Verizon Wireless Hotspot Redux

Verizon Wireless logoEarlier this month I wrote about Verizon Wireless’ Hotspot service and how it is an additional $20/mn charge and it uses its own 2GB data cap – separate from the unlimited data I am already paying for. Last week I decided to leave Windows Mobile and go Android, specifically Droid X, and now I want to see how the DX can handle the hotspot functionality.

One way to do this is to root the phone and install a wifi tethering app. Maybe I will do this, but not just yet. My concern about rooting is the potential of bricking the phone, not being to unroot it, and/or the rooted phone won’t get the OTA update to Froyo.

Update: After reading that rooted Droid Incredible users cannot install the OTA Froyo update, I am glad I held off on rooting my DX.

So I decided to give the Verizon Wireless Hotspot a try for the next week or two. I have been running it for a few days and here are some early observations:

  1. 🙂  Using SpeedTest.net, I am seeing 2.27Mbps down and 0.20 Mbps up.
  2. 🙁  For some reason, turning on the Hotspot forces Bluetooth to be turned off. I do not like this! I use a set of Moto S2 bluetooth headphones at work to listen to music and podcasts. I also want to use the Hotspot at the same time. Gee, my beloved Touch Pro 2 did it all without even breaking a sweat! Why can’t my 1GHz DX do the same? Hopefully the wifi tethering app will allow bluetooth to be on at the same time. BTW, enabling bluetooth while the Hotspot is on turns the Hotspot off.
  3. 🙂  The Hotspot runs in Infrastructure mode – making it easier for devices to connect.
  4. 🙂  The Hotspot supports the following encryption modes: None, WEP, WPA, WPA2
  5. 🙂  The Hotspot allows up to 5 devices to connect simultaneously.
  6. 🙁  The Hotspot costs an extra $20/mn for which you only get 2GB of data each month.

So it works and, except for my bluetooth issue and the additional cost, it works well.

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