[Bruck]

I want to take my laptop, and using bluetooth, go online. Periord end of story.

1) How fast will the connection be?
2) What cell phone companies offer a plan intended for this?
3) If none do... then i guess i just pay by the min for regular cell phone time and AT&T wouldnt even know i was using it for data.


So how do I setup my laptop to make an internet dial-up connection using my laptop?

Can I use this phone?

Nokia 6310i
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/6310i

[parsec_kadets]

Ok, last question first. Yes, that phone will work. If you're still shopping around, any phone that supports GPRS and/or EDGE will allow you to connect to the internet. I know AT&T, T-Mobile, and Cingular all support GPRS; there might be others too, I'm not sure. AT&T is the only one to support EDGE right now, but I'm pretty sure T-Mobile and Cingular are soon to follow.

Now to your first questions.

1: If you use GPRS your connection will be about the same as normal dial-up (when compared to using a land line). This is faster than just using your phone to dial your normal ISP. EDGE is faster that that, but I'm not exactly sure how fast it is. Don't expect anything like 1/4Mb though.

2: Just about all of the providers have data plans. All you need to do is get a phone that supports the data protocol your provider uses and you can connect to your Mac (either through Ir or BlueTooth). However, T-Mobile probably has the best deal going right now. They have a limited data service that is FREE. It's included in all of their normal plans. However, all you will be able to do is browse the web and check e-mail. Just about everything else is blocked. I'm not familiar with the data plans other providers offer, but you can check them out on their own websites.

Finally, a great resource for all things related to cell phones is www.howardforums.com. Go look around there if you have any more questions. And don't worry, there are plenty of Mac users there too.

[mittewil]

I currently have 2 bluetooth enabled phones that work fine for me. The First one is a Sony-Ericsson T608(CDMA) from Sprint PCS and the second one is a Sony-Ericsson T616(GSM/GRPS) from ATTWS. The average speed seems to be around 4.2k/s to 5.8k/s on both devices. The T616 is a better looking device and has more features than the T608. I know both company's have data plan's but best to take a look at there web sites since the plan's and prices change so often. The setup is easy but since my laptop is currently at Apple I don't have access to the config settings but there are quite a few web sites that have them on the net.

[Ryan1524]

lol, parsec_kadets beat me to it. yea, i suggest you go to Howardforums.com
the people there are very friendly and willing to help. but please do use the search button first. most likely it might have already been discussed, but if you ahve difficulty finding it, just ask.


to answer your question somewhat, there are two ways to use mobile internet with your cellphone, it can act as a regular dial-up modem, or as a GPRS portal. for the latter, you'll have to ask your provider about it and also if the gateway they have assigned to your account can access the 'real' web or the HTML sites, as opposed to only WAP sites/WML pages.

[mittewil]

If u need dial-up access(phone dialing a remote modem) don't pick ATTWS or Sprint PCS since neither of them support this service as far as I can tell. They do both support geting a mobile ip session onto there data networks which works fine for most ip services including ipsec vpn connections.