I recently acquired an IPOD Touch. I am amazed just how many WiFi sites that are available and are free to access! In case you are not aware an Ipod Touch can pretty much do everything an iPhone can do. Except make phone calls on the cellular networks provided by the phone companies. This is how you Wifi Your Data Plan.
They can connect via WiFi and browse the internet, do your email, Facebook and a thousand other applications, same as the iPhone. If you really want to make phone calls, you can use Skype to make calls. They are free when it is a computer to computer call and you pay a nominal fee when the calls are made to non Skype users.
What is really neat is that all of this data, phone calls, email , net surfing , Youtube videos etc is free as long as you are using a WiFi connection. Wifi Your Data Plan and save thousands of dollars.
This is the real advantage of an iPod Touch and as it turns out any smart phone that can also use WiFi. I also have an iPhone from work which does all of the things an iPhone is supposed to do over the cellular voice and data network. It is a 3G model so it is one of the later ones so it has all of the features that you need in a smart phone. I especially like the touch screen and large size that you have to work with viewing emails and web sites. It is much more intuitive to use although it does have several limitations.
Major Advantage
For example, you cannot connect other devices other than ear phones, and there is no USB interface. Even without that it is a great little tool to use and I much prefer it to a BlackBerry device.
The real advantage of the iPhone in my mind is that you can program it to take advantage of free WiFi connections when there is a WiFi network around. It will use this free network instead of using the carriers data network and costing you a bundle for all of the data you are downloading.
Movies take a lot of data transfer and you can use up your plan quickly, and then are forced to pay very expensive rates for all of the extra gigabits of data that you download.
I do not know if other smart phones do this as well. I hope so. Maybe anyone reading this blog can let us know if this can be done by other smart phones. Most offices now have their own wifi networks.
Of course they are password protected, however if you have an iPhone provided by your place of work, or you have your own, you can sign into the network and use the free WiFi instead of using up your data plan.
Wifi Your Data Plan – Starbucks Announces Free WiFi
If you do not already know this, many coffee shops offer free WiFi to entice their customers to come in and stay awhile. Starbucks had this crazy scheme were you had to have a Starbucks card. Also have a balance of at least $5 on the card. If you maintain this balance you can have 2 hours of free WiFi every day. However you have to log in to your account to be authenticated.
Starting in July, apparently, WiFi will be free and unlimited as well to compete with the other coffee shops in the area. So program your iPhone to take advantage of these free sites. For most sites all you need to do is log in once. The iPhone will remember this for as long as you own the phone.
This is an absolutely great way to minimize your data bill with your carrier. Also you can use skype at these locations to make free calls to other Skype users. More savings for the user!
Other locations Offering Free WiFi
McDonald’s across the US offer free WiFi. They have not copied this in Canada as of yet. Many coffee shops offer free WiFi, including Second Cup, Bridgehead, non chain shops and lots of small mom and pop shops also offer free WiFi. The major chain in Canada that currently does NOT offer free WiFi is Tim Hortons.
I guess they feel that they have a large enough client base that they do not need to offer WiFi at their donuts shops. As of Sept 2012, they began rolling out WiFi to their donut shops.
Wifi Your Data Plan – WiFi at Home
Add a wireless modem at home and you can use your iPhone to browse the internet and any other apps you might want to enjoy. Make sure your home WiFi is password protected. Program your iPhone or iPod Touch to access this connection for surfing and playing games etc.
WiFi at home also makes it much more convenient for your users with laptops or other wireless devices. Most cable and dsl providers now offer WiFi enabled modems to enhance their customers experience and convenience. Installation is easy and from the first moment you can connect all of your computers as well as iPhones and iPod Touch devices with no problems whatever.
They also come with standard Ethernet ports to allow direct wire connections for older computers. Or those of us who want to have a more secure connection. This is convenience at the utmost and it saves you money at the same time over your wireless data plan.
If you have other thoughts about using WiFi instead of your wireless data plan on your data phone or smart phone. Please feel free to leave your comments and thoughts as part of this blog. We can all use more ideas to save us money, find new applications and enable the phones we have to be better tools for us.
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