Slashdot Mirror

If your job depends on Internet access, buy a MiFi? Unfortunately you don't have any right to stop someone else from using a public hotspot however they like.

The 2 big datavendors Sierra Wireless and Novatel have some nice data products that you can use VoIP on the go.

Novatel has the Ovation, a product from a San Diego company, will have support most high speed including Wifi/WiMAX. Very interesting product, but Novatel doesnt support quad band GPRS, little problem.
http://www.novatelwireless.com/products/ovation/in dex.html

Sierra Wireless has a great PC card coming out, support quad band, 850 and 900, so better coverage in the USA. Including the new HSPDA upgrade from UMTS. Cingular (and ATT Wireless) limited launched UMTS, but they are upgrading and expanding UMTS to HSPDA now.
http://www.sierrawireless.com/ProductsOrdering/ac8 x0.asp

I'm prob going to pick a Sierra Wireless PC card, after using UMTS on my limited channel phone (tethered), its amazing. WiMAX will be nice when it finally gets here, but UMTS is already launched, and vendors already software upgraded their UMTS to HSPDA.

I just wish i could get a single HSPDA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/WiFi G card.

I've been using a novatel card to get 384kbps for 2 years now. Sprint is even offering a 2mbps service in select areas. My toshiba cellphone through a usb cable averages about 300kbps.

I'm working with sprint global right now to provide a dedicated secure link to police cars in City of Atwater. The service is called Sprint DataLink. That link will be 384kbps. Soon it will be upgraded to over 2mbit.

You CAN intermingle UMTS/EDGE/GSM (well except for EDGE right now) Otherwise how can you explain the Novatel Wireless U530 and the Option 3Globetrotter

And EVDO can lay over a 1xRTT network - so indeed they are intermingling.

Oh, and UMTS runs on the 1900 band in North America and the 2100 band in Europe. So much for penetrating walls! Better hope for a good multipath through the windows!

I used a CDPD modem with my PalmV for a little while, and while it was neat, there was a small problem with the modem's form factor. If you were less than gentle while you were using it, the modem would shift a little bit and easily get disconnected from the palm and disconnected from the network. Then you would typically have to power cycle the unit and wait for it to handshake with the network. Kind of a pain just to read email.

The new palm mentioned in this article uses the Mobitex network. This is an 'always on' radio network that is also used by the very popular Blackberry devices by Research in Motion. Mobitex coverage in the US looks pretty good, and there's even Mobitex networks in other countries throughout the world.

How about two?

Merlin C201

AirCard 550/555

It's been a while (about a year) since I last investigated this, so I may be off-base, but I think this is still reasonably current:

Most of the cellphone companies, especially the PCS ones, claim to be able to deliver digital data connections. Almost none of them can, and if they can, the performance is painfully slow. These folks just don't understand the value of opening up their bit stream. (Dream On: Really, I just want a good IP pipe, and I'll decide myself whether to use it for web, mail, telephony, or whatever. This assumes that the phone companies are interested in building an open IP architecture, sadly, they're not...)

So far as I know, there are no wireless ISP services that offer both road coverage and non-painful speeds.

Probably the best option today from a coverage standpoint and a real data solution is one of the CDPD-based services like OmniSky or GoAmerica. You can also start at the sites of the equipment providers like Sierra Wireless or Novatel Wireless. This approach still leaves a lot to be desired, but is likely the best reasonably-priced option available now.

Alternatively, you could try to live in the 802.11b world, hoping to find access points. Some cities have better documentation of this than others - Austin has a very incomplete list at Austinwireless.Net, mostly because RoadRunner is heavy-handedly disconnecting people they find out are running 802.11b APs. This is not a great option, but actually getting better as 802.11b takes off - lot's of offices and coffee houses have this stuff now.

Of course there are the exotic options like Iridium, but it's expensive and I expect most of their bandwidth is being used by the DoD right now...

Metricom's Ricochet was a great system if you could get it, but I was never able to consider it: they never got enough of Austin covered to really make it an option. The only people I know that were really able to use Ricochet were in the Silicon Valley (San Jose) area, where the coverage is pretty good. It would be nice to see this approach (if not this company and its implementation) make a comeback - microcells are a great idea technically, but it appears to me that the cost of getting the rights for microcell sites is what killed them, compounded by the sheer volume of sites they need. I expect Metricom's cost of site acquisition was astronomical, except in places like San Jose where the city gave them carte blanche to hang boxes on any light pole.

