Setting up dial-up connections via cell phone

Sep 15, '03 08:55:00AM

Contributed by: jrvela

A few weeks ago when we had 2003 Power outaged that affected several states in the midwest, I lost my DSL connection. I needed access to the internet, and my only option was dial-up. I activated the one month free Earthlink that came with my new Powerbook. Within minutes, I was up and running. I have since decided to keep the service since I travel quite a bit on weekends to rock climbing destinations, and would like to have internet while on the road.

The dial-up is a good idea, but I needed more mobility, and I do have Verizon's wireless service. So I decided that it would be nice to use my existing cell phone to connect while in the car (me not driving, of course). I did a couple of searches on the net and I found some valuable information that later led me to a solution, and I only spent $20.95+tax for a USB data cable for my cell phone.

Verizon has two cell dial up services that it offers. The 'Quick to Net' at 1440 bps is included with most dial plans, while the 'Express Network' is an add-on service at 140 kbs. The 140 kbs service sounded nice, but I only needed casual access, so I did not want to pay the extra cash. The 1440 bps sounded good for my needs, but I was limited to using my cell phone at this slow speed even if I had access to a land line (56K built-in modem). Instead, I came up with a hybrid solution by putting together the services that I already had. I wanted to keep my Earthlink because it gives me many access points in my usual destinations in the US, Canada and Mexico at 56 Kbps. I wanted a more casual access from my car using my cell phone.

I went to Radio Shack and bought a USB data cable ($20.95+tax) for my Samsung A310 cell phone (no software included). I connected the phone to the Powerbook and Mac OS X 10.2.6 recognized the device as "SAMSUNG CDMA Tegnologies." I spent some time reading and adapting the information in the article How To Use Your Cell Phone as a USB Modem in Mac OS X by John R Chang. I was stuck on Step 5 for a while. I could not get the driver to connect, until I realized that when you first configure the modem, there is an option selected by default that says "Wait for Dial Tone Before Dialing." You must uncheck this option for cell phone calls. This is not in John Chang's instructions, and the screenshot is cut off, so you can't see the option unmarked. Then, I changed Step 6.3 to use my PPP parameters for my Earthlink connection (id, password, phone number, etc).

So with a modified Steps 5 and 6, I was able to connect to Earthlink with my existing cell phone at a whopping 1440 bps. For what I use it for, this is fine. It only cost me $21.

If you want to take a shortcut and not deal with the manual configuration, you can visit SmithMicro and look for Mac prducts -- you can get the data cable and dialer software for $59.95 plus shipping. If you have a Bluetooth phone, you can get software for $39.95 plus shipping.

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