There are addons that will allow a standard telephone, fax or modem to plug into some phones. However due to the latency of the connection, as well as compression and other factors, you're not likely to see any usable connection take place.

I have tried it over both GSM and standard CDMA digital cellular with a 20%success rate and maximum CONNECT speed of 1200 kbps. Some ISPs will not even bother connection at that speed, so your mileage may vary. It's also interesting to note that during my tests, the connection becomes unstable and drops carrier (hangs up) after a few seconds of connecting. Faxing is more reliable over these connections since the protocol is 100% asynchronous and handles the poor latency much more gracefully.

Hi Cookor,

There's no question that "WiFi ... or other broadband connection method" is faster than the fastest (at this moment) cellular-based broadband connection. My questions to you are:

If you are OK with the Zen of ONLY web surfing wherever there's WiFi, like at a hotel, restaurant, airport, home, or business, then you're a lucky person because wherever you are that there's Internet, there's Internet (a gross grafting of "wherever you go, there you are" and "it ain't
over till it's over"). Many of us are not so "in the moment" and want Internet wherever we happen to be. Short of having satellite-based Internet which works pretty much anywhere in the world and costs a
fortune, the most widespread portable BROADBAND Internet access is via cellular providers since their networks are so ubiquitous. Trust me, you can't get WiFi along I-15 near Scipio, Utah, but you can get Verizon and, undoubtedly, other carriers.

There are lots of places where WiFi signals show up that are pretty far from civilization - I know because I do contract work on places like Mt San Miguel and up there I can see a number of WiFi SSIDs - but most of them are secured and all of them are so ephemeral that they're worthless.

As for #2 above, if you're playing World of Warcraft with folks all over the globe and you need the speed, Wifi - worst case being about 3Mb/s realtime throughput for 802.11b - surely beats 1.2Mb/s down x 600Mb/s up as provided by Verizon with Qualcomm's EV-DO RevA via a recent model phone. But typical web surfing and emailing and even VoIP calls work fine over EV-DO and the GSM carriers' current equivalents. In fact, Mrs. T and I just returned from a whirlwind 4000 mile driving vacation of The Northwestern US. Sitting in the car before the majestic Grand Tetons, I called my friend Kathryn on Skype, from my laptop, using Verizon's broadband, and we had a pleasant 2-way video call . It worked fine. BTW, there was not a single WiFi signal present

Lastly there's the dialup Internet suggestion. A good one, in fact. If you've got a cell signal but no WiFi (and no cellular broadband), using a dialup provider like Simple.NET ($15/mo), Earthlink ($22/mo), NetZero/Juno ($10/mo - their "Half the Cost of AOL" is misleading advertising and possibly a reason to pass them over - see * below), even (shudder) AOL ($10/mo), can get you basic internet and the same account. Copper.net ($10/mo) has an interesting, though surely biased, look at the big players here: http://www.copper.net/AboutTheCompetition.aspx HOWEVER, in the same post you go from saying that cellular broadband isn't as fast as WiFi to espousing DIALUP!  I'm not sure how fast dialup can actually get over a cellular call because of all that audio compression and - IMPORTANT - because this is an analog connection, not a digital one like WiFi or cellular broadband. But even using laboratory speeds, your Simple.NET connection will be .056Mb/s down by maybe .03Mb/s up compared to .5Mb/s down for older cellular broadband, and over 1Mb/s down for EV-DO RevA.

To summarize

Love and Connectivity,  Dr. Telecom

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*NetZero' web site, on the day this reply was posted, says "References to AOL?? pricing and savings amounts based on standard monthly rates as of 01/01/0<b>3</b>". That's over 6 years ago. At http://www.netzero.net/start/landing.do?page=www/signup/comparison they say "References to AOL®, EarthLink, Yahoo, and MSN pricing and savings amounts based on U.S. standard monthly rates for standard versions of service as of 10/15/2006". They're right about Earthlink - at $22/mo(after 3 months at $10) they're the most expensive. Even their 12-months-paid-in-advance plan is $12.50

on a similar subject, I have a gps with a sim card installed that gets its info from the internet via cell phone sites.

can it be hacked to use as a modem for internet access?

Using your cell phone as a modem will not be as fast as using a Wi-Fi hot spot or other broadband connection method. Even better, if your cellphone provider doesn't charge you for 1800/toll-free numbers(most don't), you can use SIMPLE.NET to access the internet through your cellphone, virtually from anywhere your cellphone works! I use such services at my patio with laptop.