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Verizon (WiFi) Tether Options

Our company is switching to Verizon. Currently, we’re a hodgepodge of AT&T and Sprint. Most of us have 4G data cards. The idea is that we switch our mobiles to Verizon and possibly use the tethering available on Verizon phones.
Here’s my attempt to lay out the tethering options (as of March 2010):

Palm Pre Plus: allows up to 5 WiFi clients

As far as tethering, I’m a little concerned about battery life: currently, my Sprint Pre has a hard time lasting the day. I know I can tether it using USB (with “unsupported” apps). The upshot of this is that I could get an iPod Touch (or maybe even an iPad) and have access to all the iPhone apps.

Unless someone convinces me otherwise, I’ll likely pick this. I’m fairly happy with the Palm Pre. I’d like more applications (WordPress for example), but it does everything I need. Plus, I hear it’s the best integration of Google Voice other than Android.

BlackBerry Storm 2

Apparently, there’s tethering via BlueTooth:

Of course, that means no iPod touch. The flip side is that one would expect better battery life using BlueTooth. One thing I don’t know is whether the above video covers just the Storm or the Storm 2 (maybe the Storm 2 has WiFi).

In terms of other features, I’d guess that the BlackBerry doesn’t have as many apps as the Pre (the Pre community is pretty strong). However, the major applications are there (FaceBook, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, WordPress).

HTC Touch Pro 2

The Touch Pro 2 has BlueTooth and USB Tethering. Apparently, there’s a Windows Mobile app called VZAccess Manager that you stick on there. One nice feature of the HTC would be (because it runs Windows Mobile) that I could sync Recorded TV from Windows Media Center:

Unfortunately, in terms of Apps, Windows Mobile is probably has the smallest community. There are FaceBook, LinkedIn; no WordPress nor Kindle.

GoodBye 4G

I’ll be saying goodbye to Sprint/Clear’s 4G. That’s not as bad as it sounds. Unfortunately, the signal would cut out numerous times on the train to/from work. Most of these times, the Sprint software would switch over to 3G. (Clear software seemed more tenacious in searching for a 4G signal.) Once a 3G signal was found, it was rarely lost, so I’d end up on 3G for the rest of the ride. So, in the end, I’d end up on 3G anyway because it was less hassle.

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