Originally Posted by JSD
I was under the impression that in order to use your mobile phone for Internet connectivity, you have to sign up for your provider's network plan (in addition to a voice plan). Is this not the case?
Is an anternative to signup with a nationwide dialup ISP (e.g., AOL) and then use the phone to connect, thus circumventing the wireless carrier's "network plan"? Any serious disadvantages to this?
I don't know about other providers, but you don't have to do this with Verizon. Verizon does offer a data plan, but you don't actually need to sign up for it in order to use their internet connectivity. I think they require a data plan if you get the air card.
When I first started with Verizon a couple of years ago, they had a little known service that allowed you to connect to the Internet using your phone as a modem, but the speed for that network was on par with a 14.4 modem. Verizon sold a package that included a cable, modem scripts, and a dialing program. They also had a faster network, but one needed to sign up for their data plan in order to use it.
Then, a number of months ago, Verizon introduced picture messaging, and because of that, everybody by default got the faster network access without having to pay for the data plan - you simply had to know about it and put in the default login/password when you connected.
In general, the Verizon people aren't very pleased with people using their service like this and try to discourage people from doing it. They keep trying to sell people on their data plan.
You can, of course, simply dial up to a national ISP as you suggested. But, if the carrier is willing to act as your ISP anyway, you might as well take advantage of the free service.