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Portable Wi-Fi Hotspots
Dekortage writes "David Pogue reviews several portable wi-fi access points in the New York Times. If you have cellular Internet access, you can plug the PC card into the wi-fi box and presto, you've got Wi-Fi from wherever you are." From the article: "The card provides the Internet connection, courtesy of those companies' 3G ("third generation") high-speed cellular data networks. The box just rebroadcasts that connection as a Wi-Fi signal so that all nearby computers -- not just one privileged laptop -- can go online. With those PC cards, you can go online anywhere there's a cellular signal: in a taxi, on a bus, in a waiting room or wherever. In major cities, the speed is delightful, like a D.S.L. or slowish cable modem (400 to 700 kilobits a second)."
3G data here (in Australia) is farking expensive. I don't know why you would want to share your limited data allowance that you pay more than $1/meg for with everyone else?
I drink to make other people interesting!
Also it should be known that the Kyocera 'KR1 mobile router' is also capable of connecting via cable to several cell phones, as well as the PC cards. Currently, there's not a ton of models supported, but you can pretty much guarantee that will change pretty soon.
"Crime fighters fight crime. Fire fighters fight fire. What do freedom fighters fight?" -George Carlin
Is this thing compatible with the Nintendo DS wifi?
I heard of some lady that did something similar with a cell phone + laptop deal, but she ran a p2p application.
Apparently they have a cap on usage, and she got stuck for hundreds in overages...
This defeats the purpose of charging you $100 per month to use a wifi PC, so cell providers won't let this fly.
Having done some work in both NYC and Wash. D.C., this is not new- I could connect through unsecured wifi nodes throughout both cities while in a cab with my laptop, wireless PCMIA card (not specialized hardware or software) seamlessly two years ago. (pardon the grammatical structure- no, I could not connect from D.C. and NYC at same time!-get real you nitpickers!)
What's really new here?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Didn't someone make one of these and it was reported here on /. over 9 months ago. I think it was using a Verizon card.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Now you can wardrive AND provide internet access at the same time. I wonder if you can broadcast a better signal than people's own APs, and redirect them to your own loacal propaganda. I think I have a summer project now...
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
As long as prices run in the 1/mb range, this will not really be the killer application. Compare it to internet access, until the price got affordable (it was like 5$/hour here until about 1992), nobody went on the 'net either.
Not to mention the old saying "I got WiFi access now, my neighbor bought an Access Point". Who's want to run an AP through a line that's probably costing more than your rent if some leecher finds your AP? How secure can those APs be made so it's possible to make sure you're not going to invite everyone on the airport to a P2P party?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is easy to do under Linux or Windows, so you can already do this without any fancy hardware.
:)
1) Plug in WAP wherever you are
2) Enable ICS or iptables on whatever computer has both the mobile internet card and a wifi card
3) Configure IPs to use the computer in step 2 as gateway
4) Profit! er, I mean: Surf!
We did this on the way up to defcon between 3 cars like 4 or 5 years ago...
Do you even know what wardriving is? It involves looking for other people's access points.
We exhibited at the UK Linuxworld 2005 and because previous shows wanted like £300 for a 64Kb internet connection to the stand, it turned out to be cheaper for us to commit to paying that much over 1 year for an unlimited 3G/UMTS plan and PCMCIA card. We attached a wi-fi & 3G cards to a laptop, some software written in the car, and it turns out our portable hot-spot was providing 200-300Kb of internet access for several stands in the room that had found our AP. I like the principle but when the ridiculous per-MB usage charges kick in for 3G access it might not be so smart :-)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
This kind fo thing is a cinch to set up under Mac OS X. And w/ Sprint EV-DO (over a Mbit down) costing $60-$70/month, quite worthwhile. I am my own hotspot everywhere I go! :-D
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/6a278ca927d0501 0vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Quietly set up at your local college (one that does NOT provide WiFi access), in an area where students gather to do home work, and turn it on.
As people find they have an internet connection suddenly, you get to surf through any unsecured laptops' shared folders, like "My Music."
Of course, I'm not advocating anything of the sort... *whistles innocently*
H.
