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Wireless Net on the Zaurus
An anonymous reader writes "Straight from infosync.no: "Sharp has announced the release of a wireless Internet package for Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 and SL-5000d. Using the Verizon Wireless CDPD network in US, the package includes a Compact Flash CDPD modem from Enfora, the necessary software, and a Verizon Wireless account"."
Is it just me, or does that thing look about the same size as the zaurus itself?
we can rebuild this sig. we have the technology
Has anyone here had any CDPD experience? I recently purchased an AirCard 710 for use with AT&T GSM/GPRS service, and it was awful. The hardware was flaky and coverage was dismal. I'm thinking about going to CDPD with Sprint, but am pretty discouraged after my GPRS experience.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
It's $40/mo for unlimited use, but it's only 19.2. If you're a bandwidth freak, it makes more sense to go with Verizon's 144kbps Express Network - unlimited plans are $100/mo, and they have PCMCIA cards as well as phones.
What's your damage, Heather?
No GPS! What good is mobile Internet unless you know where you are??
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My boss has a Zaurus with an 802.11 card. After that story the other day about Starbuck's 'interferring' with a free 802.11 provider, I discovered that there are a LOT of Starbuck's around Portland that have the T-Mobile service ready to go. Seriously, I've been to 3 different stores that had it and 1 of them was in the mall. It's a sure bet that the bigger mall will have it soon too. (That Starbuck's is remodelling...)
This isnt' worth the $30 a month they want for it, otherwise this is a seriously cool combination with a Zaurus. I could go to the mall and do my shopping. If I'm concerned about an item costing a little too much, I could run down to the Starbuck's (or just close to it...), fire up the Zaurus, and go check out the price at a place like Newegg.com. Even better, I can find out if a competitor is running a sale! Best Buy's site will let ya order the item from the web and pick it up in the store.
As I said, this isn't worth $30 a month to me, but that's a seriously cool alternative to trying to cover the US with a cellular-like WAP cloud.
"Derp de derp."
CDPD was great 5 years ago, but today, GSM/GPRS is spreading out and I wouldn't recommend investing in the older, slower technology. CDPD has a data rate of 19.2kb/s, but with error correction and overhead, the users throughput is more like 10 to 15kb/s. Versus GSM, which operates at 40 to 50kb/s and is found throughout the world.
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
CDPD is one of the slowest wireless data technologies still in use. It's only 19.2kbps (max speed, you really only get 9600 and that only if you're lucky and in the middle of a cornfield next to a cell tower) and is overpriced for what you get. GSM/GPRS is a more viable option at 60kbps, or sprint's new 3G "PCS vision" service. (70kbps at the moment, has potetial for 1mbps+)
-- There's only one replacement for displacement.....
Any word on the battery life for this? I know that 802.11B sucks the batteries right out of most handheld devices. I am testing an "industrial" Symbol device (PocketPC) here at work -- and am hard pressed to surf around for more than about 45 minutes on a full charge.
Based on the size of this thing, it may have an additional battery on board. A few quick glances of the website did not make it appear that way.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Is every single wireless or handheld product released, submitted and posted as a story on /. I read /. to hear about the latest and greatest products too, but there seems to be some bias in the handheld and wireless markets. Is Taco getting some kickbacks from the wireless consortium or is this really the fastest growning industry sector right now?
Yes, you are missing something. Here's the detail in the summary of the article that you missed:
"Using the Verizon Wireless CDPD network in US..."
This isn't 802.11, it's wireless data like your cell phone gets. I.e. more coverage at slower speed and metered rates.
Talk in the community is this has been unreliable and slow. (I haven't heard if it's gotten any better). It's easier and cheaper connecting with a cellular phone for now, because in a few months we'll have a choice of several higher bandwidth alternatives (Sprint Vision with a compact flash card soon, for example). We already have several bluetooth devices too, just waiting for coverage.
tcboo
The US has the unique privilege of being one of 4 countries in the world where CDMA is the de facto standard for wireless. In some countries analog or TDMA is the standard, but for the most part, everywhere outside of North America uses GSM.
Does Sharp plan on selling this wireless package outside of North America? If so, then why can't any American just pick up the European GSM version of it, and use it here? Sure, the GSM version would need to support 1900 MHz... but Sharp does expect European users to roam, no?
Well, actually, if the connection would not be "proxy based" - it could make a lot of sense - to have a always-on (even low bandwidth) connection in your pocket which does not suck your batteries in a second. But this "proxy based concept" seems to be the fun-spoiler and aimed to make your life more difficult when you actually would like to do something fun with it. Like making it more difficult to get an IP masquared for that.
I've been researching this for a while and I wanted a convenient way to access work 24x7. So I bought the sharp zaurus SL5500 and now the wireless portfolio from enfora. The portfolio looks like the better deal as I get to use my CF slot for something else.
Obviously I won't be doing much C++/Java coding through it but it will be nice when I get a call out on the town and I need to fix production.
Much better than explaining the use of the 'top' command to find a run-away process to the new operations guy. (yes, I've had to do this).
Yeah, but unless you've got a really long phone cord you can't use your ISP while sitting in trafffic, etc...
What do you know I wrote a novel
My 1/2 Gigabyte SD card came in the mail today. I have an 802.11 card from SMC in the CF slot right now. I can ssh from my desktop to the palmtop.
