[ale] NewbieQs on 'tethered' net connections1

Tue Apr 21 10:27:51 EDT 2009

Ask around for free GSM phones. That's the beauty of GSM is that you
just pop in your sim. I would also suggest doing what ever you have to
do to get the $4.99 t-zones plan. That really was the best deal in
wireless when I had it. Unfortunately I left T-Mobile after being a
customer since 1999 because they wouldn't match the AT&T price on a
Blackberry my company insisted I buy. I have regretted it since the
day I switched (and had to deal with customer-no-service).

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Mills John M-NPHW64
<Jmills at motorola.com> wrote:
> Sean, All -
>
> Thanks for the replies. I'm responding to this note because it touched more of my issues directly.
>
> My carrier is T-Mobile, but it's a bottom-end prepaid account that doesn't knowingly support net or web access with two exceptions:
>
> 1. I have an e-mail address for SMS and can reply to those messages or forward them to regular phone numbers.
> 2. I can access their "T-Zones" which are basically a web flea-market for the carrier to sell me stuff.
>
> I asked T-Mobile about adding the $4.99/mo access and was told it was not available on my account; on the other hand I can keep the prepaid account alive for only a few $$/mo and it serves my needs for mobile phone service.
>
> I have a dial-in computer account for contingency use (mostly text mail reading) and that's the access I need from my laptop. I could live with 9600 Bd, but not love it!
>
> The phone is a Nokia 6030(B?). It's unlocked. (T-mobile will do that if they think you'll stay around - or at least they did when my accounts met their benchmarks.) In principle the phone even has an embedded web browser.
>
> It does support GSM, but connection to the computer is a problem: Nokia doesn't sell a data cable and the 3rd-party one I bought (USB-serial) seems about half functional under 'gnokii'. There is an external data connection for service use (not the pads under the battery that I've seen in photos of some models). I don't know if the problems are electrical in the adapter; or logical in the phone's functionality, the adapter, or gnokii's expectations: I can read the phone's profile, but then fall into a series of timeouts; I can extract the phone's contacts but when I reload them I have to do quite a bit of rework to find the uploaded numbers again.
>
> Phone model reports as 'RM-225'; I can't get a solid reading on whether AT commands are supported.
>
> I expect the smart answer is, "Get a real phone and a real account," but the partial responses keep leading me on with the possibility this might actually work.
>
> "Science stumbles forward."
>
> More suggestions welcome.
>
>  - Mills
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org on behalf of Sean C. McCord
> Sent: Mon 4/20/2009 9:30 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] NewbieQs on 'tethered' net connections
>
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 05:43:49PM -0400, Mills John M-NPHW64 wrote:
>>ALErs -
>>
>>1. Is there a HOWTO on this that can suggest specs and models of low-end phones for net access from my Linux laptop?
>
> As far as I know, ALL GSM phones (those of AT&T and T-Mobile, in the
> USA), can serve as a modem.  I have used it in all my phones since my
> first one with Powertel who knows how many years ago.  That said, you
> have a few things to look for:
>
> a)  The phone has to have some method to _get_ to your laptop:  Wifi,
> serial, USB, etc.
> b)  If your phone is "locked" (that is, it was bought from the
> carrier), it may be restricted in some way, so all bets are off.
>
>>2. If my phone account doesn't provide a direct net connection of some kind, is it practical to telephone my ISP's dial-in modems and run that way?
>
> You don't necessarily need a "direct" net connection.  For years, I
> used T-Mobile's proxies access for $4.99/mo.  The only reason I
> changed is because I got a Google Phone and wanted full, unrestricted
> access for VPN, SSH, Email, etc., without having to funnel everything
> through a hacked up port 80.
>
>>Some notes make it look just like setting up PPP through a modem and others seem more like a network link. I have a couple of half-*ssed ideas about what's going on, but nothing solid.
>
> For GSM (I have no clue about CDMA, i.e., Sprint, MetroPCS, Nextel,
> Verizon, etc.), the phone acts like a modem.  You interface to with
> with a slightly special AT command set, so to the computer, it looks
> just like a modem.  You even dial up and "connect" just like expected;
> and yes, it is a PPP connection.
>
> If you are using a special app some of the fancier Wifi-enabled
> phones, it is going to act more like a wireless access point.  You
> won't be PPP'ing, most likely.  It will just look like a normal TCP/IP
> link over wireless.
>
> --
> Sean C. McCord
> CyCore Systems
> scmlist at cycoresys.com
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>

-- 
.!# RichardBronosky #!.