Wifi on Zune HD/iPod Touch

[olds]

I know I can hook into my wireless, a friends wireless, Barnes and Noble wireless, etc. But can I buy air time from a 3rd party for when I am not at those types of locations?
IE, traveling and wanting to use google maps.

EDIT

Seems there's something called a "mifi" that will let you do it.

 

[destrekor]

While I love my ZuneHD, wifi is it's weakest link (unless app store is a big deal for you, then that might be a weak link, though having wifi to access said app store would be important yes?).
I won't give up my Zune for anything at this point, my Droid does all the wifi and app usage that I'd need, and the Zune service is excellent for music discovery. Zune sticks to doing music, and does it amazingly I might add, and that's all I need. But I recognize others crave more from such a device.

For instance, my Zune cannot connect to my school's wifi, which uses 802.1x security credentials, specifically PEAP and MCHAPv2. It seems all the Zunes get frightened and confused and get all stubborn once you try anything more complicated than WEP/WPA(2).

 

[boomhower]

I know I can hook into my wireless, a friends wireless, Barnes and Noble wireless, etc. But can I buy air time from a 3rd party for when I am not at those types of locations?
IE, traveling and wanting to use google maps.

EDIT

Seems there's something called a "mifi" that will let you do it.

It should do it fine. All of the ones I have come across use a web site to purchase time and the security is either WPA or WPA2, both the Zune can do fine.

The mifi is a whole different animal. It is a wifi router that works off the cell phone system. Both Verizon and Sprint sell them under that name. Your looking at $60 a month for 5GB's of bandwidth.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

So mifi is like an iPhone tethering thing?

I do it on my N82 and I'm sure it's possible on most phones w/ wifi and internet. It's like bridging your wifi and your data plan together.... And they have to sell this as a separate product? Oh sigh... consumers....

 

[olds]

It should do it fine. All of the ones I have come across use a web site to purchase time and the security is either WPA or WPA2, both the Zune can do fine.

The mifi is a whole different animal. It is a wifi router that works off the cell phone system. Both Verizon and Sprint sell them under that name. Your looking at $60 a month for 5GB's of bandwidth.

Too much. We have verizon so I looked at getting her a Droid but not enough capacity for MP3.s

 

[hanoverphist]

So mifi is like an iPhone tethering thing?

I do it on my N82 and I'm sure it's possible on most phones w/ wifi and internet. It's like bridging your wifi and your data plan together.... And they have to sell this as a separate product? Oh sigh... consumers....

its worse than tethering, at least tethering you have a phone to use when youre not connected to the wifi. i also havent seen a "legal" way to turn any phone with wifi into a hotspot router without hacking the phone and installing an app. i found one for my winmo phone that will support up to 5 connections, but it is against the tos to actually use it without paying their tethering fee.

edit: how much mp3 space does she need? iirc, the droid can use the 32gb sd cards. you could always get yourself the droid, then hack it to tether her zune/ ipod to it and use the wifi. but then you wouldnt need the wifi, the droid itself has good nav software.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Too much. We have verizon so I looked at getting her a Droid but not enough capacity for MP3.s

how is it not enough capacity? comes with a 16gb MicroSD that you can upgrade to a 32 gb MicroSD. also, you can swap them at will, so you can effectively have unlimited capacity.

sure, a 64 gb IPhone 3 sounds cool, but me, i'd rather be able to switch out microsd's.

 

[olds]

its worse than tethering, at least tethering you have a phone to use when youre not connected to the wifi. i also havent seen a "legal" way to turn any phone with wifi into a hotspot router without hacking the phone and installing an app. i found one for my winmo phone that will support up to 5 connections, but it is against the tos to actually use it without paying their tethering fee.

edit: how much mp3 space does she need? iirc, the droid can use the 32gb sd cards. you could always get yourself the droid, then hack it to tether her zune/ ipod to it and use the wifi. but then you wouldnt need the wifi, the droid itself has good nav software.

how is it not enough capacity? comes with a 16gb MicroSD that you can upgrade to a 32 gb MicroSD. also, you can swap them at will, so you can effectively have unlimited capacity.

sure, a 64 gb IPhone 3 sounds cool, but me, i'd rather be able to switch out microsd's.

My bad. That's what I get for listening to the buy at BestBuy. He said the internal memory was 256 and that you couldn't use an SD (or any other) card.

 

[hanoverphist]

hes partially right... but i thought it was 512 internal for programs only? the 16gb is storage, both for media and program stuff. just the exe needs to be on the onboard memory. and i heard they are working on a way to change that as well. my omnia has like 128mb of internal mem for programs and i have a ton installed on it. but, it has a 8gb built in storage for most programs to install/ run on. i also have a 16gb slot available for a micro sd. i cant imagine newer phones going backwards in any way.