Replacing home DSL with mobile internet ?

[dremd]

Originally Posted by Albino Raven

If you don't want to pay for the land line ask about dry loop DSL, it's DSL over copper without the voice services, instead of it being tied to a phone number, it's tied to the circuit directly (remember the phone service is just a big copper CAT-5 network in most cases because it's cheap to build it that way) .
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As an FYI AT&T refers to dry DSL as "DSL direct".

[Snax]

The problem we have with seperating DSL from POTS is that we get a very decent bundle discount, so the POTS service really only costs us about $12 per month extra. That and we will never accidentally leave our POTS phone somewhere, have it stolen, or likely run it through the wash - an extra cost for either replacement or handset insurance.

I guarantee that a person can get much more bang for their buck with home internet over DSL than wireless when all of the other factors are thrown in. I pay $30/month for 3G service that rarely if ever delivers over 1Mbps, usually much less, whereas my 7Mbps DSL for $29/month, is always on, always at maximum speed - and not subject to being misplaced. Nevermind the cell sites that won't allow me a simultaneous voice and data connection!

[ECONORAM]

I have considering doing this very thing. Dumping my home DSL and POTS in favor of using my 3G internet via my mobile phone. If you have Windblows Mobile 6, there should be a program buried in the Windows folder called "Internet Sharing". When you enable this and connect via the USB cable to your computer, you can surf the Internet like normal. I had to do it for a few days when I moved and we did not have phone service yet... I am keeping my POTS/DSL at present because I also have Dishnetwork, and keeping my tuner plugged into a phone line saves me a few bucks a month, and expedites service. I also keep it for my current position at work...
I was wondering if a similar service exists in the Iphone. If so, I will be super tempted to dump POTS/DSL, even though I would have to buy out the rest of my contract...
[edit[ you can make a shortcut to the program by doing a copy then paste into the programs folder. This tip I got from xda developers...

[ECONORAM]

Hmm, I did a little searching, and it looks like you need a tethering plan if you intend to do this, or you risk violating your terms of service...at least with AT&T.

[dremd]

for iphone you need 3.0.x and help.benm.at

violates terms of service . . .

For dish; most receivers will do ethernet; you could drop pots and go dry loop

[srortega]

I heard that if you get a Windows Mobile Phone like the Touch Pro from Sprint (who BTW have a $99 everything plan that is unlimited internet, texting, and minutes) you can get this little program to connect your PC/Laptop to the Internet at DSL speed.

WMWifiRouter - Welcome

[Snax]

The other issue I have run into with 3G is that sometimes it just flat doesn't work! My phone is maxed out on bars with the 3G icon on and I can't get any data outside of simple text messaging. This is likely more an issue of specific cell sites, but it has me seriously questioning committing to the idea if other options remain available. Even in areas where the data is working, inevitably if I can hook up over wifi to a public hotspot in the same area, it is significantly faster.

I don't believe AT&T requires a tethering plan if you have the regular data plan. I regularly push 100s of MB through my phone streaming audio. I don't know how they would know the difference if the phone does any kind of proxying. But I'm using a cooked ROM too, so maybe that's the difference.

[Cd]

O.K.
So DSL through a phone is not what I thought it might be. I just assumed wrong based on what I had seen from the guys at work with their iPhones.
I had noticed how fast that Google maps was, as well as YouTube.

Plug in a monitor and keyboard to the thing, and I thought I had a good solution to my home phone and DSL problems. Guess I was wrong.

Currently, my DSL through ATT is horrible. My speeds are less than half what they are supposed to be and I am ready to switch.

Streaming video has now become a complete joke ( buffering every ten seconds or less )

For you guys around the central Texas area, who do you use as a good provider ?

[ECONORAM]

Cd, you might check to see how far you are from the switch. There is a distance limit for DSL, as the signal drops off. YOu might check into HughesNet, internet via satellite!

[Snax]

For anybody with DSL, there are some very simple things you can do to boost your signal and reliability:

#1 Use the damned filters the telco provides! Too often, as a technician for a telco, I run into people who get intermittent connections, only to find out something silly like a caller ID or satellite receiver has an unfiltered connection to the phone line. Unfiltered devices can even degrade performance without any obvious signs of it, providing feedback in portions of the DSL spectrum that may not kill the connection, but limiting the use of channels within the spectrum.

#2 Even better than #1, but a little more work, is to install a single filter at the telephone network interface (the main phone feed to the house), and route the DSL signal over it's own dedicated unfiltered home run wire to the jack. Don't connect anything else to the line except to use the sometimes provided phone out jack on the back of the modem. This means no other jacks, phones, fax machines etc - unless they use the jack on the back of the modem or a splitter with a filter at the wall end - not at the back of the dang machine! Even a simple moving of filters from the device end of a phone cord to the wall end can make a difference. (Yes, they are reversible.)

#3 Test the remainder of your house wiring for potential problems such as any shorts or grounds - or anything else that might send static back into the line. Any extra noise from poor wiring just cuts into the signal to noise ratio and should be avoided if at all possible. (Minor stray noise in the audio spectrum like a nearby radio station or a little AC hum by themselves generally won't affect the signal - but suggest the possibility of other problems that can.)

After taking the time to do #'s 2&3 on my own home, I watched my own SNR go from a range of 6-9dB to a more stable 9-11dB. For my installation, that extra 2-3 dB has made all of the difference between regular retrains and fallbacks from my 7Mb service to only a 5Mbps actual connection speed. It hasn't retrained more than once in the nine months since I did that.