Internet for a Laptop

[riddaraan]

I've been doing a little looking around, but am having a little trouble doing so, as I'm at work. I'm trying to get the cheapest, most bang-for-my-buck wireless internet service for a laptop that I can.

I have AT&T for my cellular (iPhone woot!) but now that I'm getting a laptop for school, I want to be able to access the internet on it, anywhere. Anyone have any suggestions? $50~60 a month seems pretty outrageous.

[Isiolia]

$50~60 a month seems pretty outrageous.

Not for what you want.


Might look around your area. I've seen wide area wireless networks that aren't too bad, in that some people use them instead of DSL/cable...buuut, that's not anywhere, it's just within a given radius.

[Tyche]

The school you are going to doesn't have campus WiFi?

[riddaraan]

I don't know if it does - it's a junior college, and a pretty shitty one at that. But even if it does, I still want to be able to access the net from wherever I am.

[izembo]

then 50-60 a month sounds cheap

[Melena]

yea, 50-60 is bout as cheap as your going to get.

[netz]

I've been doing a little looking around, but am having a little trouble doing so, as I'm at work. I'm trying to get the cheapest, most bang-for-my-buck wireless internet service for a laptop that I can.

I have AT&T for my cellular (iPhone woot!) but now that I'm getting a laptop for school, I want to be able to access the internet on it, anywhere. Anyone have any suggestions? $50~60 a month seems pretty outrageous.

Using your current contract:
1. Pay another $30/month to convert your "unlimited" PDA data plan to 5GB monthly, and you'll be able to tether your phone without AT&T killing your contract.

The steps you take from now vary:
a. You could buy a phone that actually lets you tether natively, and then every time you want to use the intarwebs on your laptop, you use the SIM card from your iPhone in your tether-only phone. Any recent 3G phone should be able to handle this; a lot of 3G phones nowadays are classed for 3.6Mbps downloads, but your real world speeds may top out at 1Mbps.
b. You could hack your iPhone to install a SOCKS proxy and have to endure a hack-ish procedure to connect your computer to your phone.

2a. This page tells you how to configure tethering for most styles of phones. The Data Connect page will cover how to do it if you buy a PDA phone.

or

2b. Set up your iPhone to do a halfass tether: http://cre.ations.net/blog/post/how-...ing-your-3g-co

3. Enjoy.

[Saphirea]

Can't you just bluetooth the phone to the computer and use a shared net connection?

[riddaraan]

Well, for simplicity's sake, I kind of misled you guys...

The laptop in question for the internet is my mom's laptop, and she doesn't have an iPhone. BUT, I do have an iPhone, and I just bought a laptop last night, so the answers here are still relevant...

sorry

[Saphirea]

Well, regardless of which. If your laptop has Bluetooth, you should be able to create an internet connection via your iPhone to the laptop.

[Saphirea]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=416811

Wow Apple locks down the bluetooth profile that much. That's pretty damn dumb honestly.
It apparently can be done via Jailbreak however; still dumb in my opinion.

EDIT:
Apparently it's a ton easier with the 3G but still some what of a hassle.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....53437&tstart=0