MarioCiabarra
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Talking with MyWi's Mario Ciabarra about VZW's hotspot announcement
Verizon was widely lauded this morning when it announced that its new CDMA iPhone would provide built-in hotspot support. Hotspots allow users to connect to a phone and share that phone's data service to connect to the Internet. This feature, which is also known as "tethering" provides a way to share a single data connection among several devices including phones, laptops, and so forth. AT&T, which introduced tethering after many delays, has been charging customers a premium on top of their normal data service to tether. Based on Verizon's other smart phone plans, the VZW tethering feature will sell for a $20 per month, as it is on Android phones, on top of its $30 per month unlimited data plan. There will be a 5GB monthly limit for mobile hot spot usage. AT&T's tethering is limited to recent data-rationed plans and is not an option for customers who still use AT&T's original iPhone unlimited plan. As well, the iPad 3G's data plans do not offer a tethering option. What's more, you cannot tether your iPad to your iPhone's data with AT&T as the iPad's bluetooth tethering profile is disabled. You can, however, tether to your iPhone using a third party product called MyWi.
My3G bypasses 3G restrictions
This morning, I learned several things about using FaceTime in public. First, I realized that holding an iPhone a foot or two away from your face and talking tends to make you speak very loudly. This, in turns, tends to annoy other patrons in the restaurant. And this, in turn, tends to attract the same kind of people who love to stop and watch accidents happening. Second, I learned that keeping your arm elevated as you FaceTime is really, really awkward (not to mention tiring). As you're probably aware, if you've used FaceTime for any length of time, if you don't hold your unit fairly high up, you tend to share unflattering nasal visuals.
