Since first adding a Palm V modem to my tech arsenal about 15 years ago to access Mindspring dial-up email on business travel, I’ve remained Internet-connected when mobile (and have even used “mobile” connectivity to power the home). The last few years, I’ve done my best to stay off public WiFi — the level of exposure and ease of interception exceeds my comfort levels. I wouldn’t say I’m paranoid and it’s not like I dabble in state secrets, but I’d rather not make my personal data any more accessible than it probably is. (Remember that time someone tweeted as me via Southwest Air WiFi?) Not to mention, those wireless networks (free or otherwise) often don’t perform so well – either by (poor or upsell) design or due to saturation.
With that in mind, I’ve been a huge fan of mobile phone tethering — which was fully ensconced within my workflow by 2006, when I kept my laptop online via a USB-connected 3G Sprint PPC-6700 while riding Amtrak to a NYC event. More recently, one motivating factor to move from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile about a year ago was a more generous hotspot package. I believe I had 1GB of data available on Verizon… which isn’t a whole lot. But beyond that small data bucket, what really pained me at the end was accidentally downloading a Mac OS update while tethered and being hit with a substantial overage charge. My original T-Mobile plan included a far more generous 3GB of 4G data… which seemingly wasn’t capped those first few months. Given remote desktop software I use for work, my data consumption has gone way up. And T-Mobile’s newly imposed hotpost hard cap presented a challenge.
Enter Cloak, an Apple-centric VPN service. For $3 a month, Cloak encrypts up to 5GB of my Mac OS X and/or iOS traffic over a VPN when I’m forced to use hotel or cafe’ WiFi – due to exceeding my allotment or poor T-Mobile coverage. Beyond securing a connection over public networks, one can also choose an overseas endpoint for additional content options. Even better, I just swapped an older T-Mobile “Unlimited” plan for a newer “Unlimited” plan, at no additional cost, that bumps my “limited” tethering quota from 3GB to 5GB… which, combined with Cloak, should be just enough to make it thru CES in January.
How do you make it thru the day?