Technology & Life Hacking

Create a mobile WiFi hotspot for roadtrips

Published on 04/04/08
by Colin Loretz

Some of the Twelve Horses crew attended the Rich Internet Application Dev Shed 2008 this week and since we would be out of the office both Thursday and Friday, we wanted to hit the road without missing a beat. We rented a van, setup our laptops, and drove five-hundred miles with a fairly speedy WiFi connection.

I have written up some instructions on how you too can free yourself from the office.
This can be done on either a PC or Macintosh, but the directions below are for Mac OS X.

What you will need:

  • Laptops with wireless connectivity
  • Cellular Wireless Card (We used a Sprint Novatel Wireless Ovation U727)
  • AC/DC Power inverter
  • A vehicle

How to share an internet connection on Mac OS X 10
I’m going to show you how to share a cellular wireless connection, however this method will work if you want to share an ethernet connection as well.

1. Install the cellular wireless card/usb stick by following the manufacturer’s instructions

2. Follow the directions in the SlideShare presentation below.

SlideShare | View | Upload your own

Using our Sprint connection, we were able to share a speedy wireless connection amongst three laptops and 3 iPhones, with only an occasional dead spot in cellular reception. I’m not sure how much unlimited data costs for the Sprint Novatel we used but we were definitely wired in the middle of the desert.

Below: Writing this blog post, surrounded by Utah desert

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