If you read my blog, you’ll know that I agonized for a little while over whether or not to buy a wireless modem to use with my MacBook Air during my commute, all the way to its arrival before I headed out to CES in early January, including some trials and tribulations with AT&T in between. I’ve now had the modem for several months and have had ample opportunity to see how well it works in order to write a review. While it’s not as fast as I’d like in all situations, it puts out satisfactory performance in most situations I’ve encountered. Read my full review here.
Thinking out loud – wireless modem or not?
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my cry for help on whether or not to get a wireless USB modem to use with my MacBook Air. I’m tempted for 2 reasons: I spend 2 hours on the train per day for my commute to and from work, and I’ve got a corporate discount that would knock 20% off the monthly plan cost. Of course, AT&T also offers a mail-in rebate that makes the modem I’m considering free after all is said and done. Free Wi-Fi is supposed to be available on most of the commuter train cars by Spring 2009, but I’ll believe that when I see it at this rate given how little money the MBTA has and how piss-poor they’re performing overall despite increased ridership.
Yes, I know I can tether my computer to my iPhone 3G with NetShare, the virtues of which I have extolled before. But doing this regularly will most likely result in data usage levels that will put me on AT&T’s radar and it would be just my luck to get slammed with some massive fees as a result (which would be my fault – I know that tethering is against the TOS for my account.)
Do I really need to be connected all the time? I thought of this some during the power outage after the ice storm this past weekend. Our house, along with just about our entire town and a good chunk of the state, was without power for just over 2 days. I did tether my iPhone a little since we ran a small generator to power a space heater and I took the opportunity to charge up my computer at the same time. A wireless modem would have been peachy to have since the cell towers were still up and running. I didn’t really lack for anything to do – I love to read and have plenty of books at home. We have a modest collection of board games and the dog is endless entertainment 90% of the time that he’s awake as it is. Though I didn’t ask him to, my dear husband did hook up the TV and Xbox 360 to the generator at one point so we could kill some zombies in the cold darkness of our family room. God, how I love that auto-loading shotgun. But I digress…
Cost-wise, $32 more per month to my bill for the wireless modem plan is not pretty, but it’s not terrible in the grand scheme of things, and can be covered if I’m more diligent about bringing my lunch to work more often (she rationalizes in her head knowing damn well this may very well not take place). What bothers me most is the 2-year agreement it requires – I know I’ll need a cell phone 2 years from now, but I’m less sure about the modem. I could also cancel if I need to and pay the horrific ETF, though it is pro-rated now and would be down to just over $100 after 1 year. On the other hand, I don’t see my need to connect to the internet wherever I may be decreasing over the next 2 years. In fact, if all goes according to my devious master plan, I’ll be spending even more time online than I do now.
Erk. I am usually way more decisive than this. I just need to saddle up and make up my damn mind.
iPhone + NetShare + MacBook Air = Perfection
You know, I just can’t praise NetShare enough. I’m really not trying to rub in the fact that I have it with the folks who missed the opportunity to buy it from the App Store – I swear. I am just regularly stunned by how useful it is. Yes, I know I could accomplish the same thing with a jailbroken app (I think it’s PDANet?), but I didn’t have a good experience jailbreaking one of my first-generation iPhones to make me hesitant enough to do it to my 3G. Regardless, I’m on the train heading home from work, no WiFi network in sight, and I’m able to browse the internet, check email, and blog on my MacBook Air through my iPhone’s data connection. Freaking brilliant.
There are rumors out there about AT&T officially announcing tethering for the iPhone, with the monthly rate for this feature at $30 at a minimum. And, this won’t be an unlimited plan with a cap of 5GB per month. I’m not the type of girl to steal cable (well, not anymore) and am not opposed to paying for a service I use. But I already get unlimited data with my iPhone’s data plan and pay $30 a month for that. I’ll just keep using NetShare (carefully enough to not set off any alerts at AT&T), thank you very much.
(To be clear, this isn’t my first experiencing with tethering. My first foray was with a Sony Clie NX70V PDA, a Bluetooth Memory Stick Adapter, and a Sony Ericsson T68i. God, that was ages ago!)
