 Review by Fox McCloud 
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 916 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 undisclosed location
 $5 per month (24 month contract)
 "It's free, and faster than dial-up"
 "the upload speeds are terrible"
 "If you have a non-EVDO phone and have national enhanced services, it's a great 'free' way to get online."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Ok, a while ago I found out that I could access Verizon's 1xRTT network by using my phone as a modem. What was great about this, is that it only uses up minutes during peak times! (other than that, no KB charge and it doesn't use up minutes on the nights and weekends).
I usually get speeds around 130-137K with latency that can be as low as 330ms.
The upload, however, is horrible, I can't even beat my dial-up upload speed of 24K!
Also, the phone will routinely drop the connection, for no apparent reason...thus, why connection reliability is mediocre.
Also, Verizon doesn't advertise this service, even though it's completely legal, thus, why pre-sales information is so low.
Tech-support? Half the people at Verizon have no clue that you can even do this, and some that do know, don't fully understand it.
Still, it's "free", and works marvelously if I want to download a large file 3x faster than dial-up.
Explanation on the price: you have to have national enhanced services in order to use it, which is usually enabled when you get unlimited text messaging (which costs me $5 a month).
Followup comments:  Light Guy
join:2006-05-12
Somerville, NJ | How? Fox, how do you connect your pc and / or laptop to your cell? What do you dial to connect? Thanks | |
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Fox McCloud
Ron Paul Enthusiast
join:2006-07-23
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Verizon BroadbandA..
| Re: How? Well, you can use a USB adapter to connect your phone directly to your laptop, or you can use a blue-tooth adapter.
I found that the USB adapter provides a stabler connection, and it seems to allow a much better upload speed...however, you're tethered to your phone.
Blue-tooth adapter: I thought think this works great, myself..and I would much rather go with this because of not having to have the cell-phone close to my desktop/laptop.
Anyay, for the blue-tooth adapter, I just plugged it in, let Windows XP install its version of the blue-tooth drivers, then searched for my phone...after finding it, it automatically thinks of it as a modem.
Next, I set up a new dial-up connection...I tell it to dial "#777" for my username it's "XXXXXXXXXX@vzw3g.com" (replace x's with your own cell-phone number) and set the password to "vzw".
Keep in mind this is ONLY legal if you have a 1xRTT only phone; do this with even an EVDO capable phone (even if you're in a 1xRTT area), and it's instantly illegal.
And obviously, this only works with Verizon Wireless. | |
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Luwigie
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Edison, NJ
clubs:
edit:
January 17th, @12:19PM
| Re: How? If you're in an EVDO area with an EVDO phone, you can change the settings on most phones to go back to 1xRTT rates.
This is not free, it burns air time. Do it on night and weekends though, and its free. You do not need to have anything additional on your account however...
There is a way to use EVDO DUN which I have done with my phone just to test out the service, but abusing this is a good way to get canned from Verizon. Using the standar 1xRTT is not against any policies however.
Came in handy when I was at my grandmother's house, who only has dial up. Windows update was so much faster. | |
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Fox McCloud
Ron Paul Enthusiast
join:2006-07-23 | Re: How? even if you force your EVDO phone to use 1xRTT, it is still considered illegal; a number of people at HowardForums have discussed and analyzed this repeatedly, and it has, many times, been confirmed that it's only legal for 1xRTT only phones. | |
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Fox McCloud
Ron Paul Enthusiast
join:2006-07-23
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Verizon BroadbandA..
| Re: Upload speeds are great for me! said by YukiBlitz22 :Hey Fox_McCloud! I tried this out and it works great, and even wrote my own review. Unlike you though, I get great upload speeds. It's around 128kbps (16KB/s) sometimes even higher. I was FTPing and it was going at 21KB/s at one point. Download speeds are around the same as my upload. I use a USB cord though, so maybe that makes a difference, I don't know... Anyway, thanks! Yeah, I think that does make a difference, as when I use the USB cable, not only are the download speeds more stable, but the upload speeds are way better.
Blue-tooth is just picky, that's all. | |
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Upload speeds are great for me!