Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:18:19 -0400
Reply-To: Harold Teer <teer.vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Harold Teer <teer.vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Internet access using a cell phone
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Over the years, several people have posted their thoughts on how to have
Internet access while traveling. Last year, Ron wrote a nice post about
Internet access in the van (see post below) and this adds to his and the
other posts. After poking around on the Internet, I found a site dedicated
to using a cell phone for Internet access:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InternetByCellPhone/
Before reading the postings on that forum, go to their files section and
read the file "History of Back Door Access" and then the file for your
cellphone service provider. After gaining a basic understanding, reading the
forum postings make more sense.
Background--for several years, my wife and I have been wanting to take a 2-3
month trip in our Westy (don't we all). But every summer, something happens
to change our plans. Keeping my fingers crossed, it appears that this summer
will work and we plan to leave Virginia in about two weeks and head to the
southwest and then up to British Columbia or wherever our hearts tell us to
go when we wake up each morning. In order to use email, check on bills, ask
the list for words of wisdom if we have problems, etc., we needed Internet
access along the way.
Solutions:
(1) a notebook computer with a wifi card enable us to connect at free access
places and we could even purchase the access plans available at truck stops
along the way. The problem with this is that I have to hunt and find a place
with wifi Internet access.
(2) for areas where my cell phone provider (Verizon) has digital access, we
will use the cell phone to connect to the Internet. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InternetByCellPhone/ and their information.
Under our plan, we have unlimited free minutes between 9:01pm and 5:59am,
and on weekends, And we will have 500 minutes a month to call during the day
if we really need daytime access. With Verizon, using Quick2Net gets me
about 14kbps speed and using National Access gets me about 130kbps speed.
All of this for my basic plan price.
(3) to enable better cell phone reception in the van, I purchased a Wilson
cell phone antenna. After speaking to a technical support person at Wilson,
I decided on a 15" glass mount model which will probably be mounted on the
back side window on the drivers side. The antenna needs an adapter for the
cell phone and I found a good package deal at:
http://www.accessorygeeks.com/wilsonglssant.html Ordered it yesterday
morning and it shipped in the afternoon.
(4) to power/recharge the laptop, the cell phone, digital camera battery,
etc, I took an old inverter I had and mounted it behind the drivers seat and
hard wired it to the auxiliary battery, protected by an inline fuse. Since
inverters draw power even when turned off (usually <.2 amp) you either need
to add an external switch or pull the fuse to keep from draining your
battery if you don't use the van for a period of time. Since we keep a water
container, gloves, towels, etc. on the floor behind the drivers seat, I
mounted the inverter high on the wall so there would be good air circulation
around the unit. The disadvantage of that location is that we have to be
careful not to get water on the inverter so it will have to be covered
anytime we use the sink.
If you are out west, be on the lookout for a fully loaded white 91 westy
with Vanagon.com <http://Vanagon.com> stickers and two people with happy
grins on their faces.
Harold
--
Harold Teer
Harrisonburg, VA
1991 Westy
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:17:19 -0400
From: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject: Re: Any direcway experiences?
> The idea is internet access and maybe TV when we travel.
> Anybody have any experience with this at home or traveling,
> or any warnings or alternatives I should consider?
My solution is the following:
1) An ultra-compact notebook computer. (In my case a Dell L400, about
3.5 lbs, $450 on Ebay. I believe a Toshiba Portege 3480 or 3490 would
suffice as well, and is equally small.)
2) An inexpensive Walmart voltage inverter (so I can use the laptop's AC
adapter off of my cigar lighter; without buying a pricy notebook DC
adapter).
2) A modem-equipped cell phone on Verizon America's Choice plan. (As
of last week you could get an Audiovox 8900 free after rebate at Circuit
City with a 2 year contract, or for $40 with a one-year contract;
regularly $150. National airtime is $39 a month for 400 weekday minutes
and unlimited weekends.)
3) A USB data cable for the phone. (About $15 on Ebay.)
4) A Verizon Data Express modem connection. This is about 3x the speed
of dial-up, with no additional cost for internet access. (It just
deducts from the bucket of airtime minutes on your cell phone plan.)
This link tells you how to configure your laptop:
<
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?s=d730b1bc51f8f0a0e7ef2a27f6
<https://webmail.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/fetch.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.howardforums.com%2Fshowthread.php%3Fs%3Dd730b1bc51f8f0a0e7ef2a27f6>
74eafc&threadid=432527&highlight=%2B8900+%2Bmodem>
The above gives me reasonably fast internet service anywhere within the
area covered by Verizon. If out of their internet access service area, I
can still connect to any dial-up ISP (www.myfreei.com
<http://www.myfreei.com> is free), but it's
just 14.4 so it's very slow. Basically the laptop thinks the cell phone
is an external modem so you just configure Dial Up Networking
accordingly.
For video, I copy DVD's onto the laptop's hard drive (mine is 20 gig),
in MPEG4 format (DIVX), which is sufficent quality for decent playback
without taking too much drive space You could add a USB TV tuner if you
wanted to receive TV stations over the air, but movies work fine for me,
and the screen is plenty large enough for video playback in a confined
area. You could also put MP3's on it and output them to a car stereo or
headphones if you were so inclined. Or add a USB GPS unit.
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
www.busdepot.com <http://www.busdepot.com>
(215) 234-VWVW