I am about to put the OpenZaurus load on the machine instead of the partially-proprietary load it comes with.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
CDPD - Cellular Digital Packet Data.
The CDPD system involves sending short, relatively low speed data bursts over a voice channel of standard North American Analog Phone Service (AMPS). This allows a standard AMPS system to carry CDPD with little retrofitting of the cell towers, whereas GPRS requires a whole new system. Given that your average cell site runs about US$1M, that adds up very quickly.
CDPD is a CS/A TDMA system (Collision Sense/Collision Avoidance Time Domain Multiple Access) system - Multiple users transmit on the same frequency at different times, much like Ethernet.
CDPD is in common use for vending machines, electric meters, and other systems that need to report relatively little information.
When it first came out, years ago, I thought "YOU IDIOTS! You are pricing this PER PACKET - it will never sell. Price it flat rate and people will eat it up!" Guess what - now they are starting to look at pricing it flat rate, and it is now becoming attractive!
CDPD operates in the 800MHz US Cellular band. It can use encryption based on RSA.
I had done some work on a CDPD tester in the past.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Sure imap and web browsing are neat tools for sales guys but what I really want is a way to login analyze and fix a problem with a server from anywhere.
The scenareio would go something like this:
Use remote server monitoring software to check on my server.
- If a problem occurs an email is sent to my palm pilot account.
- Using the same palm pilot I can login and fix what is wrong.
Now that would be cool. (Except if my company expects me to carry it on holidays).I have an older PDA (Cassiopeia E-125). It has a single CF slot (as from what I read does this machine).
I have been recently excited about getting a wireless CF LAN card (after rebate they are in the $35 - $40 range at BestBuy and Circuit City). Problem here is that the machine itself comes w/little on-board space and my large storage comes from ANOTHER CF card.
So, without two CF card slots (I always found laptops w/only one PCMCIA slot annoying as well) this machine is not very good for any sort of Internet connection.
When the machines come w/1G on board or a second CF slot for my Microdrive, I will make another PDA purchase.
I can do this with my Handspring Treo 300. I can get an SMS on the phone with a short description of the problem, login using ptelnet, fix the issue, and log back out. I can take my time because I'm billed on bytes, not minutes. It's a good phone too.
well, its kind-of-similar to GPRS, the main difference is that GPRS can theoritically run at 115 Kbps, actual throughput varies a lot, because you are not likely (you will never get) to get all 8 time slots (because of power consumption, heat emisssion, maximizing amount of simultaneous users). So, you are likely to get anything from 1 to 4 * 13 Kbps for download and one for upload.
I walk around my school running kismet, within a few minutes, I'm on!
forget it.
I went to purchase one of those little bad boys at Best Buy and they said they are no longer going to sell them. Is this PDAgoing to share the same fate as my agenda VR3?
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Can you ping me now? good!
Given that Verizion and Sprint both offer unlimited 3G for $99/month... at 80K measured speeds (144K burst).... it seems foolish to use these CDPD services.
GSM/GPRS isn't the only choice. Verizion has good coverage now, Sprint's is almost everywhere.
True, but try explaining why you need to carry around the giant spool of phone cable when you get on the bus for your morning commute.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
OpenSSH has been ported to the Z.
When the heck are they going to comeup with cell-phone modules for the Zaurus?
I'm getting tired of carrying both and a "unification" is past due.
enough ranting...later!
I tried a Zaurus at LinuxWorld and really wanted to buy it. It was on sale for $299, and my wife was standing next to me.
My wife said, "Buy it if you want it." But I just couldn't.
After ten minutes of futzing, I couldn't type on it. I have small hands, and I use a Motorola T900, which has a tiny keyboard too, but there's a big difference in usability between them, and even though it was clear that day that the Zaurus would have a superior wireless solution, better apps, and the coolness factor of opening up an xterm (qtterm?), I just couldn't buy it.
My fingers even actually hurt from trying to reach the number keys, which are sandwiched about 2 millimeters away from the edge and almost impossible to press. The keys themselves are oddly peg-shaped, uncomforably to press, and reminded me of the Commodore PET and the TI 99/4 chiclets.
Sharp, please benchmark against the T900 and Blackberry and try to make the keyboard more usable on the next version.
Because they're tied specifically to Verizon, you have to have Verizon CDPD in your local area to even sign up. Here in Portland, OR, we have "excellent" CDPD coverage (according to the Zaurus Mobile web site), yet they won't let me sign up because Verizon doesn't do CDPD here. If they did, I'd have to pay roaming charges of $.05/Mb (which really isn't *that* bad if I'm careful). Apparently I might be able to arm-twist them into letting me signup if I call them on the phone, but the web site checks your billing zipcode and if it's not a blessed one, you're outta luck.
Doh!
(slinks away quietly)...
I think that once you get enough -1's racked up, your postings always start at -1.... you have to be modded up just to be seen by most readers. I could be wrong but I'm basing this on the fact that there is no summary of moderation - it just says -1, not "-1 troll", etc.
... is like putting an Archer 8-track stereophonic in your new Lexus. Sound comes out, but it's just plain wrong.
Anybody want a peanut?
Greeting- My comments have been up on the Sharp Wireless Service and the Enfora modem that they sell for the Zaurus for many months at http://zaurus.wynn.com/. I found it so unusable that I dropped the service in favor of using public access 802.11 sites in the NYC area. There are more and more of them!