Starting Points: Mobile phone

Jun 2, 2010

Inexpensive Wi-Fi That Travels With You

Image by Global X via Flickr

By THOMAS J. FITZGERALD

Wi-Fi is everywhere.

Or so it seems until you really need it and there is no coffee house with a free hot spot. Or when you don’t want to pay a fee to connect at the airport or a hotel for an hour.

Our pockets and bags are filling with Web-connected devices: laptops, smartphones, netbooks, tablets, e-readers and even cameras. But to connect one when Wi-Fi is not available means using a cellphone network, and that usually requires buying a new data plan for each device.

The cost-cutting solution might be to create your own personal Wi-Fi hot spot, a cloud of Internet connectivity to keep with you wherever you go. Not only can a personal hot spot provide a single point of access for all of your devices, it can be shared with friends.

The options are growing. You can buy a simple, slim unit that fits in a pocket or ones that can shift from 3G to speedier 4G networks. You can convert some cellphones into hot spots, while a few new phones now come with hot spots included. I tried several such options while traveling and in my daily routine to see what they offered.

The Novatel MiFi 2200, available from Verizon Wireless ($29.99 with a two-year contract) or Sprint (free after $50 rebate and with a two-year contract), is a Wi-Fi hot spot small enough to slip into a shirt pocket. It is a mysterious-looking object with no screen and a single button.

It wirelessly connects to a 3G cellular network just like a phone, but it also broadcasts a Wi-Fi signal to the surrounding area. Devices within a 30-foot range can connect. I used the MiFi while traveling by car from Boston to New York. Having the coverage brought peace of mind when using Google Maps on my iPod Touch and my laptop to guide me around Brooklyn.

Still, 3G speeds can be slower than what is available at land-based hot spots. Back at home, downloading my daughter’s favorite videos was faster on our home wireless network.

Verizon’s monthly data plans for the MiFi are $39.99 for 250 megabytes of data, or $59.99 for 5 gigabytes, with extra charges for exceeding those limits. Sprint charges $59.99 for 5 gigabytes and extra for exceeding limits. Another pocket-size option, the Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot, from Sprint ($49.99 with a two-year contract), is slightly thicker than the MiFi but comes with more features. The first is speed. It can connect not only to Sprint’s 3G network, but also its new and speedier 4G network. The 4G network is not yet available nationally, but if you are in one of the 33 cities covered, including Seattle, Atlanta and Houston, speeds are fast. (Sorry, New York is not included.)

Another feature that was useful: a bright screen that displays information like remaining battery life, signal strength, the hot spot’s name and password and number of connected devices. The monthly data plan is $59.99, with unlimited 4G usage and a 5 gigabyte cap on 3G and extra charges for exceeding it.

The Clear Spot, from Clearwire, is another 4G option. In fact, it uses the same 4G network as Sprint (Sprint is the majority owner of Clearwire.) The Clear Spot is bigger than the Overdrive and probably not ideal to keep in your pocket during use; it requires a U.S.B. modem, with pricing from $69.99 to $224.99 depending on features. But if your goal is 4G speeds, the Clear Spot delivers.

Not all areas of each city are covered by the network so reviewing the company’s coverage map beforehand is helpful. The Clear Spot costs $49.99 and supports up to eight devices within a range up to 150 feet. Service plans with unlimited access start at $40 a month and a U.S.B. modem can also be leased for $3.99 a month. A plan offering 3G speeds in areas outside the 4G network is also available.

The CradlePoint PHS300 ($99.99 at Amazon), works with dozens of phones and also U.S.B. modems. Depending on your carrier, it may work with your phone’s existing data plan or require one that allows tethering. I used one with a BlackBerry Storm; after powering on the PHS300 and connecting it to the BlackBerry, I was viewing Web pages on my laptop in just under a minute and the battery lasted two hours and 20 minutes. The PHS300, from CradlePoint Technology, based in Boise, Idaho, is the same size as the Clear Spot.

The latest way to create a mobile hot spot is with cellphones. This can eliminate the clutter of carrying and charging an extra device. Through Verizon, the Palm Pre Plus ($49.99 with two-year contract) and Pixi Plus (free with a two-year contract) include this option.

Using a Pre Plus with an iPad, I was online and viewing Web pages in about 15 to 30 seconds after waking the iPad from power-save mode. Also useful, the phone chimed when the iPad connected, letting me know I was ready to surf.

Using the phone as a hot spot quickly drained the phone’s battery, even with light surfing. Verizon is now waiving its $40 monthly fee for the hot spot feature. Monthly data plans for unlimited access start at $29.99, which could be an alternative for iPad owners. Starting Monday, Apple will no longer offer its unlimited data plan for the iPad 3G.

