# Cellular data router

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 14, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304 "2008-04-14T14:53:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304/1 "2008-04-14T14:53:55Z")

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I can’t figure out how to properly search for this and want to know if it exists. What I want is a portable router that will accept a cellular data card (likely PCMCIA or equivalent). What I want to be able to do is take the card and use it with my laptop when needed, but occasionally I will be meeting with others in a place with no internet access. There, I would like to drop the card into the router so that 2 or 3 others could share the access, preferably via wi-fi. Does such a thing exist?

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304/2 "2008-04-14T14:57:50Z")

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I don’t know if it exists but you’d better check your carrier’s contract to see if it breaks the terms of service.

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**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304/3 "2008-04-14T15:03:10Z")

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I think the big issue would be that datacards have a software element that you can’t install on a router.

Have you considered just activing Internet connection sharing on your Laptop and creating an ad-hoc wireless network, with or without, a router ?

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**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304/4 "2008-04-14T15:24:42Z")

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I should have trusted my [Google-fu](http://www.google.com/search?q=cellular+wireless+card+router&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1). There seem to be several, but it is still a pretty immature device and overly expensive.

[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]  
I don’t know if it exists but you’d better check your carrier’s contract to see if it breaks the terms of service.  
[/QUOTE]

I like this paragraph in a NYT article that popped up in the Google search:  
[Wi-Fi to Go: The Hot Spot in a Box](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/technology/circuits/23pogue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

> [@](#):
>
> Not everyone is happy about this product category, however. Verizon, in particular, strongly objects.
> 
> “Broadband access is designed for individual customers,” said Brenda Raney, a Verizon Wireless spokeswoman. “When customers use unauthorized devices to share the service, they are in violation of their service agreements.”
> 
> Yet this objection should sound distinctly familiar to anyone who remembers the dawn of the cable modem era. The cable companies originally hoped to charge $40 a month for each computer in your home, and did everything in their power to dissuade people from hooking up network routers that could share the signal. In the end, of course, common sense won, the cable companies lost, and now just about every home D.S.L. or cable modem signal is shared among two or more computers.

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**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cellular-data-router/445304/5 "2008-04-14T15:26:17Z")

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[QUOTE=essell]  
Have you considered just activing Internet connection sharing on your Laptop and creating an ad-hoc wireless network, with or without, a router?  
[/QUOTE]

This may really be my best option. I just didn’t want to deal with the setup and security hassles.