Personal Wifi Hotspots

[Janiece Young]

I attended an online webinar yesterday to earn my CEUs.  One of the things I found out about is Tether.  This allows you to have your own wifi hotspot.  You attach your cell phone to your computer and download the "Tether" software.  It only allows one user at a time.  The advantage to this is you only have to pay them one $50.00 fee instead of a monthly fee.  The web address for Tether is www.Tether.com.  They let you try it out for free for 30 days and if you like it you pay a one-time fee of $50.

There is a company that allows pay-as-you go for hot spots.  I think it is Virgin but I'm not sure.

[Martha R]

Thanks for the tip.   That's 50 bucks a year?  Or just one-time fee?

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Why would you need that when you can just get online at most attorney offices?  They will give you the username/password and you're off and running.  If I can't use that, I have MiFI through Verizon, but I rarely use it.

[Janiece Young]

It is just a one-time fee.

Kelli, it is for when you are somewhere and you need WiFi and they don't have it.  For instance, I was just out of town on a depo and the attorneys were complaining that WiFi is usually not working in the hotels they are staying at.  

I stayed at a nice hotel in Chicago and I could get internet, but they were going to charge me $24 per day for it.  

[Susan Magee]

Do you know if it also uses your data plan minutes?

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Susan,

From what I just read on their website, they recommend having an unlimited data plan (which fortunately I do).  So from that, I would deduce it would come off your data plan minutes.

HTH, Tricia

[Janiece Young]

Susan, I am not sure about that but I bet you can go to their website and ask them.

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Check out FoxFi.  From their website (below) and yes, there are attys' offices where we can hook up - but here in DC, some of them are locked down pretty tight. When all I need to do is jump on to send a rough draft, or an order sheet from my iPad, it only takes a minute.  And also, I've compared the speed of FoxFi with some attys' offices, and FoxFi wins occasionally.  Hard to believe, but true.  I like having the option there.  I would never pay for a hotspot.  We dropped our Verizon wireless card - there's $60 a month right off the bat.

FoxFi is much better than other tether software on Android. The advantages are obvious:

• No rooting required, avoid hassle and risk of bricking
• No need to install anything on the computer
• Supports connection from any tablets including iPad, Kindle, Nook etc.
• Supports connection from PS3, XBox, WII etc.
• Supports multiple connections at the same time
• Secured with WPA2. Avoids the security risk of enabling USB debugging.

M.A.

[Tricia McLaughlin]

For those who have iPhones, it's $29.95 yearly.

[Shanna Gray]

Not to burst any bubbles, but this does violate most cell phone carrier agreements. And they monitor for what would be laptop browsing traffic vs. phone traffic and once they find out, they'll start charging you the tethering fee that you're trying to avoid in the first place. Might be worth it for convenience's sake, but just thought I would let people know that. It's our data, why can't we do what we want with it? Sheesh.