We spent the past week with a few thousand of our closest friends at the FMCA Convention (Family Motor Coach Ass’n) in Albuquerque, NM. We did a lot of talking about digital photos and about blogs, but the hottest topic was all about cell phones and Internet Access.
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In several of our seminars, we used our Droid phone tethered to the computer for our Internet connection.
If you’re one of the many folks who have iPhones, you’ll think we’re SO behind the times! But, being Verizon customers, we couldn’t get one of those fancy computer/phones because the iPhone is only available on the AT&T network. Now, both Jim and I have the Motorola Droid – very similar to the iPhone, but on the Verizon network.
It’s a whole new world!
We’ve been teaching RVers how to use their cellphones tethered to the computer for Internet Access for a while now. With the Droid (or similar ‘app-phones’) you don’t even need to use your computer at all. You can read email, update your facebook status, read your favorite blog, check the weather, and Google for Mexican Restaurants, all from your phone. But, using it as Internet access for your computer is great too – especially since the data plan is unlimited!
A couple weeks ago, we wrote an article on Internet by Droid. Last week we put it to the test by depending on the Droid for Internet access in a couple of our seminars. It had to work, or our seminar would be a flop. It did. It worked great. Plenty of speed to upload photos, work with WordPress, and use Google Earth.
When you get a phone that can browse the web, you must pay for a data plan on that phone. We are paying $30/month for the data plan on each Droid phone. The beauty is that the plan is unlimited. Even when using the Droid as a tethered Internet connection to the computer, the usage falls under the unlimited plan. I checked my Verizon usage stats to be sure:
I wouldn’t be surprised if that changed someday, but, right now, it’s pretty nice.
Chris Guld