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?
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Yes, I know how to tether without alerting the carriers. But iOS is my daily driver 6 months a year and I prefer to not jailbreak. :)
I use an SSH connection to my NAS while at work and on public wifi to tunnel my browser traffic through it. Slows things down a bit but still acceptable. Side benefit is that I have access to all of my files too.
I am on the road a lot, so wifi is a must. I would need a 50GB plan or more to make it through without overages. Just streaming one NHL game is well over 2GB...
Do you tunnel your browser traffic or all traffic? I had my Gmail address book lifted, possibly in August - still trying to understand vector of attack. Wonder if a rogue Android app grabbed it versus my laptop being vulnerable on public WiFi. Hm. (An old work buddy used the SSH-to-home approach - maybe he still does.)
Cloak has an all-you-can eat WiFi package and there are many other VPN providers. But if you can safely segregate data it may not matter. Well, aside from the fact the most hotels I've been in the last couple years have slow speeds... These days I almost always travel with my wife, so the few months that I've run out of data while out of town I've been able to also tether to her phone - our buckets are separate.