can i get your opinion on tethering please.

[sleekmr3]

Hi Everyone,

I just signed up but have been trolling the forums for a bit. I am finally getting an android phone after owning a palm 700p for 3 years. (don't judge me )

I live out in the rural area and the only two options that I have for internet is dial up and satellite internet (hughesnet) I called every internet company in my area and nobody offers dsl in my area at all.

so I ended up going with hugesnet. I pay $80 a month for 1.6 Mbps (download speed) and 250 Kbps (upload speed).

Now that my incredible is on the way. I was thinking about tethering. I would assume that tethering speed would be at least as fast or faster than my hughesnet.

I don't downloand movies or any of that stuff. I mainly use it to occasionally surf the net and watch videos/facebook/ebay that stuff. With Hughesnet's speed I know I can't download for the life of me. Oh and I listen to pandora quite a bit.

I was planning on tethering to be my main internet access and was going to cancel my hughesnet. I would save $80 a month. My contract is already up with them.

Can I get some opinions please

Thanks everyone.

 

[nstallion]

Tethering is against the TOS of the standard data plan with Verizon. I think you have to pay an extra monthly fee ($30 I think) on top of your smartphone data plan, and it is capped at 5GB per month.

That being said, you can tether without having this data plan, but if they catch you they can charge you for it. If I was going to use it as my main data connection I would not risk going without the data tethering plan.

You probably want to check what your 3G data connection is like if you haven't already

Speedtest.net Speed Test - Android app on AppBrain

 

[jwm2]

Well i can't say i'd recommend you tethering for your main source of internet, but thats up to you. You could just get a usb modem from verizon for $60/month and it'll put the hughesnet to shame, that i can say for sure. I hate satellite internet, i had it for about 8 years and it was horrible and overly expensive. I had starband as well as hughesnet and both are equally bad. Anyhow at least with a usb modem you can easily share your internet connection wirelessly with a wireless router or via an ethernet router so all the pcs in your home can enjoy the speed and connection. You can also do online gaming on ps3 and xbox 360, but don't expect it to be totally lag-free, you'll occasionally run into problems but i'd say 90% of the time it works just fine. Its really up to you on what to do, but i'd suggest if you are using it as your main internet connection to go with a usb modem and get the extended (mobile) antenna.

 

[abe01]

I've owned a motorola for some time now and switched to the incredible yesturday. Before that I was on sprint with the palm pre and before that I had an iphone for over 2 years. I tethered with each of these phones. On the iphone I did a jailbreak and tethered, on the palm pre I did the same using "Mytether" and with the motorola droid I rooted it and used barnacle to tether to my laptop and ipad. All worked perfectly. With the incredible, I'm currently using pdanet to avoid paying verizonwireless extra per month (I just keep my usage below 5GB and I never hear anything, monitor it online or with the "My Verizon" app in the market. With the incredible, when the root comes out, I plan to root it and use barnacle again like I did with moto droid. I would say from what I can tell, you should just tether instead of paying 80 a month! JEEZ MAN!!! Save some money and tether, I did.

 

[sleekmr3]

Well i can't say i'd recommend you tethering for your main source of internet, but thats up to you. You could just get a usb modem from verizon for $60/month and it'll put the hughesnet to shame, that i can say for sure. I hate satellite internet, i had it for about 8 years and it was horrible and overly expensive. I had starband as well as hughesnet and both are equally bad. Anyhow at least with a usb modem you can easily share your internet connection wirelessly with a wireless router or via an ethernet router so all the pcs in your home can enjoy the speed and connection. You can also do online gaming on ps3 and xbox 360, but don't expect it to be totally lag-free, you'll occasionally run into problems but i'd say 90% of the time it works just fine. Its really up to you on what to do, but i'd suggest if you are using it as your main internet connection to go with a usb modem and get the extended (mobile) antenna.

man if I knew this before I would have gone with this option instead of hughesnet.

I've owned a motorola for some time now and switched to the incredible yesturday. Before that I was on sprint with the palm pre and before that I had an iphone for over 2 years. I tethered with each of these phones. On the iphone I did a jailbreak and tethered, on the palm pre I did the same using "Mytether" and with the motorola droid I rooted it and used barnacle to tether to my laptop and ipad. All worked perfectly. With the incredible, I'm currently using pdanet to avoid paying verizonwireless extra per month (I just keep my usage below 5GB and I never hear anything, monitor it online or with the "My Verizon" app in the market. With the incredible, when the root comes out, I plan to root it and use barnacle again like I did with moto droid. I would say from what I can tell, you should just tether instead of paying 80 a month! JEEZ MAN!!! Save some money and tether, I did.

what is "root"?

free does sounds pretty tempting.

thanks for all the help guys.

 

[G.Armour]

Yeah I use my Droid to tether, occasionally. My sister has hughsnet and there is no way I'd get that. We sat in the same room and I used my Droid to tether my laptop and her desktop on hughsnet and my speeds blew her away.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[sleekmr3]

Yeah I use my Droid to tether, occasionally. My sister has hughsnet and there is no way I'd get that. We sat in the same room and I used my Droid to tether my laptop and her desktop on hughsnet and my speeds blew her away.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Thanks G.Armour for your input.

 

[nstallion]

what is "root"?

The way your phone comes stock, a lot of functionality is locked down and areas of the phone established as read only to prevent the user (you) from changing (breaking) things or malicious software from having access to the phone's core functions. Right now you only have access to what is called user space.

Root access gives you super user access (like an administrator in windows) and allows you to change anything about the phone. One of those features is wifi tethering, meaning you can make an ad hoc connection from your laptop/PC through wifi to your phone and use its 3G connection to the internet.

Verizon representatives have stated that it is very obvious which data is used by the phone and which is used by another device connected through the phone. HOWEVER, they have to actually check the data usage on your account. Usually unless you are downloading like a madman and red flags pop up on their end, they probably won't notice.

It's not uncommon for people to use 5+ gigs a month just with the phone's normal data connection from browsing the web, Pandora, etc so you'd probably have to use a LOT of data to get their attention.

 

[sleekmr3]

The way your phone comes stock, a lot of functionality is locked down and areas of the phone established as read only to prevent the user (you) from changing (breaking) things or malicious software from having access to the phone's core functions. Right now you only have access to what is called user space.

Root access gives you super user access (like an administrator in windows) and allows you to change anything about the phone. One of those features is wifi tethering, meaning you can make an ad hoc connection from your laptop/PC through wifi to your phone and use its 3G connection to the internet.

Verizon representatives have stated that it is very obvious which data is used by the phone and which is used by another device connected through the phone. HOWEVER, they have to actually check the data usage on your account. Usually unless you are downloading like a madman and red flags pop up on their end, they probably won't notice.

It's not uncommon for people to use 5+ gigs a month just with the phone's normal data connection from browsing the web, Pandora, etc so you'd probably have to use a LOT of data to get their attention.

thanks for the info.