[RosieCotton]

There ya go...good info. So Cingular acts as an ISP and gives you a number to call, or how does that work?

I've never used a cell phone for internet, so I'm curious.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I've never used a cell phone for internet, so I'm curious.

I use one for emergencies when I'm away from home.
My Verizon/Motorola phone acts as a modem when I hook it to my laptop using a USB/Motorola cable.

For an ISP I use a free Juno account. You only have to put up with a movable ad banner.
For $10 a month you can get an ad free Juno account. Works for me.

[tomzz]

Cingular provides a little application you download and there is a number set as a parameter which you have to change, at least on the east coast:

*99***1#

has to be changed to

*99***3#

The app gives you a choice of GSM or wifi but you don't use the app for wifi.

The new laptops have comm capabilities quite a bit beyond what has been there in the past. You've got your own wifi setup, the laptop's modem, ordinary ethernet cable hookup, the cell phone/tether link, public libraries which usually have wifi facilities, many churches which have wifi setups, and whatever else you can come up with so that it's pretty hard to be without the internet. The one thing I recommend you avoid is things like Boingo or Tmobile or Barnes/Noble hotspot services. Those things are flakey and the outlets seem to change every other week so that they're not at all easy to use as they claim to be.