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
I remember my dial up companies bitching about my usage beacause I would be on 24/7. They tried to say that they only provide Unlimited Internet if you are actually using it. It was nice though when I had one dial up isp called CTS net in San Diego back in 1997 or so. I would leave the red hat box on 24/7 with a firewall. They actually were convinced that I was not online because they could not ping me. It was quite a laugh. However, Verizon and Sprint both provide high speed wireless in Las Vegas with EVDO technology. They charge around $60USD/month for unlimited access. At what point are they going to limit the unlimited like the dial up companies did? I understand that the dial up companies did it because they were limited to the physical number of phone lines, but can Sprint and Verizon come up with some ridiculous exuse? I think they are probably working on that right now.
You can also build your own if you want. :) This got slashdotted last year. It's pretty much the same as a JunXion box but in a DIY format. This was also in Vol.03 of MAKE: magazine.
:)
--the guy who built the stompbox
FTA: ;-)
the Junxion has some neat features, including the ability to greet colleagues with a splash screen. ("Welcome to Dave's free Wi-Fi highway! Click Connect to continue, and don't forget to thank Dave by dropping off cash or baked goods at his cubicle.")
Sound's like it'll pay itself off in no time.
You mean people actually leave their parent's basement?
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
"The card provides the Internet connection, courtesy of those companies' 3G ("third generation") high-speed cellular data networks. The box just rebroadcasts that connection as a Wi-Fi signal so that all nearby computers -- not just one privileged laptop -- can go online."
/.'ers couldn't understand why anybody would want a 'broadband' connection on their cell phones.
I remember when 3G was first being discussed, lots of
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You could build your own:
http://devices.natetrue.com/mobileap
Made from a router using OpenWrt Linux and a cell phone data cable. Batteries not included.
Yeah, it'd be a great idea except for the inevitable crowd of people (say better: nerds) that would follow you around once they found out you've got the hotspot.
"dude, he's got the hotspot. FOLLOW THAT GEEK!"
The Portable Node idea is nothing new. It Has Been Done Before, but this is the first (that I have seen) commercial implementation. At the price it is going for ($600) I doubt anyone will buy it, as you can build your own for almost half as much.
Sure, they put out lots of hype about 3G, but for most of them the "unlimited" plans really mean "all the bits your cellphone screen can display and you're not allowed to Bluetooth/Cable/IR to your laptop", plus there's a much more expensive "unlimited" plan that lets you actually connect a computer, though there's probably fine print in the contract that limits you to a few hundred megabytes of unlimitedness.
So if I pay a few hundred dollars for a locked Treo/etc., I can get some use of their limited unlimited service, but with a smaller-screen phone, the performance difference between ~9600-baud CDPD and 200kbps or 2 Mbps 2.5G/3G/3.5G/etc. isn't significant except for uploading camera pictures, and I'd much rather upload pictures to my PC using USB or Bluetooth, because my PC is where I want to use them.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Anyone know how to make a PocketPC phone do this?
Other then being a big money hole, and a way to play solitare I'm trying to figure out what to do with mine....
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
Much easier on a Mac, 5 clicks...open the sharing control panel, click on the internet panel, set "connection to share" to the EVDO card, and click share via airport. Click start and you are a mobile access point
these guys do a similar gateway, so you can put any 3g pcmcia card into it... more usefull with fixed rate broadband wireless td-cdma or wimax ISPs
Let's see...I can plug cellular access card into my laptop or I can buy an expesive box, plug my cellular access card into that, then connect to that box using the wireless card in my laptop. Um...Why? What's the point? Cellular data access is hella-expensive. No way am I going to be sharing that with anyone else. And, if I am crazy enough to do that (or I need to share with a business unit), I can plug the card into my laptop and turn on internet connection sharing with my laptop's WiFi adapter.
Same with OSX; you can pick which interface to share, and what interfaces(multiple ones can be used) to share it with. I've done it before in hotels where we didn't all want to pay for high speed internet, so each night one of us 'bought' internet and shared it with everyone else.
Anyone else get the feeling the summary is major astroturf? Half expecting it to dice and do my taxes, from the sound of it.
Please help metamoderate.
