[Tfug] [Bulk] hot spot vpn

Matt Jacob matt at jacobmail.org
Wed Jan 16 13:53:29 MST 2013


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013, at 23:10, Bexley Hall wrote:
> On 1/15/2013 10:39 PM, Tyler Kilian wrote:
> > Adding hotspot to an iPhone is something like $20.
> 
> [I don't use a cell phone...]

On our Verizon family plan, tethering for our iPhones is included at no
additional cost. It didn't used to be this way, but when VZW switched to
their new sharing model a few months back (the "Share Everything" plan),
it was included.

If you don't have a cell phone, you can still buy mobile hotspot devices
that take a cell signal and create a small wireless network. Verizon
would be happy to sell you one for a couple hundred bucks plus a monthly
access fee. ;-)

> And then the data that comes through the phone to your laptop
> just looks like more "phone data" (for billing purposes)?

Yep. With our family plan, we have a shared bucket of 4 GB of data a
month. Use it on the phones, or use it via tethering---it's all just
bytes.

> For a "business expense", I guess you (personally) aren't too concerned
> with the cost of each byte transfered, etc.  Are there practical limits
> on this?  I.e., why doesn't *every* iPhone owner use their iPhone for
> this purpose (instead of having some other ISP at home)?  If it was
> *just* $20, that seems like a deal!

See above. The data transfer is limited and very expensive. Also, it's
slow and has an appreciable amount of latency (compared to what's
available with wired connections).

Matt




More information about the tfug mailing list