Cell Phone WiFi

[absalom01]

You’re getting some good intel along with the snark. But I don’t see anyone trying to answer your question about bluetooth. So here goes.

Bluetooth devices have the shortest range of any of these wireless protocols — about 10 yards, in the clear. As a practical matter, a couple of yards is the practical limit. So if your car can connect (’Pair”) to your phone that would typically mean that you can use the car’s speakers and voice commands to “hands free” dial the phone, make calls, play your itunes, etc. There are other types of bluetooth devices — earpieces, mouse input devices, even keyboards. The functionality depends on your phone, but the Androids especially offer lots of options.

Next layer on the onion is the WiFi you asked about earlier. As others explained, if you use your phone for email, web browsing, podcasts etc., it’s away to connect to a small local-area network without having to pay for your 4G (see below) connection or data plan. Basically anything other than regular cellular voice calls and txts, though there are ways to do that now, too. But you need a data plan, and if your phone is as basic as you say, you might have one of the old, super-cheap contracts that don’t included data. To use WiFi, you’ll need a data plan.

Finally, the outer layer of the onion is the 4G cellular network, with a range of a couple of thousand yards, give or take. Though nowdays they practically give away the voice and text services, data usage can get pricey. So people who like to post six pictures of their cats to instagram every hour, or folks who like to stream music or movies or youtube, well, they tend to try to find WiFi places where their data plan doesn’t get charged.

Hope this helps.

[tophat9000]

Most phones now function as small tablet computer....and then connent to wifi like any computer...
I’m posting this from my Note 4 cell phone, connected to my local home Wi-Fi that I connect my other computers too

[Excellence]

I have two Windows phones, one is my phone and its on a data plan, the other I use as a mini-tablet for use with WiFi in public places for which I paid $100. My daughter did better and got one for $60. She got a pre-paid voice/text only plan and uses the home WiFi only for data.
Stay away from Android, that are the least secure and most likely to have malware and spyware.

[Allen In Texas Hill Country]

Thanks again to all. With a WiFi phone I’ll be able to access the web even tho my plan doesn’t cover it.

[pabianice]

It means Calypso Wireless Corporation lost its suit against T-Mobile.