We just conducted our first test of the Walking Hot Spot software at CTIA in San Francisco, and while the software still appears to have some installation kinks, the solution is simple and elegant.  Earlier in the day, we were covering TechCrunch50, and for the first several hours, the internet was up and down, but if we had Walking Hot Spot installed, we could have shared internet access to five laptops.

The WalkingHotSpot software is being sold as a service, $6.99 per month or $24.99 per year.  To install, visit www.walkinghotspot.com and sign-up for the seven day free trial.  After signing up, you will receive an SMS message at your phone with a link to install the software on your phone model.  The license is tied only to one phone.

The software works on the Nokia Symbian operating system and on Windows mobile, currently limited to smart phones from HTC and Nokia.  TapRoot, the parent company, creates low-level software drivers for WiFi and my guess is that the reason that these phones are the first to work is that they can more easily plugin to their own drivers.

In the early release of the software, we tried one Nokia phone and two HTC phones.  Both of the Windows Mobile phones failed in the installation process, and tech support was no help, so we are guessing that others may be having problems, but it could also be that we have installed other conflicting software on our test phones. However, since this service is still new, we are hoping that TapRoot will iron out the problems.

We conducted a speed test, and the speeds were appropriate to the internet connection of the phone.  

The only problem we see is that carriers who offer an unlimited data plan may want to cut this service off at the knees, and we may see them throttling internet speeds for people who use too much bandwidth, which is a trend we are seeing with wired ISPs.  For this reason, it is probably a good idea that this software is being sold as a service, mostly so that carriers can get a share of the revenues down the road to offset their higher bandwidth.

For more information, visit www.walkinghotspot.com