By Andrew Liszewski
The PHS300 Personal Hotspot from CradlePoint Technology allows you to share your broadband-enabled mobile phone or modem with multiple users by turning it into a secure wifi hotspot. The company claims that getting online is as easy as plugging your phone or USB modem into the compact router, and then connecting your PC to the wireless network. Of course since you’ll probably want to use the WEP/WPA security options so that everyone’s not mooching your wifi, the setup process might take a bit longer than they claim.
The personal hotspot includes a built-in lithium-ion battery that will keep it running for several hours and can be recharged via USB when connected to your computer. It can even be used to recharge a phone that’s connected to the USB port, though that will no doubt reduce its own battery life. It’s available from Amazon for $299.99 but you’ll want to make sure your broadband phone or modem are included on the supported hardware list before you pick one up.
[ PHS300 Personal Hotspot ] VIA [ GadgetKing ]
This can already be done on Symbian phones using ‘JoikuSpot’ and windows mobile using ‘WalkingHotSpot’
Without even using those software packages you can dial into the 3G network /GPRS without any software on both Windows and OSX using either a cable or bluetooth.
Personally using an N95, Bluetooth and OSX on Vodaphone UK I can get 60-90 KB/s download speed on the when on 3G, 5-8 KB/s when on GPRS.
A bluetooth 2.0 dongle is £4. Internet can be shared over ethernet and WiFi easily on both OSX and Windows.
Why pay £150 for this device?