can i use my droid hot spot to get on a computer without wifi

[sandylee]

i need to find out about the hotspot. can i use it with my computer to get on line without paying for an expensive plan

 

[FoxKat]

Hey there Sandylee! Fancy meeting you here. To answer your question, if your computer has WIFI capabilities, your phone can provide it internet access. There are several ways to do this. You can pay Verizon an additional monthly fee to activate the Hotspot application on the phone. This can be done right from the phone and the charge will begin appearing on your phone with the next bill. You can download pdanet, install it and setup a software "hotspot" feature without paying Verizon (using this has just been protected by law so you can use it and Verizon can't stop you). You can "hack" the OS of the phone by editing a certain value within the phone's protected files (your phone must be rooted to do this), and essentially activate the Verizon Hotspot feature without the monthly fee (this is NOT protected by law...essentially you are bypassing the eligibility check in the operating system, sort of like sneaking into the movie theater through the back door).

I would suggest you opt for the section method until you are sure this is what you want, and you're happy with the performance. Then it's a matter of whether you want to pay the required price for the Hotspot feature or not (I'll leave it at that). Note, if you don't have unlimited data on your phone, be CAREFUL as you can easily use up your monthly allotment if tethering to a desktop or laptop PC and doing much surfing, downloading, watching movies, etc. Check with Verizon (or your service provider) to find out what your monthly data usage limit is, and you can also set up the Verizon Data Widget on your home screen to keep track of usage each month. It can be set to warn you as you approach your limit. Finally, you can set your service with Verizon to shut down data each month once you reach the limit so as to not go over. Overages of data on unlimited plans are VERY EXPENSIVE, so the costs for overages can become daunting.

 

[SFGate]

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