Sick of Wireless 5GB Caps

I live 15 miles away from a lovely town called Winchester, VA.

We do not have cable where I live. We also don’t have DSL. That’s right, no highspeed. All that we have is Satellite.

I’m a web developer, I need something a little more relable than a Satellite connection. 1000ms latency while you’re trying to admin some server just doesn’t cut it. It never will.

So I go to my local Verizon shop and pick up a Wireless broadband card. Much to my dismay, I learn that there’s a 5 GB cap every month. 5 GB. Yes I’m serious? I use that in a day of casual browsing easily. And if I’m in the mood for some new software, I could easily use that in under an hour.

Turns out, all wireless broadband providers have this ridiculous bandwidth limitation. But I needed more bandwidth. So I made it happen.

After much masterminding, I came up with the perfect solution. Here it is :)

Sprint has the fastest 3G network around (plus I don’t owe them $500 for going 1 GB over my cap like I do Verizon), so I chose them.

All that you need is a phone which supports the following:

  • Windows Mobile 5 or 6
  • REV A Support
  • 802.11b Support

In my case, I bought a Palm Treo Pro.

The next step is to download WMWiFiRouter, which allows you to share a given network connection over WiFi as a hotspot. It gives you enough control to select which data connection to use so you don’t have to use Sprint’s installed “Phone as a modem” connection (also capped).

Annndddd you’re golden. Unlimited, broadband internet. Portable anywhere. No cap. Life is good.

Honestly, I shouldn’t have to to go through such lengths to get such a service though. If I’m willing to pay for it, I really see no reason why they shouldn’t offer it. The networks can certainly support it.

I always encourage everyone to look at both sides of the issue, but I can’t possibly imagine what other side there is in this case. This is unacceptable.

7 FEEDBACKS

  1. I gotta say that I agree with you mostly. The carriers can support this technically.. but if they lift those caps, they're afraid that their networks will be wrecked. which is actually a legitimate concern. look at at&t's network in any major city- it's been nearly unusable since the iphone lauched. I'll admit i've done a little torrenting through my iphone (tethered, which is unsupported right now of course, so they're not regulating bandwidth) and that's the kind of thing they're really worried about. between that, lots of web video, large software downloads etc.. it is a serious concern and i'd rather have a usable network with some limitations than a useless one that's been brought to it's knees by so much data usage.

  2. Dave says:

    did you get “caught” yet?

  3. kennethreitz says:

    No sir! Perfect solution.

  4. Dave says:

    did you get “caught” yet?

  5. No sir! Perfect solution.

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