Phone Line Down, Maxis Broadband and WiFi Modem To Rescue Full-time Blogger

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:20 AM PST

My home phone line is down. No wired broadband connection. I use Maxis broadband and WiFi modem to set up emergency Internet connection with WiFi and shared with my other devices. Read on for the details.

Phone line down

Early morning today, while I was surfing online, the Tmnet Streamyx connection suddenly dropped. Reset the router modem didn’t help, the ADSL signal LED is off. I thought Streamyx connection is down again, which is quite common.

But later I discovered that it is even worse, the phone line is down! Can’t answer or make any call. No “duuuuu…” sound when pick up phone handle.

I called Telekom Malaysia to report the phone line problem. They will take 24 hours to check and fix it. Oh My God! For a full-time blogger like me, no Internet connection means we can’t do our “work” (blogging) and disconnected with the world.

That’s bad.

Setting up emergency Internet connection WiFi network

Glad that I have the 3G WiFi modem and Maxis wireless broadband to rescue me. Switching from wired home broadband to wireless broadband is easy. Here is my “emergency Internet connection backup with home WiFi” setup:

Connect WiFi modem to my Apple iMac via USB cable (so that it is powered all the time)
Turn on WiFi modem and connect to Internet.
Turn on WiFi hotspot sharing.
Connect to the emergency WiFi network on my iPhone and iPad
Yeah! Every devices are back online and I can online at any corner in the house, again!

For the time being, I will rely on the Maxis wireless broadband connection (which is, in fact, faster than my 1Mbps home broadband). Everything is back to normal now. I tweet and facebook using iPhone in bedroom. I read online news on iPad in the living room. And, I am blogging this article on iMac. All devices are sharing the Maxis broadband connection via the small wireless modem.

I’m happy!

Sidenote

My normal usage per day (no big file download, no torrent) is few hundred MBs. The 3.5GB quota wireless broadband plan couldn’t cover my monthly usage, but it is great as a fast backup connection.

My iPhone has a 250MB data plan. I don’t dare to use it because I will be charged for an arm if I exceeded the allowed quota. It is my 2nd backup connection.