Sneaky Dirt cheap cellular internet.
I have times where I am away from hotspots and other internet connectivity and still need to be connected for an extended period of time updating data or doing the "live webcam" for an event. Most of the time it's expensive as heck and is forgotten as It's insane to pay that kind of money for dial up speeds. (19200-24000bps) yes some places like detriot and chicago has high speed cellular but it still insane priced and you have to sign up for 2 years. NO THANKS.
I was looking through some of my techie forums and discovered a pcmcia cell modem that caught my attention... the Motorola iM1100. It's a nextel iden pcmcia modem. Well what do you know, did not know those existed! So I find one on ebay for $12.00 and on a chance buy a $9.99 boost mobile startup kit with a free cheezy cellphone. Set up the accunt with the free $10.00 airtime and said yes to the $0.35 a day unlimited phone internet use. Then tested the phone to verify it was working, shut it off and slapped the sim card in the iM1100 card, put it in the laptop and after installing a couple of apps I was online at 19.2Kbps unlimited bandwidth at $0.35 a day! now this is not blazing fast. google.com comes up in 30 seconds with images turned on. but updating a 180X120 webcam image every 30 seconds is certianly a possibility as well as other low bandwidth things like email (no attachments) etc...
So go out there and give it a try. the software DOES work under XP and I am trying to figure out what it needs for linux use.... these are not popular cards so not much hacking info is available....
but hey, $20.00 a month for unlimited wireless slow dialup... perfect for camping with your toughbook!
I was looking through some of my techie forums and discovered a pcmcia cell modem that caught my attention... the Motorola iM1100. It's a nextel iden pcmcia modem. Well what do you know, did not know those existed! So I find one on ebay for $12.00 and on a chance buy a $9.99 boost mobile startup kit with a free cheezy cellphone. Set up the accunt with the free $10.00 airtime and said yes to the $0.35 a day unlimited phone internet use. Then tested the phone to verify it was working, shut it off and slapped the sim card in the iM1100 card, put it in the laptop and after installing a couple of apps I was online at 19.2Kbps unlimited bandwidth at $0.35 a day! now this is not blazing fast. google.com comes up in 30 seconds with images turned on. but updating a 180X120 webcam image every 30 seconds is certianly a possibility as well as other low bandwidth things like email (no attachments) etc...
So go out there and give it a try. the software DOES work under XP and I am trying to figure out what it needs for linux use.... these are not popular cards so not much hacking info is available....
but hey, $20.00 a month for unlimited wireless slow dialup... perfect for camping with your toughbook!
Comments
Post a Comment