Suppose you want to fly from NY to CA, and you want to surf the net while in transit… Now, I don’t understand how people can use their laptops while travelling, especially on trains and planes. While I have seen a small antenna plugging in at the PC’s phone jack…how does one gain a local dial-up number?
Also, I assume the wireless phone connection works via cell towers, correct? (Or, could it be going to some dish?) Anyway, if I am speeding through, won’t I have one heck of a roaming charge? And thus, even if it is a local dial-up number at the start of my trip, will it always be a local call for the duration of my trip???
Most laptop wireless cards are for interfacing with a wireless LAN. They don’t have anything to do with the cell phone network, but merely pick up signals from a nearby wireless router.
If you really want to surf the internet while flying, most of the phones in the seatback of the airplane have a data jack you can plug into (if you don’t mind paying $15 a minute for the phone charges).
some cellular companies provide wireless internet service. IIRC Verizon wireless cellular ISP number is *77 or 777 or some other 3 digit number. Hooking it up to a laptop you can surf the web at 14.4kb/s for just airtime. If you have a national plan there should be no roaming charges.
Also I think roaming charges only apply when you initiate the call, if you are traveling into new cells it doesn’t count as roaming. I could be totally wrong on this however.
According to our stewardess, no one used them anymore, so they weren’t cost effective. How many calls do people need to make that they can’t make on a cell phone almost as soon as the plane hits the ground? Apparently not enough to pay for the system.
As for internet access: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/computing/01/25/sas.tests.lan.idg/
Maybe I should reword the question: Let’s say I want to rent a laptop while taking a 500 mile car trip. How could I arrange to get a wireless internet connection? How expense would the air time be? Or, do some providers of cell phone service deal in this kind of thing?
All the major wireless carriers provide some variation of wireless internet access.
Generally, you can either use a phone as a modem, or get a PCMCIA card that works on the carrier’s network.
But since you’re talking about renting a laptop, I get the sense that this won’t be a long-term thing for you, in which case (unless you already have a compatible phone) signing up for mobile internet is probably not going to be cost effective.
And whether and where you will have access will depend on the carrier’s coverage in the area you are traveling. Remember that voice and data coverage do not necessarily coincide.
Do you really need access while on the road, or would it be good enough to have points along the way where you could stop and have access? If this could work, you might want to look into something like T-Mobile’s wifi hotspot network. This would allow you to connect at about 2500 locations in the US (mostly Starbucks) using a regular 802.11b card, and they have some more casual plans that don’t require a contract commitment.
There are various ways in which you can be wirelessly connected to the Internet.
Bluetooth works only to about 10 metres and won’t really help you on long trips, but there can be wireless booths not unlike phone booths that you can walk into and get connected to use the Internet or download whatever info the booth is offering. Infra-red booths are more common though, I think the Singapore airport has this. To use bluetooth you’d need a bluetooth card on your laptop (newer ones may have this integrated). To use Infra-red you’d need to have an Infra-red port on your laptop (these are common now). You can also connect an Infra-red adapter to the Serial port of your laptop incase you don’t have an Infra-red port.
Wireless LAN - Commercial premises, lounges, etc. may offer wireless connections such that if you’re in their building or lounge you can connect directly to the Internet. You need to have a Wireless LAN card on your laptop (or integrated Wireless LAN).
But since what you’re really asking is how to connect to the Internet for the entire length of the journey, here’s the most practical solution:
What you need: A Laptop and a Cellular phone.
Either both the laptop and the cellular phone need to have an infra-red port (additionally, the cellular phone needs to have an inbuilt modem) or both the Laptop and the cell phone need to be bluetooth enabled. This handles connection between the laptop and the cell phone. Since Infra-red is a line of sight communication method, it’s much easier (although much more expensive) to have bluetooth enabled on both devices.
So now your laptop can communicate with your cellular phone. But how do you connect to the Internet, you ask. Your cellular phone provider needs to offer you that access. Typically they would also offer you an option for roaming access.
I’m not sure how it works in the U.S. , so I’m gonna give you a generic solution. If your cellular service provider also provides Internet access via your cell phone, all you need to do is sign up for that service. It might be a per minute, per MB, or a flat-rate monthly charge. The roaming Internet access should ideally give you a single number to dial out to from your cell phone, regardless of your location, provided your phone is within range of their service. If your cellular service provider does not offer Internet access, you need to get them to enable something called a data line. Once you have data access through your cellular phone, you can dial-up to your regular ISP and connect to the Internet. Check with your ISP for numbers in all the cities you plan to roam. Again, ideally, your ISP should have a single access number across all cities it offers its service in.
Further, there are GSM/CDMA cards that you can attach to your laptop, thus removing the need to have a cellular phone. The card now acts as a cellular phone and dials out to the Internet access number.