Internet access on the road
Ran in to a deal today that may be of interest. We have a daughter that has not bothered to get access to the internet. She was visiting this weekend, when our son in Boise, ID called to give us his new cell phone number. While talking to his sister, he mentioned that he was using his new cell phone to access the internet with a fairly fast connection. Sounded too good to be true, but decided to check it out. As it was, they both had the same phone, same company and the same plan. It was a Samsung N-400 phone and the provider was Sprint. Her plan was something called "Vision". She has 500-1,000 minutes with unlimited minutes evening and weekend.
After a couple of calls to Sprint, they assured her that she had unlimited access to the internet and did not use any of her minutes, if she is in an area that is served by Sprint. All that was required was a data cable & software that we obtained from Radio Shack for about $60. I set it up on an old desktop that I was giving to her. Setup was fairly straight forward though registering software was quite a pain. Still not sure we got that done.
After connecting I ran some benchmark tests to check her speed. I got 80 kbps both up and down, which is what I understand is about twice of what you get with a 56K modem. No need for local access numbers, as it connects to *777 if I remember correctly. Connected to a laptop in the truck, you could even surf the net as you go down the road. One downside, it really seems to drain the batteries in the phone. Needs to be hooked to a charger or power cord.
Sorry this got so long.
Dennis and Carol
2003 2850RK Montana
1999 Dodge 2500 CTD (Love that truck)
Wife, 5 kids, 3 spouses, 1 boyfriend & 12 grandkids. Most are usually along!!!
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