It has always been a pain trying to get a mobile phone to tether and allow your computer to use the phone’s 3G data connection as a way to connect to the Internet. Tethering via bluetooth is such a pain to setup depending on how your mobile phone likes to connect to your computer. Cables are a messy thing. You’re in luck if you have one of those Symbian mobile phones with Wifi ‘coz the JoikuSpot mobile app offers a painless one-click way to configure your Wifi-equipped Symbian mobile phone as a 3G router.
I have unlimited data on my main mobile phone, which is a Symbian based Nokia 5800XM, and there are times when I am mobile, I find that the availble public wireless network is too slow or not available. I’ve been using my connected phone in those occassions as a modem by connecting it to my notebook using a cable. That was okay until I decided to use my 3G connected phone as my main device for using Twitter. The cable is a pain and bluetooth just doesn’t always work.
Then I found the JoikuSpot Symbian mobile app. JoikuSpot has two available versions. JoikuSpot Lite which lets users to use their wifi equipped Symbian phone as a 3G hotspot/router but only for web browsing. This is because the Lite version only has support for the http protocol. This is good for most users who just want to browse / surf the web.
The JoikuSpot Premium version supports all protocols including email which enables you to use your mobile phone as a fully working mobile 3G router. You can even share the connection to several other wifi equipped devices.
I’ve been using JoikuSpot for several weeks now and so far I’ve been happy with it. The only downside to it is that the implemented security feature is the old WEP protocol which is not too secure. I would love to have at least WPA2 on it so that I can have better security using it in a public area. But at home it should be good for most purposes.
Setting up JoikuSpot is painless, everything will work without much of tinkering the settings. I was able to start using it in a few minutes.
The other downside to JoikuSpot Premium is the price of the mobile app which is 25 Euros. But if you buy a copy now, you can really get a good discounted price of just paying for 7 Euros – that’s more than 60% discount.
Some Screenshots of JoikuSpot Premium
If you’re looking for a no-frills mobile app to turn your Symbian wifi-equipped mobile phone to a 3G router for just web browsing then the JoikuSpot Lite is for you. If you’d like a full 3G hotspot that you can use when you’re on the go then the JoikuSpot Premium is the way to go. If you decide to buy now, you might still get the 7 Euro discounted price or else you might have to slide out 25 Euros out of your pocket. You can buy the JoikuSpot using the Buy button found on the left at the start of this article.
