Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Make your PPC-phone a portable WiFi Router!!

...or, yet another use for your WiFi-capable PPC phone!

So, its great to have those WiFi HotSpots in the airport or local coffee shop when you've got that laptop and time to kill, but what if you could have a portable hostpot? One that follows you wherever you go?

Well, if you've got a high speed data plan on your Windows Mobile phone, and happen to also have WiFi, you can turn that little device into exactly that!


Its an ingenius little app that some folks have developed called WMWiFiRouter.
Gotta respect the simplicity of the name, right? What it lacks in creativity it makes up for in doing exactly what its name describes.

Now, this is not exactly a new concept- after all, road warriors have been able to get online from their laptops for a while now, whether by installing a cellular data card, or using bluetooth to tether to their phone.

But this is just too easy... and has some advantages over the other ways to get online with your cellular data.

Why is this better than a laptop data card?
-No additional hardware to buy
-Can use existing phone plan (most cards require their own service plan)
-Connection can be shared with multiple devices
-No software/drivers to install on Laptop or device

Why is this better than tethering using Bluetooth?
-Faster! Bluetooth 1.2 (which a majority of devices still use) maxes out at around 700k for data. If your 3G connection is faster than that, you'll be bottlenecked by bluetooth's transfer rate.
-WiFi laptops are far more common than BT enabled ones.
-Range of distance is far better with WiFi
-Integrates into your data connections like any other WiFi connection (no bluetooth configuration of dial-up networking or anything)

Oh, and the best part... with this, your connection is Multi-Platform!
Let's not forget about all those WiFi enabled devices that aren't laptops, such as PSPs, Ipod Touch, other PDA's, VoIP devices, etc...

Read more about it over at XDA-Developers in this thread by TalynOne.