Microsoft often abuses popular names and words that have some established meanings in some nearby area to confuse the heck out of users -- bright example of that is "Digital Nervous System" that seems to "share" an acronym with Domain Name System that happens to predate Microsoft's definition by a decade, and, while mentioned a lot, probably isn't clearly to its target audience.

Now where have I seen the word "Merlin" very close to PDAs, but not exactly a PDA-related item last time? Wasn't it a PC version of a popular Minstrel PDA CDPD modem, made by Novatel? Indeed, it is! And, just like with "DNS" and other cases, I don't think that it's a coincidence -- it may not be illegal, but it's hijacking someone else's trademark with the goal to make users think that Microsoft's product is related to something they have heard about.

Microsoft often abuses popular names and words that have some established meanings in some nearby area to confuse the heck out of users -- bright example of that is "Digital Nervous System" that seems to "share" an acronym with Domain Name System that happens to predate Microsoft's definition by a decade, and, while mentioned a lot, probably isn't clearly to its target audience.

Now where have I seen the word "Merlin" very close to PDAs, but not exactly a PDA-related item last time? Wasn't it a PC version of a popular Minstrel PDA CDPD modem, made by Novatel? Indeed, it is! And, just like with "DNS" and other cases, I don't think that it's a coincidence -- it may not be illegal, but it's hijacking someone else's trademark with the goal to make users think that Microsoft's product is related to something they have heard about.

Microsoft often abuses popular names and words that have some established meanings in some nearby area to confuse the heck out of users -- bright example of that is "Digital Nervous System" that seems to "share" an acronym with Domain Name System that happens to predate Microsoft's definition by a decade, and, while mentioned a lot, probably isn't clearly to its target audience.

Now where have I seen the word "Merlin" very close to PDAs, but not exactly a PDA-related item last time? Wasn't it a PC version of a popular Minstrel PDA CDPD modem, made by Novatel? Indeed, it is! And, just like with "DNS" and other cases, I don't think that it's a coincidence -- it may not be illegal, but it's hijacking someone else's trademark with the goal to make users think that Microsoft's product is related to something they have heard about.

On my GPRS phone tethered, I get 1 channel (9.6) same as my cdpd modem. But my multiple-channel GPRS modem should be here shortly. (example 6x = 57.6) http://www.novatelwireless.com/pcproducts/g100.htm l (With compression, I've seen upto dsl type speeds)
The comments are my own, not my employer.

My Novatel Wireless Merlin card and Ricochet subscription give my iPaq access to the entire internet at 128kbps anywhere I go at up to 70 m.p.h. in 14 major metro areas.

Think of the possibilities, indeed. This type of service already exists.

Novatel even has a PC card version.

Another good reason to read /.

I'm looking into buying a new mobile phone (in North America) with a good WAP browser, internet access, and the general spiffy phone features.

WAP is terrible. It's slow, the gateways are unreliable, screens are too small... And if you're wanting to do real show-off things like check your Yahoo Mail account, realize that filling in a username/password on a WML form is a very trying exercise.

Check out Jakob Neilson's WAP Field Study. Look at the times to accomplish simple tasks with WAP.

I purchased a Nokia 7110 six months ago, and never bothered using the WAP features after the first couple of days. It collects dust on my shelf now, replaced by a (non-WAP) 8890 that is much more stylish, can stay comfortably in my front pocket while I'm sitting down, and works nearly anywhere on the planet that cellular service is available.

Get a phone that's just a phone. If you really want wireless 'net access, get a Palm Vx and a Minstrel.

I tried the VisorPhone at an FTC-sponsored wireless conference last week in DC. The sales rep (from Handspring) had received the unit the night before and couldn't get it to complete a call, even though the screen showed that there was an active call. The software didn't even know the VisorPhone was turned off!!!! We tried a couple of different SIM chips, used the unit in different Visors. No dice. Even so, the whole unit seemed a bit bulky to me.

Would rather use a packet-based solution like CDPD (which you can get for the Visor) or GPRS, and even then, for me these would be integrated with the telephony portion of the phone.

I just don't see any reason not to have a PDA/Phone combo that doesn't do both circuit-switched and packet-based connections. The success of the Ericsson R280LX is clear evidence that such a combination is a good idea. If Ericsson can pack dual-band TDMA, AMPS and CDPD into that little phone, why can't somebody come out with a Springboard that does GSM900, GSM1900 and GPRS?

