Sony Ericsson Makes a tri-band GPRS modem

prostoalex writes "Sony Ericsson announced their new PCMCIA GPRS wireless modem, capable of delivering 57.6 Kbps. It is tri-band and works in 900/1800/1900 MHz range, which led Sony Ericsson to imply that the card will work in 160 countries, providing an always-on Internet connection. Currently only Microsoft operating systems (starting at Windows 98) are supported. No exact price information on official site, but the PC Pro article above quotes 200 UK pounds. The manufacturer also runs a contest for those who would rather get one for free."

Comments

so when

[Multiple Sanchez]

will they manufacture a wireless modem that is "always on" in 160 countries, but bumps it up to high speeds when I stroll through a Ricochet zone or a community 802.11b hot spot? Never? The Jetsons promised me way much more than this. Come on -- chop, chop -- make it happen.

Re:so when

[MooseGuy529]

That is a good idea but consider this:

Which does a service provider make more money on?

1. A phone that can use other networks like 802.11b, Bluetooth, etc... which won't earn them money, or...
2. A phone that *always* uses their network and as such will *always* earn them money for your traffic.

Personally, I agree with your point but I know myself that #2 will probably happen. I would love a PDA, especially, that can roam between Wired Ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11b, GPRS, CDPD, etc... to get the best connection. But it's just not in the best interest of the service providers. Oh well.

Re:so when

[Ford Fulkerson]

Which does a service provider make more money on?

How is this relevant, Sony/Ericsson is a mobile phone manufacturer. They don't provide the network access. All theyr'e interested in is makeing a modem that you'll rather but than whatever Nokia is shipping. Putting this kind of functionality into the modem will definetely make that happen.

Also, I know for a fact that Ericsson have done a lot of reseash into mobile phones that automatically use normal digital DECT wireless phone networks available in many workplaces, when available. So no conspiracy with the service providers here.

Re:so when

[dago]

maybe ericsson is also a big mobile network equipment supplier ?

for the DECT+GSM, they were one of the few (with SAGEM) to make a dual standard phone. Unfortunately, both discontinued their product some years ago.

in fact, DECT could be far worse for mobile phone operators than 802.11. It's quite easy to make an ad-hoc network of dect phones ... do you really thing that any supplier or service provider wants that ?

Barrier in Europe: Cost

[Denito]

Thoughts from a GPRS user:

I have a Handspring Treo phone here in Denmark, and it works great with GPRS. However, the cost (around 20c US / Mb) adds up quickly..

Coverage is fine and it is very usefull. But untill providers give unlimited use plans, this is very cost-prohibitive.

Who wouldn't

[EyesWideOpen]

The manufacturer also runs a contest for those who would rather get one for free.

Who wouldn't rather get one for free?

bandwidth

[asv108]

With At&T, I pay $5 for every 2 megs of bandwidth used. If I buy this card, it would cost me $15 just to download all the porn spam I get every morning. Unless the bandwidth costs get reasonable, I won't buy it. What happens if I accidently click on a goatse link? Can I send someone an invoice?

Why arn't we using Bluetooth

[The Evil Twin]

So I've been reading about how in the UK everyone is using bluetooth enabled devices. This device becomes a perfect example of a "why do we need this?" product.

The way things should be:
- Most notebooks come with bluetooth.
- you have a Bluetooth enabled GPRS phone.

Done.. there is your internet connection.
Intead, for us stuck here in North America. We get CDMA, and no bluetooth to speak of (except as an option on some high end notebooks). Sure we can buy an adapter for the notebook. But no phones.

Wonder if it's really Windows-only

[Des Herriott]

If it's like other PCMCIA GPRS cards I've encountered, it might work under Linux/BSD/etc. - simply appearing as a serial device to which you send AT commands (and thus available to run pppd on).

The Windows-only sticker may just refer to some cutesy control centre applet which will (obviously) only run on Windows. Every modem needs its own control centre on Windows these days, it seems.

Anonymous Surfing?

[SealBeater]

This is interesting. According to the article, you can swap out the SIM card on the modem. Two immediate options occured to me. One, cell phone theft is a problem in Europe. This can lead to people swiping a cell phone, grabbing the SIM card and doing whatever needs to be done anonymously via the Internet. I'm sure everyone can use their imagination. Second, and perhaps more interesting, there are various services that will purchase or provide SIM cards that are (more or less) anonymous, so you can make phone calls that are not traceable to you. These pre-paid SIM cards are rechargable. This could be a help if you had one in a climate where you needed to make sure something you posted on the web, for example, would be far more difficult to trace. Very exciting. Brave new world.

