Use a Sanyo 4900 phone as a wireless modem

Dec 05, '02 08:06:15AM

Contributed by: Numbski

If you have a Sanyo 4900 phone and would like to use it as a wireless modem, here's how to do it. First, to give credit where credit is due; this document explains how to get things working under Linux. To answer a question on that page, yes, the cable from Sanyo is much cheaper and yes it's the right cable. The phone gets picked up as a standard modem titled "Sanyo USB Phone".

You will also need service. Sprint's latest "vision" plans are pretty well priced, and don't rip you off at all. The only thing that sucks if that the off-peak minutes start at 9 pm, but if you're okay with that, then you can get the phone for $50, and apparently there's a rebate on the phone over at Amazon. I'm going to go look today, but I digress...

[Editor's note: No Sanyo phone here, so this hint is untested...]

Plug in the phone, and you will be prompted to create a new connection when it's detected. On the TCP/IP tab, click Use PPP, and enter your name servers for another connection. I don't know the IP's of Sprint's Vision name servers, otherwise I would share. It would certainly help with latency if you could get those.

Move over to the PPP tab. Put a name in the Provider line (I used Sprint PCS Vision) then click on PPP Options. Check "Disconnect when Users Logs out" if you prefer, and also "Send PPP echo packets", Use TCP header compression", and "Connect using a terminal window".

Move over to the Modem tab and select "Null Modem 115200" from the list.

Apply your changes and open up Internet Connect. Choose Show Modem Status in the menu bar. This part's optional but reccommended. Now either choose Connect -> Manual Dial from the Internet Connect application, or click the phone handset and click Connect (the easier option usually). The dialing process will start. Shortly thereafter, a terminal window will pop up. Wait a few seconds, and then type:

 AT
Your keys may feel "dead" at first, hit "A" once or twice and it will finally appear. Hit return and you should get this response:
 OK
Then type:
 ATD#777
You will be greeted with "Connecting..." and the terminal window will disappear. You'll be on!

The connection is VERY latent. That is, the time from making a request to getting the intial response is long, but after the data transfer commences, it's not too bad. 12k/sec unlimited minutes wirelessly is hardly something to complain about!

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