Need High Speed Wireless Internet while Traveling

[DawnTeo]

I am going to be traveling for the next three months on business. I have a crucial business need to be connected every moment possible.

I would prefer to connect via Bluetooth so that I don't have to hook up any wires every time I want to connect (that gets cumbersome when carrying around a purse, briefcase, etc).

I would like to just sit down at the airport, in a hotel lobby, in an office, or on a park bench and just pull out my laptop and just 'be' on the internet.

I will be doing a lot of uploading: photos, videos, documents, etc. I need FTP, SSH, and it is crucial to have email 24/7. This means that 44k just will not cut it.

I will be in well-wired cities a lot, such as Washington DC, but I will also be in rural towns where coverage could be an issue.

I've been looking around at my options, and I just don't know what's what:

(a) I could get the Verizon pcmcia card, but it's $80/month, which I could spend, but I'd rather not.

(b) The Blackberry seems to handle email the best, which is crucial, but I can't connect my laptop to the Internet through the Blackberry.

(c) The new Verizon Motorola V710 has Bluetooth, but new users seem to be having problems using the Bluetooth. No one has successfully connected a laptop to the Internet on the V710 using Bluetooth. There are rumors of an upcoming patch to fix this, but there has been no official confirmation, and there are also rumors that this functionality was disabled on purpose by Verizon.

(d) The Treo 600 has an expansion slot which should have a Bluetooth-enabled module, but there are not any on the market yet.

So, you are the experts. What are your suggestions? As a last resort, I will buy the Blackberry 7730 for email and the Verizon 5220 laptop card for Internet connectivity, but I would rather get one solution that does it all and preferably without wires/cables.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

-Dawn

[jones]

Wi Fi

[hausman]

Originally Posted by DawnTeo

No one has successfully connected a laptop to the Internet on the V710 using Bluetooth.

SO not true. I've been doing this every day since I got my V710. I hate misinformation. This really drives me crazy (sorry)...

The V710 can currently support Headset, Handsfree, and dialup networking profiles. With National Access (Minutes of Use) you can get relatively reasonable speeds (I've found them very fast on the V710) for nothing more than plan minutes. You don't need the unlimited plan, though there are rumors that if you stay on too much using plan minutes they'll demand you upgrade to the $80/month plan (not sure how true that is). FWIW, VZW's own web site says that if you abuse the $80 a month plan they'll kick you off anyway.

Don't waste your time with Wifi - you want to have to find your local Starbucks every time you want to get email, not to mention paying an additional $30 a month? Wifi outside of the home is going to become useless in a few years as celluar data rates improve. Personally I think Wifi will remain relevant as a "pseudo-tethered" connection - maybe until WiMax comes through, but I get the sense that the power requirements of WiMax won't make it usable with pocket devices for awhile.

I digress. Get the V710. You've got 1x speeds over bluetooth, Verizon coverage, and imagine this - it's also a phone!

p.s., I assume by "44K" you meant "14.4K".

[Sprint PCS 411]

ATT's NEW UMTS (in four major cities ONLY, for now)
or ATT's EDGE Service (mostly covering CA, NV, AZ, OR, WA, ID, CO, UT, WY and some parts of MT)
or ATT's GPRS Service (nationwide)

there fore i would go with ATT Wireless's Data Plans GREAT HIGHSPEED DATA NETWORK

[agentHibby]

I might be 5 years until something takes out WIFI as the popular wireless way to use the internet. I don't know if that many wireless companies have the capacity to have most of there markets to have customers using wireless phones and an air card at the same time?

[hausman]

I already use 1x in preference to Wifi when I'm on the road. While my friends are all out looking for Starbucks or other hotspot locations, I'm checking email and browsing the web from anywhere. To me it's not an issue of voice and data at the same time; I have no problem using one or the other. I can't respond to an important email and talk on the phone at the same time any easier on the road than I can at home or the office. Personally I doubt it'll be 5 years. EVDO is already out in a few markets (questionable choices notwithstanding), and as it becomes more widespread I fail to see how Wifi will compete unless pricing is ludicrously high in the cellular space (I'll grant that's not a foregone conclusion considering Verizon is still charging $80 a month for supposedly unlimited 1x data). This is way OT from the original post - sorry Dawn - I stand by my recommendation. I've been searching for a completely untethered business class solution to connectivity, and after several years I've discovered the UX50 and V710 to be a perfect combination.

[DawnTeo]

hausman, you are a godsend. The Motorola V710 is the solution that I really wanted to use. After all, what's better than leaving my cell in my purse and just pulling my little laptop out and being online in a few seconds? No cables. No cords. No hassle. And it sure as heck is better than having to get a Blackberry AND an Internet card.

