I was on vacation and didn’t have access to wi-fi or a landline. This meant my only option to get online was to use my cell phone as a modem.
I had purchased Verizon’s rip-off “music kit” a while back. Basically a USB cable to connect your phone to your PC, and a CD that tries to convert your MP3s to some other format since the phone can’t play normal MP3 files (stuuuuupid). The good news is that this meant I had the cable I needed to be able to use the phone as a modem and wouldn’t have to pay $50 more for that kit.
So, I called Verizon, the guy walked me through configuring Windows dial-up networking to connect and it wouldn’t work. We were roaming at the time, and chalked it up to that.
A few weeks later we were up in Tennessee for the weekend. Again, there’s no wi-fi nearby. However, I have good cell reception so I figured I’d try the Verizon thing again. It’s about $60/month, but I’ll just cancel after the weekend anyhow.
So, I call Verizon and simply ask them to enable that feature for me, since I already have the phone connected and Windows configured. “Uh, we can’t do that”. “You need to buy a special card for your computer”. I insisted that I didn’t, but he insisted that I did. I said something like “I just need the $60/month plan so I can use my phone as a modem”. Nope. I asked for a supervisor and was offered technical support. Ok.
The tech support guy comes on and says “So you want the $59.99/month plan so you can use your phone as a modem? No problem”. Strange, considering what the last guy had said, but good.
However, he told me I’d have to go online and download their fancy connection manager software. (note: I couldn’t GET online – that’s the whole problem!) I explained that I didn’t want to buy it, and I’ll simply use Windows dial-up networking instead. He was quite adamant that it wouldn’t work without their fancy software, but I was quite adamant that he just turn the stupid thing on.
He did and I fired it up. No dice. I asked if there was someone I could talk to about it. “Nope”. “How about tomorrow?”, I replied. “Nope. No one here can help you with that.”. He insisted that no one anywhere at Verizon could help me with this kind of set-up. I told him I wished I had the name of the guy from last weekend, as he was quite helpful.
I hung up with him and then tried again. I guess it just took a minute for the update to go into affect on my account, because it worked and was a great solution for the rest of the weekend.