I'm not sure about the bluetooth or wifi question. But I know I have bad reception where I live and I can play black ops on xbox live using my phone. So the connection can be decent.

 

Xbox live isn't as data intensive as most people think. But the point is that it'll do a sufficient job for most tasks on the internet. Prolly not great for streaming video, but it'll do anything else.

 

Actually, the signal being transmitted by your wireless tether is not dependent on how good your cell service is. Not sure if that is helpful info, though. For example, if you have very marginal cell service, maybe even going in and out, your wireless tether to your computer will still be excellent. So your computer may show and say "excellent" connection, five bars, etc., but you still can't browse pages reliably. Kind of like having a nice paved entrance ramp to a dirt highway.

All that being said, under average conditions, the internet service is very very good, usually about the equivalent of entry level DSL service. So yes, streaming video is a posibility (as long as it's not high def).

 

Hopefully you're paying $30 for unlimited internet, otherwise, yeah, it will come back and bite you hard. Probably with a comma in the pricetag. ouch

The *unlimited* isn't really unlimited either, from what I've heard, but a very high limit like 5 GB.

OOPS! lol, I just checked last month's bill, and I was just under 2GB. No way to tell how much of that was from tethering and how much from streaming pandora.

 

Yea wifi tether is fast as long as you have a decent cell signal. As long as you are in a fairly populated area you can expect decent browsing. Speed varies greatly by location, eg: my house I'm lucky to get .5mb down and up, but anywhere near a highway 2.0mb down and up.

I have also used it with xbox live (much to the amazement of my colleagues), to play online PC games like Counter-Strike and Goldeneye:Source, and have used my phone as an "internet lifeline" at school when the crap wireless network is completely drained of bandwidth w/ up to 3 people connected and browsing.

So yes, wifi tether is fast and awesome sometimes, but decent and awesome almost always.

 

NooB here. Rooted, downloaded wireless tether. It's not working. It says there is a problem with my kernel. It will let me nevertheless let me turn the tether on...but then the wireless doesn't show up on my laptop. Any ideas?

 

that sounds familiar. I think I got the same message the last time I did it. But it still worked perfectly none the less.

My advice: try it again.

 

I am curious on the legality issue of tethering. My main issue is I am on a friends account and I don't want him to lose the account due to me messing with my phone lol.

 

The kernel issue means you don't have access to something called "access control". While I'm not sure what that is, I do know that its not necessary for tethering. As suggested above, try again. All wireless ready devices should be able to pick up on the signal.

 

It is against the verizon agreement to use it without the extra plan feature. I'm not sure of the possible repercussions if you get caught, I'm guessing they charge the feature to the plan, charge for the data, or void the contract, which sounds bad but I'm not sure of which because I've never heard of anyone getting caught. Keep your phones data below the 5 gb a month point and they will almost surely never notice.

 

Alright thanks. I knew it was against the agreement but if it is not something they watch a whole lot (if people are not talking about getting caught) then minimal use should be ok. I just don't want to lose the contract due to it being my friends account, just have a line for me on it.

 

You would almost assume they would remove that app from the market if they were that worried about it, but who knows.

 

I can definitely seen the reason for hesitation, and I mean technically it is against the rules and could get you in trouble so as long as you know the risk. But I honestly have never heard about anyone getting in trouble. I've seen stories about people getting their data throttled for using too much but idk if that's true or not. I have over a day of game time on black ops on xbox live this month and a LOT of web surfing on my x throughout the day and I'm still under 5 gb at the end of my cycle.

 

I only planned on using it to play 1 game while at work. The wireless signal I get blocks the type of connection I need for it, and it is hardly a game that easy up bandwidth lol. Its very old. I will just try to keep usage down. Thanks for the info guys.