PAYG 3G USB stick...

[Daz]

Just a quick confirmation really -> I can stick my contract sim into one of these and it'll use my main data allowances, right?

[LeperousDust]

I would imagine so, why wouldn't you just tether your phone though?

[Daz]

I'm moving away from WM, so I may lose the facility depending on where I end up. Plus for a tenner (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/430040/t-mobile-110-pay-as-you-go-mobile-b/) it might not be a bad thing to have around.

[Mark]

Does the data expire on that one after 30 days if you don't use it? So far, I know that Orange does expire and Vodafone doesn't. I'm tempted to go the same route now but I'd need to go the non-expiring route as I don't use data regularly enough.

[Daz]

I wouldn't use it's own sim, I'd stick mine in it :)

[Mark]

Ah yes. I read that and ignored it. D'oh. :o

It wouldn't surprise me if they're network-locked, so I presume you're a T-Mobile customer already.

[LeperousDust]

What mobiles are you looking at Daz? Symbian can tether over bluetooth or usb easy (i do it all the time, its even a generic dial up connection on my laptop just in case). Android tethers over usb, and even the iPhone is tether-able. Shouldn't be a problem anyway.

Also what laptop have you got, quite a few generally can have minipci cards installed that accept them else-where i know my XPS does. Theres a slot under the battery for a sim, but it doesn't do anything yet until i plug a miniPCI card in :)

[Daz]

Looking at Android - which doesn't have any particularly seamless tethering apps from what I can gather - I guess because you cant dig into the low level network stuff. Few hacky options but I'm not after hacky, I'm after what Windows Mobile gives me (plug and play - which I'm aware the nokia's do, but Symbian doesn't do it for me). Linux user as well dont forget, which is pretty well catered for, but not in all cases.

Mini 9 and D820 are the targets, both have sim slots under the battery, both have mini PCI-E free for a modem but that's the easy bit, neither of them have antennae. Plus I dont really want to buy 2 sets of kit :p

[Desmo]

I'm looking to go Android next too :D

[Daz]

It can be done for free if you dont mind faff. There's a free app called, tetherbot which is basically a socks proxy on the phone, connected to by port redirection on the host and whatever app configuration you need to use that proxy. Too inconvenient for me really.

PDANet has a root-less tether app available, not free ($29), which wouldn't be a problem, except that the software only works on Windows.

[LeperousDust]

There may well be more to come, as android has opened itself up further allowing native apps developed in C and C++ and lower level commands. I'm not entirely sure what that entails just yet, but it could mean a decent tether app is also down the line too :)

And yeah looks like i'll be getting the hero :p

[Daz]

Looking at the limitations of the NDK (which allows for C/C++ development) I dont think hooking straight into the network libraries to add some nat support in will be possible. The guys have PDANet have a workable software solution, and I have no problem with running some sort of software client on my client (essentially making the necessary modifications there rather than on the phone), but they or someone else needs to come up with a cross platform solution is all.

In the mean time, a USB dongle gives a plug and play solution which is cheaper than the software. Didnt think it was a bad investment, so I bought it earlier :)