More phones with personal hot spots are on the way. Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G, which can run on Sprint’s 4G network, is expected Friday ($199.99 with a contract and rebate; plans for both calling and data begin at $69.99 plus a $10 premium data fee and $29.99 a month for the hot spot feature).

Google’s recently updated Android operating system, version 2.2, includes a hot spot feature and is expected to be made available soon. But not all Android phones will support that function.

Software can turn many new and older phones into hot spots, too. WMWifiRouter, from Morose Media, based in the Netherlands, works on a variety of phones. I used it on an HTC Touch Pro2, which runs the Windows Mobile operating system. The software ($19.99 at wmwifirouter.com) can be downloaded directly to the phone.

JoikuSpot (joikushop.com) supports the Symbian operating system, including many phones from Nokia and Samsung. Depending on your tolerance for risk, some phones like the iPhone and some Android phones, can be hacked to work as hot spots. Steps for hacking are posted across the Internet, but you risk voiding a phone’s warranty.

There was no one solution that was best for all users in all situations. It depends on the cellphone service you have, the devices you own and where you live or travel. With a laptop, an iPod Touch and maybe an iPad in the future, I like the idea of not carrying around yet another device.

After all, without having to depend on coffee shops for Internet access, I may also be carrying around my coffee.

May 14, 2010

Voices of Humans Fading from Cellphones

Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls - NYTimes.com

By JENNA WORTHAM

Liza Colburn uses her cellphone constantly.

She taps out her grocery lists, records voice memos, listens to music at the gym, tracks her caloric intake and posts frequent updates to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The one thing she doesn’t use her cellphone for? Making calls.

“I probably only talk to someone verbally on it once a week,” said Mrs. Colburn, a 40-year-old marketing consultant in Canton, Mass., who has an iPhone.

Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Liza Colburn and her 12-year-old daughter, Abigail, use their cellphones for many tasks, but make relatively few phone calls.

For many Americans, cellphones have become irreplaceable tools to manage their lives and stay connected to the outside world, their families and networks of friends online. But increasingly, by several measures, that does not mean talking on them very much.

For example, although almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cellphone, the growth in voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, according to government and industry data.

This is true even though more households each year are disconnecting their landlines in favor of cellphones.

Instead of talking on their cellphones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages.

The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.

“Originally, talking was the only cellphone application,” said Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint Nextel. “But now it’s less than half of the traffic on mobile networks.”

Of course, talking on the cellphone isn’t disappearing entirely. “Anytime something is sensitive or is something I don’t want to be forwarded, I pick up the phone rather than put it into a tweet or a text,” said Kristen Kulinowski, a 41-year-old chemistry teacher in Houston. And calling is cheaper than ever because of fierce competition among rival wireless networks.

But figures from the CTIA show that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States has fallen.

Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls.

“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes, a prediction echoed by other industry executives.

When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter; the average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA. For some, the unused voice minutes mount up.

“I have thousands of rollover minutes,” said Zach Frechette, 28, editor of Good magazine in Los Angeles, who explained that he dialed only when he needed to get in touch with someone instantly, and limited those calls to 30 seconds. “I downgraded to the lowest available minute plan, which I’m not even getting close to using.”

Mr. Frechette said part of the reason he rarely talked on his phone was that he had an iPhone, with its notoriously spotty phone reception in certain locales. But also, he said, most of his day was spent swapping short messages through services like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. That way, he said, “you can respond when it’s convenient, rather than impose your schedule on someone else.”

Others say talking on the phone is intrusive and time-consuming, while others seem to have no patience for talking to just one person at a time. They prefer to spend their phone time moving seamlessly between several conversations, catching up on the latest news and updates by text and on Facebook with multiple friends, instead of just one or two.

“Even though in theory, it might take longer to send a text than pick up the phone, it seems less disruptive than a call,” said Jefferson Adams, a 44-year-old freelance writer living in San Francisco. By texting, he said, “you can multitask between two or three conversations at once.”

Nicole Wahl, a 35-year-old communications manager at the University of Toronto, estimates she talks on her phone only about 10 minutes a month.

“The only reason I ever call someone anymore is if I don’t have their Twitter handle or e-mail address,” Ms. Wahl said. “Like my hairdresser to see if she has a last-minute appointment or my parents to say I’m dropping by.”

American teenagers have been ahead of the curve for a while, turning their cellphones into texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.

Mrs. Colburn, from Massachusetts, said she caved to the pleading of her 12-year-old daughter Abigail for a cellphone to send text messages with her friends after she and her husband discovered it was hindering her from developing bonds with her classmates.

“We realized she was being excluded from party invitations and being in the know with her peers,” she said.

Mrs. Colburn said texting had also become a much easier way to stay in touch with her daughter and receive quick updates about after-school plans.

“The other night she texted me from upstairs to ask a vocabulary question,” she said with a laugh. “But I drew the line there. I went upstairs to answer it.”