Connectivity while on the road will be mission critical for me. You have no idea how much I appreciate your input

[hausman]

You're welcome. Just be sure you have NA-MOU or a data plan on your account. I use a high-minute plan with NA-MOU. Note that if you overuse data service there's always the lingering threat/rumor that they'll make you buy the unlimited plan that you said you'd rather not buy. But I've found that using it to up- and download emails (writing them offline) and occasionally browse, it's great.

[DawnTeo]

hausman, one more question... which headset do you suggest? I would like my phone to actually ring, and I'd like to have the choice to either answer it or not answer it. I would also like to use the same headset for online video/audio conferencing while traveling rather than buying a second headset.

[hausman]

The problem with BT headsets is that when the BT headset is "on", the V710 doesn't ring out loud (it rings in the headset). This means that you have to turn the headset off when you take it off your ear. For the HS800 and HS810 (boom), this is a no-brainer; when you take it off, you flip the boom back pretty much instinctively and the headset turns off. This closes the link to the phone and the phone rings normally. On the HS820, you have to hold the multifunction button for 3 seconds to turn off the headset (much like the Jabra series), which I always forgot to do and also found it to be a pain.

The catch is that you want to use the headset for other things, which is tricky. I was able to use my Jabra BT200 as a headphone (mono, of course!) by plugging the base unit (I own the one for non-BT phones) into a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter and plugging that into my walkman. It's pretty ungainly at the walkman or PC side, though, but I must say it's pretty cool to be walking around the gym with the BT headset on, not tethered to the walkman. I have no idea if it works as a microphone as well through that adapter; I don't have the jack-converter to hook up to my PC's mic and earphone jacks so I can't test this.

My recommendation is this: get the HS810 headset because you'll love it, and get a real PC headset (or whatever you need) for the video/audio conferencing. I know it's not exactly what you want, but you'll love the BT - you'll wonder how you got along without it - you can charge it with the same charger as the V710, and you may want a headset that doesn't take batteries anyway for the middle of an important PC-based conference. At least on the cell phone if the headset dies you can just pick up the phone or use the built-in speakerphone, but if you're on a laptop and you haven't properly configured your microphone gain and input, you want that headset to "just work".

I hope that makes some sense!

[DawnTeo]

Ok, I'm convinced. I'm going to buy the V710 with the HS810 headset. I already have a headset with a microphone that I can carry in my luggage for online conferencing.

One more question, since the HS810 turns "off" when the microphone is folded back, how easy is it to fold back the microphone while it is still on my ear? I would love to be able to just leave it on my ear with the microphone pulled back and just flip it forward when a call comes in. My hair will cover an earpiece that small anyway.

[hausman]

You can't do that; it stays "on" while it's on your ear, since it flips "inward" (where your face would be if you were wearing the headset). I actually prefer not wearing them all the time; they hurt my ear after awhile (I've tried a few headsets). If you want a headset to wear all the time I'd look into the HS820. But then you do have to remember to turn off the headset when you do take it off, or you won't hear the phone ring.

FYI people are asking Motorola to change that, so that the phone can be set to "ring" even if the BT headset is on. There's no guarantee that it'll ever be "fixed", though.

[Bugwart]

There are places where free WiFi hot spots are availabe. Columbus, Ohio is one of these places. The airport has free WiFi, Easton Shopping Center is one large free hot spot, and there are many coffee and restaurants with free WiFi. It would be nice if this were the rule, but sadly, it is the exception.

I have used 1xRTT all over the US. The only places were I could not use it were: Northern NH and VT and Arkansas.

[bcov303]

I was wondering could you use a motorola e815 & BT hs820 headset to do the same? I am looking to purchase this pair to do similar type work.

Tx. bcov


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Originally Posted by hausman

You can't do that; it stays "on" while it's on your ear, since it flips "inward" (where your face would be if you were wearing the headset). I actually prefer not wearing them all the time; they hurt my ear after awhile (I've tried a few headsets). If you want a headset to wear all the time I'd look into the HS820. But then you do have to remember to turn off the headset when you do take it off, or you won't hear the phone ring.

FYI people are asking Motorola to change that, so that the phone can be set to "ring" even if the BT headset is on. There's no guarantee that it'll ever be "fixed", though.

[pjh]

I just upgraded my V710 to the E815. The new phone does everything the V710 did. I could not find a driver for the E815 for win98SE but the laptop still saw it, so it may use the same driver as the V710.