Since in most places you're billed by the kilobyte, even modest usage could run up a significant bill. NTT DoCoMo in Japan has data download rates that range from JPY 0.84 to 1.26 per kilobyte. A yen is approximately 0.8 US cents, so downloading a megabyte goes to about US$7. Downloading a copy of the Linux kernel at those rates would cost you JPY 33,000 (US$280), which is insane. This might work in other countries where mobile carriers provide flat rates for 3G data, but it would very rapidly become unworkable if you get charged by the kilobyte, and that appears to be a far more common scenario.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
"Dave's not here man!"
When you can accomplish this for much less... Okay, let's think ClearWire. I am personally not a fan, as I don't need to move my connection around, however, ponder the following morsels: 1. Monthly lease for ClearWire Reciever: 4.99 2. Monthly charge for Access: 29.99 (first three months at 19.99) 3. 768 Down/256 Up 4. NETGEAR - WGR101 on PriceGrabber: $29.99 5. Your current Laptop. Total up front: $54.97 - Less than the advertised $60.00 for the cellular wireless access (which is per month btw). Monthly charges: First three months {24.98} After: {$34.98} Seems to me the person who comes up with an enclosure for these two devices could stand to gain quite a bit from the apparent *ahem* demand for this ability. Sounds like the original idea is a bust to me.
I'm picturing someone going about town looking for "coldspots" and then providing wireless to those places. Call it peacedriving??
"First, not all computers have the necessary card slot. ( Apple's iBooks and new MacBook Pro laptops come to mind.) Second, a mobile router can accommodate machines with no wireless features at all -- like desktop computers -- thanks to standard Ethernet network jacks on the back. (The Kyocera has four, the Junxion two and the Top Global one.)"
And, if I am crazy enough to do that (or I need to share with a business unit), I can plug the card into my laptop and turn on internet connection sharing with my laptop's WiFi adapter.
What if said business unit does not feel like having to follow you around to use the connection? Or doesn't want to have it's Internet connection interrupted when you go to lunch?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
If you have cellular Internet access, you can plug the PC card
What PC card?
into the wi-fi box
What wi-fi box?
and presto, you've got Wi-Fi from wherever you are." From the article: "The card
What card?
provides the Internet connection, courtesy of those companies'
What companies?
3G ("third generation") high-speed cellular data networks. The box
What box?
just rebroadcasts that connection as a Wi-Fi signal so that all nearby computers -- not just one privileged laptop -- can go online. With those PC cards,
What PC cards?
you can go online anywhere there's a cellular signal: in a taxi, on a bus, in a waiting room or wherever. In major cities, the speed is delightful, like a D.S.L. or slowish cable modem (400 to 700 kilobits a second)."
Typical, typical, typical.
Slashbot, Digg and its successors will bury you if you don't get your collective head out of the sand. Why? Because you can read shit posts any time of the day at Digg and nobody cares because everybody knows the posts are shit. You people, on the other hand, post shit and pretend its full of goodness.
I saw an article about this in, I think, Popular Science. I wish I remembered the issue, but I don't. Anyway, they used one of these things with a backpack mounted with solar cells to create a backpack that would serve a wireless network anywhere, like in the woods. It's kinda a neat idea to play with, and would be definately useful for anybody seriously doing work in the field. That and it'd be really hot for long distance roadtrips.
iwlist wlan0 scanning
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I am a long time Mac fan, found a great deal on EBay (http://stores.ebay.com/The-Mobile-Hotspot) for the 3G Phoebus product. I bought one for $249 after rebate ! The KR1 is $299 from Kyocera and might be out of stock again. I heard it has a lot of technical problems. The Phoebus just like David Pogue said his this article. It is really cool, really easy to use, I am really happy and would recommend it to other Mac fans.
I am a long time Mac fan, I read the article yesterday and found a great place on EBay (http://stores.ebay.com/The-Mobile-Hotspot [ebay.com]) for the 3G Phoebus. I bought one for $249 after rebate ! The KR1 is $299 from Kyocera and was out of stock. I heard it has a lot of technical problems. The Phoebus just like David Pogue said. It is really cool, really easy to use, I am really happy and would recommend it to other Mac fans.
The bandwidth of the wireless services are limited. As more and more users are multiplexed the user experience will deteriorate. WiMAX would be a better solution. http://witopia.blogspot.com/2006/02/mobile-routers .html
I tried to do this once with my Laptop and the Verizon "Air Card". As soon as I turned on NAT, the aircard went dead. I suspect that they're using some sort of NAT detection on their end to keep this "roaming hot spot" thing from happening on their "unlimited" plans.