Besides, you won't get circuit-switched data speeds of 14.4 unless the network is setup for it. I don't think any of the USA GSM networks are running that fast.

Me thinx you're overlooking the whole wireless clipped web thingy...

Are you kidding? Internet access mediated by Palm.net, with support only for websites that support it? No thanks, I'll go with real wireless -- which is available for the Visor. Take a look at http://www.novatelwireless.co m/palmtop/minstrelS.html.

If you're one that trusts press releases and the like, it would be important to note that Handspring has three wireless modems/modules coming its way:

• The Minstrel
• Something from JP Systems
• AvantGo

So, if one is holding out specifically because of a "lack of wireless" on a Visor, then, perhaps, these will come out soon enough. Personally, I use the Thincom modem, which does its job just fine.

Now, if one is holding out for which product is "superior" to the other, I can't help -- I only have experience with the Visor, which I purchased 'cause it was the best, IMO, available at the time.

When I used to live in SF, I had all these things you're talking about.
Omnisky Minstrel 3 modem, with GoAmerica coverage, Top Gun Postman for email (Set up a new POP account to mirror my email), and ProxiWeb as my web browser.

Postman and ProxiWeb are free (as in beer).

Stock quotes/Weather/traffic/movie showtimes all provided by my.yahoo.com. Driving directions by Mapquest (they have palm pilot version of their page, although I forget the URL)

--

The Merlin is a good card, but runs only under Windoze for the moment...

Emailed Novatel asking about Linux support, and they could not give me a definite answer. For those who are interested in the Merlin, check out http://www.novatelwireless.com. They also have the Omnisky wireless modem for Palm V users, which currently offers free unlimited usage during their beta period which is until the end of March 2000.

Another similiar product is the minstrel wireless modem cradle , that snaps onto the back of a normal pilot.

This has the advantage of its own seperate power supply (although serial communication of any kind will still substantially impact battery life on a pilot), and more flexible pricing plans. It may also be removed when not needed, which may or may not be a plus depending on your usage profile. With an MSRP of around $370, you can get it and a palm IIIx for around the same price as a palm VII or the qualcom phone.

Like the palm VII however, it does not have voice or paging capability.

For any of these solutions, there are some GREAT 3rd party tools for internet connectivity.
Proxi-Web is a free (last time I checked) web service that grabs a requested web page, converts it to the greyscale image the pilot can use, compresses it, then moves it into the pilot for display. It is well designed and quite effective for a large majority of web pages I have tried. It supports both graphics, and forms, and is quite fast (feels like a 56k modem connection when used with the palm clip on 14.4 modem).

Proxi Mail is a pop3 and smtp mail client that also works exceptionally well, and has some very nice features for filtering, truncating, and other pilot important activities.

AvantGo provides a free web clipping service that also works very well, but for a smaller subset of the web. It also works directly with the pilots internal tcp/ip stack (and therefore any modem, wireless or not).

Obviously, none of these solutions are as nice as having a phone and pda in the Palm V form factor, but in terms of current state of the art they all sound like similiar kludges with different advantages and disadvantages.

It will be interesting to see if someone produces a springboard module for the new handspring units that has operates as both a phone, and as a wireless tcp/ip internet connection... If the form factor is right, that could be the real winner.

Plus, with Nokia's licensing of the Palm OS, they will be ones to watch as well (they intend to have a product in the next two years). If there is one thing those europeans consistantly get right, it is ergodynamics, which seems to be where all the current units fall short.

Bill Kilgallon

They make CDPD modems that work over regular cellular bands. I'm using the expedite developer board, which is really just the guts of their consumer products, and it works great.

The cool thing is that it works just like a regular modem, with AT commands, but you have to use PPP (it actually takes over the other side of the PPP conversation itself, transparently).

One small inconvenience is that it only works at 19,200.

They also have windows "modem drivers" for it, but it should be no problem to set it up using chat under linux. Basically you just say "AT\APPP" in place of the "ATDT0001112222" dial string, and then just start talking PPP.

Oh yeah, you also get a static IP with it, just to make life more interesting!

-Loopy

P.S. I have no relationship with this company, other than satisfied customer.

I have a Palm IIIx and a Novatel Minstrel. Wireless IP access from Boston to DC via CDPD. See Novatel's page or Bell Atlantic Mobile

Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}