Ever wonder how to have a guaranteed hotspot at your next election war room? How about being able to bring along and share a connection at a disaster site?
I came across a fairly affordable way to have your own hotspot around any major city or highway and wanted to share it with community: the Aircard-based hotspot...
This solution takes a cellular network Aircard, typically used for providing broadband to a single laptop, and plugs it into a WiFi router that can share a connection with a number of WiFi users and up to four Cat 5 connected users. Total hardware cost, around $400. The broadband access from Verizon or Sprint is around $60/mo, and provides faster speed than basic DSL.
This is a lot like the function of a Datastorm satellite uplink, but does a similar job, cheaper. (A budget tripod-based satellite communication dish is around $1500. An automatic dish for van, trailer, or RV is 6 or 8 thousand dollars. Both must have a clear view of the sky, and neither is capable of in-motion communication. A satellite uplink does have the advantage of working in the back country where there is no cellular coverage.)
I'm taking a long hard look at using this exclusively, and dumping my DSL, since at home I get good cell coverage, but am at the end of PacBell's DSL range. When I drive, vacation, whatever, I'll run the router off of a vehicle battery. Such a system is atractive for group of road warriors, since it provides in-motion connectivity, anywhere within the coverage map. Blogging from the passenger seat? No problem. From a campaign event? No problem. Next time Buhdydharma's connection dies? No problem. Need to watch Crooks and Liars from the back seat? No problem. And cooler still, next time there is a disaster, you can volunteer for a relief organization, and offer a communication link to workers and evacuees.
Any other great tech tip ideas out there?