[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Anyone using a WM5 AKU3 Pocket PC Phone Edition (any WM5 device with a newer, even unofficial, “enthusiast” ROM) device as an external modem for his or her desktop computer or notebook* knows the new AKU3, while it indeed has a lot of goodies, has several connectivity-related restrictions, most importantly the lack of infrared connectivity (infrared-based dial-up has been left out from the newly-introduced Internet Sharing utility, as opposed to its predecessor, Modem Link) and the lack of using the Dial-up Networking Bluetooth profile. The latter can be a real pain in the back especially for other Microsoft Bluetooth stack or Mac OS X users. See THIS and THIS for more info on the latter.) I’ve elaborated in my article on AKU3 Networking on all these issues; you may want to read the article in order to get a more elaborate picture of in what AKU3 is different.

*: if you don’t, you may want to consider switching to using them – few “traditional” phones offer EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA capabilities. I’m constantly using the UMTS HTC Universal with my notebook to access the Internet and am absolutely pleased by the high, about 40 kbytes/sec downlink speed.

Mobile Stream’s new application, USB Modem, could also address these issues by both providing the standard BT DUN profile and infrared dial-up capabilities. (Note that it’s a “simple” dial-up app, pretty much like WModem or the standardized, pre-AKU3 Modem Link, with the exception that it’s not compatible with several models.)

Note that USB Modem may not have been at all designed to fix the problems of AKU3. Its sole purpose, according to the blurb, to allow using crippled (ones that don’t have any kind of external modem capabilities) for example Treo 700w PPC Phone Edition devices as modems and to allow for USB / Bluetooth-based access in Mac OS X and Linux (I haven’t tested the latter).

The utility is accessible HERE. It costs $19.95; the trial version allows for 30 connections and / or 14 days.

Compatibility tests

In a word: the current (1.25) version isn’t compatible with either the HTC Universal or the HTC Wizard (both running an AKU3-based operating system with the default Microsoft Bluetooth stack), in neither Bluetooth DUN nor Infrared mode. It does add the DUN profile to the BT profiles offered by the phone when it's active - but that's all, it cannot be actually used (it's like the current state of the Widcomm BT stack hacks on HTC's PPC Phone Edition models - their DUN can't be used for Internet connectivity as has also been pointed out in my related article. Read it for more info / links if interested).

In both (Bluetooth DUN and infrared) modes, Pocket PC clients trying to connect (with the dial-up program active) just display the “No answering modem” error message; with desktop Windows XP clients, error 678. At the same time, with WModem on the HTC Universal (HTC Universal, fortunately, still contains this tool – now, in AKU3, the only one to offer infrared connectivity for external clients), infrared dial-up connections work great. The HTC Wizard, of course, as of AKU3, lacks any kind of infrared dial-up capabilities and, as has already been pointed out, Mobile Stream’s application is of no help.

Verdict

While this application is certainly welcome, in its current form, it’s useless for any HTC Universal and Wizard users. (Actually, as has already been pointed out, it’s highly unlikely it’s been designed to fix the AKU3 shortcomings in mind.)

That is, if you’re a HTC Universal or Wizard user running an AKU3 ROM and would like to have either BT DUN or infrared connectivity (or both), do NOT run to download this version because it will NOT work. I don’t know how it runs on other models; I seriously doubt it works on any AKU3 device out there as it’s recommended for the pre-AKU3 Treo 700w.

I’ll let you know if / when subsequent versions become AKU3-compliant. Then, it’ll become a must; now, you AKU3 users should stay away from it because it doesn’t offer anything to you. (You, however, may still want to test the Linux / Mac OS X support. As has already been pointed out, I haven’t tested these myself.)