Anyone ever used a cell phone as a modem?
My router died earlier today, the ethernet ports won't maintain connection for more than 5 seconds, a factory reset did nothing but lose the config data and my only other idea is to flash the firmware in the theory that the NIC firmware might have gone dodgy but naturally that needs a network connection, first to download the data off the net in the first place and second to perform the flash.
Rather than lose the internet and all the pointless bickering, endless fanboyism and porn that it offers, I decided to play with the bluetooth module in my new netbook and try using my PDA phone as a modem and run net sharing though it
The results are less than brilliant, the GOG homepage took more than 2 minutes to load, most threads in the forum take between 40 & 60 seconds, on top of that, I'm guessing that I'm being charged through the nose for it. I'm beginning to have flashbacks to the 56K days, I may well end up needing cake and grief counselling!
There's no real point to this thread now that I think about it but I've written this much and I don't want to just delete it. If nothing else it might give someone a bit of a laugh.

Get an unlimited data plan, if they're available at your place, or at least one with much data included (getting a new router may be quicker and cheaper though, and you won't have to bear the slowness of a mobile connection).

Do remember that every time someone tries this with "unlimited" plans, it always never is. Please, just get a real modem instead.

Guys, guys, guys... I'm an IT pro here, do you seriously think I'd be dumb enough to really USE that as a permanent connection? No that was an overnight experiment / want to check my email kind of thing. I mean it was slower than a 56K, I'm an impatient man, I want my porn to download lightning fast!
I used GOG for about an hour through that crappy lashup connection, replied to 2-3 threads & sent a support message. Most of the time was spent waiting for pages to load. Call it 20MB of data to be generous.
I went from $106.08 credit to $1.05. Vodafone must LOOOOVE me right now, damn glad its pre-paid and I never use all of it anyway, this will be the first time my credit has expired from overuse rather than running out of time...
In short, I don't recommend it...

From what I heard on a a friend of a friend (so this must be reliable), it's pretty much your experience. Though they ended up with a bill for $2800AU on their mobile.
This was before they cracked down better on letting people exceed their limits this much.

That sort of thing is the very reason I'm never leaving prepaid, when its out then its out and that suits me just fine

Well depending on where you are is how well it will work. (im saying this from the UK, no idea how well it will work outside, depening on the coverage of the network)
I use my mobile when I do field Ops for my work, we spend alot of time in the middle of nowere in a field.... the fun, but as long as I get a 2G signal I will get about dial up modem speeds, but if I can get a full 3G signal I will get over 1mbps in speed (fast enough for streaming po...I mean anything :p)
Plus on my phone contract I have a 500MB usage allowance, and Ive never come close. I do e-mails//skype/MSN and even play Eve Online via it, runs like a charm