SealBeater

Re:Anonymous Surfing?

[gl4ss]

you could always do this.. of course you can switch the sim card on the modem, how else were you going to get your sim card in it? and being what it is(basically a gprs phone without phone look options). and this is hardly the first one of these to hit the market even, several solutions exist yet, but they dont do triband afaik like this.

provider/phonenumber locking per phone is medieval, something you hear horrorstories from nmt days.

and gprs doesnt do anything 'new' to this, not in this modem or anything. you could always use the 'data' mode of the gsm phone to post things with these. for hmm, 9 years already?

and as somebody mentioned, very few of these precharged providers provide gprs, but that is non issue anyways as long they provide some way to make data calls.

they could use the wap/gprs-modem portions of the phone itself even if the sim card was epoxied in every phone.

Re:One more thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

900 MHz is also European GSM range. They cannot be easily tapped with cheap equipment.

Also note, when they are talking about triband, they mean 900/1800/1900 MHz, GSM only.

Nokia Cardphone

[Psychic Burrito]

Also, compare it to the Nokia Cardphone. Works with Linux, too :-)

It has happend if you buy Nokia

[chrestomanci]

Check out the D211
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,4879,1449,00.ht ml

It is a wireless PCMCIA conectivity card, which supports both GPRS and 802.11b

There are even linux drivers avalabe to to download. (I don't know if they work)

It has been out for a couple of months.

The main downside is that it only supports dual band opperation, so I guess american readers are out of luck.

The other downside is that switching between GPRS and 802.11 is not automatic, though you could probably put together a script to make it so.

I dare say it is rather expensive as well.

Not so new...

[sheriff_p]

Turns out with my T68, Bluetooth dongle, and iBook, I already have a tri-band GRPS phone that works with a stable operating system...

It won't fly in europe.

[alecbrown]

They keep coming out with this cool technology but price it out of reach. My T39 Ericsson mobile phone has been able to connect via GPRS and my laptop's IrDA port for a year now, never done it though because my network providers (O2) costs is extortionate in my opinion, I stick to GSM dialup at 9600 bps to download my email when I am on the move. These mobile telcos shoot themselves in the foot.

Three years ago they were pushing WAP hard but then made it expensive to use, so no-one used it in Europe and all the techie press (including slashdot) said it was a dead and cr@p because of the small form factor, where are the WAP sites now? Slashdot's WAP site seems to have gone (eh Taco?). In South Korea they made WAP and GPRS affordable, and everyone used it, there are lots of sites and both technologies are considered a success.

The really strange technology success (for the telcos) is txting, they thought no-one would be interested so they bundled it as a cheap feature, and everyone used it. If they make GPRS cheap and put useful things on WAP (such as TV guides) then everyone will use it.

£rd generation mobile technologies will also fail unless these telcos learn this painful lesson.

Ummm...

[rcs1000]

All European cell-phones have removable SIM cards. Many, although most users don't realise it, have built in modems.

The Nokia 7xxx and 8xxx, plus the Ericsson R520, T28 and T68. By using either IR or Bluetooth, you can attach these phones to a laptop, and can then use an anonymous Internet account (like Freeserve in the UK.)

Indeed, I have been using this method (except for the Freeserve bit) for about four years now to access the web when I am travelling. It's not quick, but it's super useful.

Contrary to this posters' opinion, most criminals won't use stolen cell phones for Internet access. It's slow and clunky, and there are still ways to find who posted the hypothetical email message...

(1) Trace email message to ISP.
(2) Dredge ISP log to find phone number and time, duration of call.
(3) Contact cell phone company that carried the call, discover IMEI number of the cell-phone.

Now if anyone uses that cell phone again... you will know. You can track which cell they are in, etc. Complicated, but theoretically possible to catch the person you want.

Thx,

Robert

Re:One more thing...

[radish]

This is GSM, it's encrypted. It's crackable in reasonable time, but it's certainly not "easily tapped with cheap equipment". This is nothing new, remember GSM has been around for years. I have never heard of anyone tapping GSM transmissions (publically anyway), whilst it used to be common place with *shudder* analogue cellphones.

Re:Always on?

[Ilgaz]

You pay for bytes on GPRS, not being online. Just like some of those corparate lines.