#“Super-Smart Use of Android Portable Hotspot from 11 y/o Son”
When I upgraded to the HTC Desire, I gave my old G1 to my eldest son. We try to keep it up-to-date and it is currently running the Cyanogen version of Android 2.2 Froyo. One problem he ran into is that he is on a PAYG O2 SIM and relies on the indulgence of his Grandparents and Aunties/Uncles for call credit. He didn't fully realise that when he is out of the house, he is paying for mobile data as some extortionate rate. So all his credit quickly disappeared. To avoid a re-occurrence, we have disabled mobile data so he can only use Wi-Fi.
Last night he was listening to me convincing his Grandad to replace his old Nokia phone with the HTC Desire. This had a positive outcome despite two of the three iPhone owners in the holiday home having aneurysms as a result. One of the features I showed my Dad was the portable hot-spot in Froyo. It removes the need for a MiFi device. I have a 1GB data add-on with Vodafone which is more than sufficient for my hand-set needs and the odd bit of sharing to the laptop. Today the youngfella came up with a genius idea. He asked if it was possible for me to turn on the hot-spot on my phone and for him to then use the data-connection by connecting via Wi-Fi to me. Initially the smartness of the idea escaped me. But he pointed out that if we are out-and-about somewhere and there is no Wi-Fi, he'd be able to use my data connection to play his Youtube videos etc etc. Smart little sod. The same solution applies to any Wi-Fi tablet, laptop, iPod Touch or anyone on a PAYG SIM. It's almost like a mobile version of FON for people you know. I'm sure there is some idiotic T&C in the Vodafone site saying I'm not allowed to do this. Mobile carriers still seem to think the contents of packets actually matter ("Get Facebook for Free on your phone with Three Ireland"). In fact I've heard you have to pay $30 extra a month to enable tethering on Android phones with some carriers in the US! I'm really looking forward to the glut of cheap-as-chips Android handsets that will start coming out of China. Even with resistive screens and minimal features, they will be the next must-have phones for pre-teens and teens in 2011. In any case, well done the youngfella for figuring out a solution to his problem.