Can I get data via call to ISP using 3g phone?

[keatonlee]

I'm on a TDC plan and use significant bandwidth for data - using my sprint phone as my modem while I'm traveling. Data being charged per KB will be prohibitively expensive for me.

Does anyone know if I buy a 3G phone, can I just dial up my local isp (through my spint phone) and just make a modem call ... and subsequently just get charged as a voice call (per minute)?

(With my timeport, I can access the internet through sprint or call my isp to get an internet connection.)

Ken

[howensby]

Yes, sorta...nice answer huh? Soon after launch you'll be able to use an Enhanced RAS feature. Basically the 3G modem will use packet data till it hits the switch, then the switch will make the circuit switch call to the modem that you want to hit. This should allow you to get the full bandwidth of the 56k modem. You may very well be faster than 56k from the phone to the switch but since the bottleneck will be the the circuit switched 56k modem, your speeds will be throttled down to the slowest connection.

The kicker? I have no idea how it will be billed, like most of 3G.

[MacFrog]

Hopefully minutes....

[ImmerStark]

if you consider the cost of all the miutes you use poking along at an average of 8kbits/second, you will probly save money being billed by the kbyte.

with csd i get about 50kbytes per minute
so 2 megs will take about 400 min

with 3g you get the same 2 megs but it doesn't eat minutes, so you are fine with a plan that is 59.99 for 500 mins and 2 megs, it is almost equivalent to the 79.99 tdc plan if you are like me and use about 400 mins a month for data and less than a few hundred for voice.

[j'vai]

Originally posted by ImmerStark
if you consider the cost of all the miutes you use poking along at an average of 8kbits/second, you will probly save money being billed by the kbyte.

with csd i get about 50kbytes per minute
so 2 megs will take about 400 min

with 3g you get the same 2 megs but it doesn't eat minutes, so you are fine with a plan that is 59.99 for 500 mins and 2 megs, it is almost equivalent to the 79.99 tdc plan if you are like me and use about 400 mins a month for data and less than a few hundred for voice.

immerStark, i use b'tween 1.45MB - 3.50MB a nyte, about 2MBs average a nyte, 14MB a week. @ this moment 916kB & clocked @ 48mins, but the clock is still ticking ! i'm not worry 'cause i'll 'never' go over my alott'd mins(1000anyt.-6500n/w). @ this rate plan i can use much more MBs than what's offer'd in a 3g plan. as far as the speed, well lately download tymes has improved greatly, much faster than 14.4k, without compression, the bluekite servr has been out for months. it seems like hscsd(high speed circuit switched data).

[ImmerStark]

ahhh, you use it all on the n/w. that is different. you might want to get the 20MB plan

[j'vai]

i went to www.bandwidthplace.com & i got this: COMMUNICATION-4k/4.9k STORAGE-0.5k/0.6 1MB FILE DOWNLOAD-35/28.3mins RAWSPEED-4946.71bps. is THIS an improvement from 14.4k or worse???

[ImmerStark]

that is 4.9kilobits per second, that is about 1/3 of your peak speed of 14.4 kilobits per second

[ImmerStark]

mine just tested at 7.5kilobits per second

earlier about the 400 min thing, i lied, i wasn't thinking

18 min per Mbyte on 2g data which costs about $1.80 on most plans

or 1.8 min for a MByte on 3g data and it costs you $5

i guess the question is "how usable do you want your internet to be?" you are paying for speed

someone in another thread also mentioned that your 3g phone is not meant to be used for your regular dial up internet, i think this hold true