[Networking] telegurus:
Mobile computing can be achieved at most 30% by PDA phones due to the limitations on input, display, applications, memory and CPU speed. How do we get Internet for our laptop on-the-go, or as a back-up for broadband Internet on the laptop at home for the mobile phone users who have canceled the home phone service? It is reported that 25% of mobile phone users voiced the inclination of abandoning home phone service.

Hotspot service is expensive, sparse and segmented. The Wi-Fi capability on Pocket PC's is still ahead of its time now. Fun to try: T-Mobile HotSpot WiFi at Border's book store - first 24 hours free. I tried it and it is great. $6/hour pay-as-you-go plan or $30/mo plan are basic choices.

T-Mobile's $20/mo unlimited anywhere 40Kbps GPRS Internet pipe is still the primetime bottomline. Now that nights and weekends are free from at least T-Mobile, a 7Kbps CSD (circuit-switched RAS (Remote Access Service) dial-up) connection pipe works economically for a lot of people, e.g., for PDA friendly sites, or as a terminal for controlling remote tasks. Either GPRS or CSD, and for CDC, dial-up to corporate LAN or ISP, it calls for a wireless modem or the Pocket PC centric Internet pass-through capability.

How do we get wireless data connection for the laptop, hopefully via your XDA I? And if we can, what channel do we use for that between the laptop and the XDA I, IrDA or Sync port? For O2 users that are on ROM 3.17 (before 4.0), the answer is easy since there is this wireless modem application:

http://www.sourceo2.com/NR/rdonlyre...5e3iadmr2qr6kna/CTS1299-1+Setup+Xda+Modem.PDF

No luck for the rest.

Look at how many times this question has been asked. I bet that this is the single most frequently asked non-trivial question, THE perennial issue of XDA. Here is a round-up of all the links on this issue:

http://www.xda-developers.com/modem/

http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6085

Other topics (replace the topic number from the above link):

6280, 6263, 6143, 5751, 5580, 4973, 4928, 4783, 4638, 4661, 4601, 4570, 4067, 3950, 3612, 3406, 3291, 3164, 2816, 2795, 2718, 2643, 2383, 2126, 2065, 1954, 1773, 1581, 1430, 1142, 1127, 1081, 973, 915, 904, 596, 487, 119, 108, (Less informative: 6074, 3689, 3303, 3151, 2323, 1683, 1550, 1568, 1011, 717, 608, 578, 291, 186,)

http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=27042

Other topics (replace the topic number from the above link): 29341

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/articleview.php?s=17252daff8ab7bcdcbdf960fe992756f&articleid=5710

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=6663

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=23987

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=12982

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=9195

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=4725

http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f96cc8be8832dc10c6aacc8aea1cfbf&threadid=7515

http://www.pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=fbe61c7d81a966344d591622be1a0d4d&threadid=5067

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23805

Other topics (replace the topic number from the above link): 23287, 20720, 9054, 6825, 6726, 5206, 4727, 3156

I didn't go through more than 20% of them - someone please pick up from where I left off and come up with an in-depth survey. As far as I have seen, here are your options:

Option 1: wait for ActiveSync 4.0 (hopefully with PPC-sentric Internet pass-through) or a commercial package. There is such a commercial solution http://junefabrics.com/ for Treo but they replied my email and said that they don't support XDA. The market is so big, craving for a commercial package. God knows when it comes, or at all. To software vendors, it is a business risk to develop such applications fearing that the capability come native with ActiveSync or WM200X.

Option 2: the original hack, the first xda-developers.com link above. I have yet to try whether or not it works for my XDA phone. If anyone tries it and get it to work, let us all know. I don't see the "substantial negative effects" that substantial as far as my use is concerned. I wonder if we can use the USB sync cable instead of buying or constructing a serial cable.

Option 3: buy an AirCard or a modem-capable phone for your laptop. The Siera 750 card can be purchased from eBay for $70 ($300 from T-mobile). The dilema is, if you get a GPRS data-only plan with a new wireless line number from T-Mobile, it's $30/mo, and your XDA is still not connected! The same plan, if added to your voice plan as an additional feature, is $20/mo. T-Mobile does not make you a cloned SIM. Even if you have a family plan and your other phone is modem-capable, using the other phone for your laptop would not work in the case of T-Mobile US since the feature is added to the wireless line, not your plan! The latter is far more preferable. But with the AirCard solution, you would have to switch the SIM card back and forth - very inconvenient - you could end up losing your SIM. Hardware capability wise, the XDA is an air card and then some. We only need some software code to get it to do what an AirCard does! I have yet to research how to clone my SIM card for the AirCard use. http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=3961 may be a starting point.

Option 4: XDA II, as the last link above suggests. I am not sure how well it works. Can some XDA II users tell us whether or not you can use it for the wireless modem and at the same time run applications like Excel or even Pharos GPS which uses the sync port?

Option 5: the ROMKitchen

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/ROMkitchen

or the "sooo yesterday" Special Edition ROM w/ WModem

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/SpecialEditionROM

Note that in June 2003 at the second link (6663), SwampNut showed us the light at the end of the tunnel but he meant the "XDA Developer Special Edition" of ROM. I am exploring the possiblity of carving the wireless modem out for it to work on XDA without ROM upgrade

http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6442

As of now, ROMKitchen is based on 4.00.05 Microsoft WM2003 test ROM

Wait for the new kitchen that is based on ROM 4.01.16 WM2003 official release plus Radio 6.25.02 (T-Mobile new posting) or higher.

Option 6: T-Mobile WM2003. The version posted mid March is ROM 4.01.16 and Radio 6.25.02 Unfortunately, it does not come with the wmodem application. I am asking people who have upgraded to try the wmodem.zip file in thread http:

http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=27042

The chance that it works is no larger than 50% based on Mad Max's comment on 4.0 series modem in thread: "Wireless Modem are not available under any 4.xx ROM available today" where "today" was Aug 03, Wireless Modem on Special Edition was from O2 ROM 3.x hooking into radio stack but hooks changed under ROM 4.xx:

http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=29341

I may have missed some options buried in the links, but very few.

Most of the talks so far have been focused on using the XDA as a passive modem. I used to use WinGate to share my DSL Internet connection at home back then when routers were pricy. WinGate is software that runs on one PC with two NIC cards, which serves as the Internet gateway. A gateway is a router, a proxy server for Internet. The client machines talk to it over LAN to get Internet. Can an application be developed or ActiveSync be enhanced to mimic what WinGate does, i.e. making XDA an Internet Gateway. This approach makes more sense as XDA II gets WiFi - your laptop would get WiFi speed automatically instead of being stuck in the GPRS/CSD speed. I even went as far as checking with WinGate's US reseller, and the answer is "not yet but in the future plan". (I doubt that it's in their future plan; it's just politically right.) This solution would be nirvana. I wish XDA application developers could crank out something this good, soon!

XDA has the Internet out of the box when you place it on the cradle. ActiveSynch 3.5 is designed to use the PC as the Internet gatway:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnppc2k2/html/ppc_through.asp

The other way doesn't work. ActiveSync is not symmetric yet; it's only PC centric Internet pass-through. The new ActiveSync 3.7.1 doesn't seem to address this major inability:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/downloads/pocketpc/activesync37.mspx

Come on, a Pocket PC is a real computer as Pinoccio is a real boy!