Just to be sure, I tried the same thing with a different connection (eg: Ethernet) and my setup worked fine - it was definitely something to do with Verizon....
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I have T-mobile (Deutsche Telecom) here in the US. for $19/month I get unmetered GSM/GPRS data service as an add-on to my bluetooth-capable cellphone, and $29/month for unlimited data on a non-phone device (I use a Sierra GPRS data card). Of course the connection speed varies according to reception and location, but on more than one occasion I've used my mac to share out my GPRS connection over wifi to an office full of coworkers, and left it nailed up all day. For less than $1/day, it's not a bad solution for a bunch of roaming consultants who get stuck in a pinch with no connectivity.
So I have one, or better a client has one, which I had to crack open to see inside. Nothing special, just a Soekris.com net4521 with a different serial header (not rotated 90). Toss in a flash card and a pcmcia card and you can make your own with Metrix Pebble. The reason someone would buy a Junxion is not for style - it's plain "time to make it" vers "money to buy it" logic.
I have used ICS + a Belkin Travel router (in AP mode) to accomplish the same thing. King County Metro (bus service) has free wifi while on the bus, via a Junxion box and Sprint cell service.
I've been saying this for years - cellular service is cheaper in the US. You can slice it any way you want it - SMS is cheaper, you pay less per minute, and data service is way cheaper.
T-Mobile USA has unlimited EDGE and WiFi (at their HotSpot locations) for $30 a month. Sprint and Verizon offer unlimited EV-DO for $60 a month, and Cingular offers unlimited UMTS for $60 a month.
Paying by the kilobyte went out of vogue here in the US almost four years ago.
I have Verizon EVDO service (that I use directly on my laptop) and it's great, except the pingtimes are stupidly high - the best I'm able to get is around ~200ms, which makes typing in a terminal a bit painful. I think it's a function of the cellular network itself, rather than a routing problem.
Anyway, it sure beats the Apartment Area Network (aka, free wifi from the neighbors) and winds up being about the same cost as I would pay for home DSL + monthly coffee shop fees.
--Pete
I am baffled by the ridiculously high cost of these devices.
I build such a device and for under $120.
What did it take? A router with a USB port.
You want more detail?
1 Linksys WRTSL54GS unit
1 USB cellphone data cable
1 Nokia 6230 with Cingular MediaWorks service
Loaded OpenWRT on the device
added usb-serial module
proved I could talk to the "modem" in the phone with minicom, got "OK" when I typed "AT"
hunted around, found PPP chat scripts for Cingular network.
From there it was cake. You can have fully mobile WiFi solution. It's not fast, but there are times when you need a fast deployment of a small network, like events, and it's fabulous.
The router cost me $108+S&H. I already had the phone and cable.
We have two unlimited cell plans (sometimes in two places at the same time) and run several computers for extened periods over the verizon modems on the Broadband access plan. Never been a problem in 2 years.
paintball
We've been doing this for years at events. For some reason, every time we shut everything down and come back in the morning the network doesn't work and we have to redo the network setup on every computer. You also always need to have the computer with the cell modem on, and if you need to change which computer has the modem you have to go and mess with your network settings again. Or if the computer with the connection crashes (as Windows computers are prone to do) your connection goes down with it.
So it would be nice to have a separate, dedicated box that was designed specifically for serving out a wireless connection and not have to worry about that stuff.
Also useful if you don't have a laptop with a card slot, or even if you live in an urban area and want to use cellular service with your home PC. I could cancel my cable modem service if I lived in a covered area.
paintball
I haven't even bothered to set up internet access with my phone, just use my PC to check any picture messages I get. However, within the context of a Nintendo DS and a Wi-fi enabled game, this is very ... :)
I'm working on this particular problem - mostly 'coz I'm in Australia too :)
Charon will do micropayment-based charging for using a wireless service. If you can run on it on your wireless device (there's ipkgs available for OpenWRT at the moment) then you can share wireless on a cost-recovery (or profit-making, for that matter) basis. I have my iBurst service available to all and sundry at 4c/MB at the moment, for example.
Still early days for usability, though.