitude, it will seriously backfire on them.

The Junxxion box was discussed last week in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451300

I can fully understand Verizon hating the device, but they should really reconsider that attitude, it will seriously backfire on them.


Dang... shoulda done a search. Sorry.

I agree with you with regard to Verizon's "no sharing" stance. It didn't work for the RIAA and it won't work for them.

Dang... shoulda done a search. Sorry.

I agree with you with regard to Verizon's "no sharing" stance. It didn't work for the RIAA and it won't work for them.

Especially with Sprint rolling out EVDO at the moment, all it takes is one operator to support the box to kill off a lot of good PR Verizon had going for it.

Now on my Christmas list:

A gizmo the size of a regular WiFi router that accepts a PCMCIA cellular wireless data card and distirbutes its signal among a group of WiFi-equipped laptops. Works anywhere you can pull down a cell signal.

Bonus: Telco execs hate it!

The unit currently sells for about $700 but a lower price is expected for a planned consumer model.

NY Times article (registration required):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/technology/circuits/14share.html?8hpib

I unfortunately didn't save the link but there's an example out there of a "roll your own" device that costs significantly less (like $150).

I unfortunately didn't save the link but there's an example out there of a "roll your own" device that costs significantly less (like $150).

As nice as these devices are, the build you own systems are really not interesting for the mainstream public, getting a hold of a micro PC board, installing a linux distro to it and hacking it so it will work is far out of reach for the general public. Of course, these cheap solutions are exactly what Junxxion are building, and adding a nice $550 premium to. More power to them I say, some people just want to open the box, plug it in and get to work.

All I need to DIY is the pc card and a nat-d dhcp server, no? Then just make my laptop an access point? What am I missing? Can't you just do the whole thing in sw (modulo the cell card) under Windows?

DIY EVDO Router (http://moro.fbrtech.com/%7etora/EVDO/)

"The premise is one person buys an air card and one person uses the service, not an entire neighborhood," said Jeffrey Nelson, executive director for corporate communications at Verizon Wireless. "Giving things away for free doesn't work anymore. It never did."
Doesn't work for who? :D

How good are these things? Instead of getting a DSL or cable line at home, can I get away with one of these?

Frequently Asked Questions (http://dts.vzw.com/faqs/VZAccess/faq_natlbrdbandaccess.html) about Verizon Broadband/National Access.



# Do I need to subscribe to an Internet Service Provider in order to use NationalAccess or BroadbandAccess?

No, NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess provide complete Internet access. A separate Internet service provider account is not necessary.



Verizon allows this to be your ISP solution. If you are in an EVDO area then you might be able to get 400-500 kbps avegare speeds ( their claims of 2 mbps is really theoretical). This can be shared between 2 or max 3 comps to get decent speeds (assuming all are online at the same time which of course inst the case but yeah a router solution makes sense for EVDO). But i think ISPs are so cheap nowadays almost everywhere. they are offering 4 mbps-5mbps for $19.99 and such. so bandwidth wise i would always prefer to have a home cable ISP. For travel needs the EVDO router can help you and a travel partner but i dont think the bandwidth is enough to cosider this as a total ISP solution.

However if you are not in an EVDO area then through 1xRTT you would only be getting 140 kbps tops. That really isnt much. In fact this is one example where Sharing isnt Caring ;) .

Verizon really discourages Laptop tethering from normal phones or pdas. The news phones that were out in early July ( Motorolla E815, Samsung i730 et all ) are all capable of EVDO and workarounds have been quickly discovered to use these as modems (all are originally crippled) and get EVDO speeds. They explicitly mention that these cannot be used as an ISP solution and P2P apps, video streaming etc. However phone users (E815)subscribe to V-CAST and pda users(i730/xv6600) subscribe to unlimited data to use these as modems and not be hit with a nasty bill.

I am really waiting for Cingular to start offering HSDPA( theoretically 14.4 Mbps!! but avegare around 3-3.5 mbps). It seems cingular has started deploying it very select cities so far and just testing.That should be it for me to leave vzw. But i know by that time vzw will be ready to release EVDO RA so i will always be stuck with vzw lol :rolleyes: Also i am in the process of getting a very cheap EVDO router for testing so hang tight, this maybe a handy device.