Cell Phone Internet - $1 Per Month

I recently just signed up for WAP (wireless application protocol) Internet access for my new cell phone at Hopke.net Proxy Service for a mere $1 per month. This is 1/5th the cost of Verizon's Internet access fee of $5. The great thing about having the ability to get on the Internet using your cell phone is that you are always connected wherever you have a signal. For instance, I can check sports scores, stock prices, Gmail, movietimes, news, etc. anytime and anywhere. The WAP 2.0 browser on the phone automatically converts regular webpages into mobile-friendly sites. The great thing about this plan is that it only uses your plan minutes. So since I have free nights and weekends, I can use the Internet on the phone for free at those times.

What's the catch? Well, setting this up is really not for non-techies. To enable low-cost Internet access, you have to override Verizon's proxy settings on the phone with Hopke's settings. However, Verizon has disabled the ability to edit the proxy settings directly from the phone, therefore you have to use BitPim to get to the phone's file structure and a hex editor to mess around with the file and make the proxy changes. Not for the faint hearted, but I was able to do it. But why not do it for free and set up my own proxy server? Well, I figured that it just isn't worth it to run a dedicated machine 24/7 and leave a hole in my firewall just for free Internet access. $1 a month is a very small price to pay to not have to do that.

I'm pretty much done messing around with the phone. I now have it set up to do what I want to do - mainly with MP3s, ringtones, wallpapers, calendar, and Internet. It's an awesome phone!