Free Wireless Internet! — sort of.
Hot damn! Someone told me about this but I couldn’t believe it was this easy. I don’t need to do enough mobile web surfing to have to pay for it. I mean, all the data plans available on my old carrier were like $20 per month for some limited connectivity. No thanks.
But on Verizon it turns out that you can use your 1x-capable phone as a data modem for the price of a phone call. That is, it uses your voice minutes and connects to the internet. How cool is that? No monthly cost; no per-minute extra fees; data rates as high as 144kbps!
Well, Verizon doesn’t seem to advertize this thing much. I Googled all over the place and found a few useful links. Here are the most concise instructions I could find. Here’s one for Palms and with some more setup info. And here’s a forum with every question you can think of, answered at least twice each.
I set up Internet Explorer to automatically dial the phone if a network connection isn’t present. That way when I’m parked at a WiFi hotspot (like my garage) it surfs on that. But when I’m driving 70mph on I-285, it automatically connects on my cellphone.
Wireless phone connections take just a few seconds to connect, so it’s pretty easy to leave it disconnected until I need it. It’s much slower than a cable modem, but it’s much faster than phone-a-friend to ask someone to look something up for me.
And — rumor has it — it’s totally free on weekends because all my nights/weekend minutes are free on this plan. Woo hoo!