[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Pair the BlackBerry with your handset:

Don’t leave yet for Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard, unlike with the other two operating systems! Here comes the tricky part especially important with BlackBerries. For the new modem records just created in the initial modem list under the Modem tab of Phone and Modem Options, we need to define the init string. To do this, select the just-added record and click Properties:

There, go to the Advanced tab and enter the init string of the form

+CGDCONT=1,"IP","your APN"

where your APN is dependent on your wireless operator. In the following case, it’s "Internet" (that of T-Mobile):

Now, go to Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard and set up your connection as usual, as is already explained in the second half of section 1.1.2.1.1. Everything needs to be done as is explained there.

1.1.3 Wi-Fi

There may be cases you will want to prefer connecting via Wi-Fi to your smart phone to be used as a modem. Some of these are as follows:

-	you want to prefer a cable-less solution because, for example, cables make using your gear awkward. This is a very common case with UMPC’s and tablet PC’s. With them, a USB cable make mobility much harder.

-	your notebook (or any other Wi-Fi capable client) doesn’t have Bluetooth (or, for that matter, USB), ruling out all the other connection methods. Currently, with recent notebook models, this happens much more frequently than the lack of Wi-Fi.

-	Bluetooth is plain slow for the line speed of your modem. This may be the case even with UMTS (see my benchmarks with the HTC Universal), let alone HSDPA, where, using current gear (very fast modems like the Nokia N95) and currently attainable line speeds (about 2000-2500 kbps for an extended time), the difference can be three- or four-fold.

Unfortunately, none of the mobile operating systems support Wi-Fi tethering connections out of the box. However, nothing is lost! There’re several solutions for both Symbian and Windows Mobile that do what you want; some even free. In the following, I explain all these solutions.

Another note: In addition to the differences (that is, except for the possible power usage issues, advantages), the Wi-Fi approach has another very important advantage over the traditional ones: it allows for more than one clients connecting. All the reviewed Wi-Fi sharing applications support the connection of at least five notebooks (clients) over Wi-Fi. This also means that, except for the somewhat weaker security (some of these apps only support WEP, not more advanced encryption forms) and the need for using ad-hoc connections and not the traditional Access Point mode, they can fully replace the currently still very expensive (around 150-200 euros / dollars at least) 3G hardware routers like the $699+ (!) Proxicast's LAN-Cell 2 3G Cellular Router, the TDT Router Series, the D-Link 3G Mobile Router DIR-451, the Vodafone / Linksys / Cisco Systems' 3G / UMTS Router and the 2N(R) OfficeRoute for UMTS network. These Wi-Fi sharing apps can almost entirely make the (expensive) hardware routers unnecessary - all you need is a 3+G phone and a sharing app, and your mobile office, all your co-workers, is ready to have 3G access over 3+G.

First, I quickly explain how you can access your phones from Windows XP SP2+ as this info applies to all the available mobile phones and Wi-Fi applications running on them.

When you start a Wi-Fi server on your phone, it’ll create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. (Except for the free ICS Control on Windows Mobile, where this needs to be manually created.) Note: traditional Access Point-based networking doesn’t seem to work, even when some of the internet connection sharing apps do offer the ability to switch to Access Point mode. For example, in the Symbian (but not the Windows Mobile) version of WalkingHotSpot, you can, theoretically, switch to the other mode. However, it just won’t work.

To access these networks, on the notebook, all you need to do is going to Start / Settings / Network Connections / Wireless Network Connection and, probably after clicking "Refresh network list" in the upper left corner, highlight the mobile phone you’d like to connect to and, then, press Connect in the lower right corner:

That’s all you need to do on the notebook side. Fortunately, with third-party apps, setting up the Wi-Fi network sharing on mobile phones are also very easy. Basically, the default settings will just do with all of them (unless you want to protect your share with a WEP key or want to change the name of your ad-hoc network): after invocation, you just press the "Start" or "Connect" button and you’re set – the ad-hoc network is started and your only task is finding it inside Wireless Network Connection on the desktop (see the previous screenshot) and just connecting to it by clicking Connect – again, as has already been explained above.

You may also want to ask whether using Wi-Fi results in a much worse battery life. On the modem side, it’s, unfortunately, true – both Windows Mobile and Symbian* platforms suffer from major battery life degradation if you opt for using Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. I’ll show you a lot of real-world benchmarks later showing this.

*: I don’t know of similar Wi-Fi apps for BlackBerry and the current BB’s are all 2.75G – non-3+G – only, meaning Wi-Fi would be pretty much an overkill for them as the (theoretically) maximum attainable speed of non-EDR Bluetooth, 723 kbps, is well enough as it’s still far higher than the ~200 kbps practical maximum speed of the 2.75G EDGE. This is why BlackBerries are not discussed in here.

On the desktop / notebook side, the difference isn’t so pronounced. For example, with the HP TC1100 Tablet PC, there’s little difference in power usage between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-based access (assuming the latter doesn’t recharge the battery of the smartphone because, for example, it’s unable to – the case with the Nokia N95). That is, never ever think Wi-Fi equals much higher power consumption and much shorter laptop / notebook battery life. It’s simply not (always) true. In some of my measurements, Bluetooth DUN and PAN have even turned out to consume more power than Wi-Fi.

You may also want to ask how commonly used USB HSDPA modems like the Huawei E220 compare to wireless solutions as, as opposed to the wireless (cable-less) solution, it’s only the notebook battery that these modems draw the juice from. I’ve also made some thorough benchmarks (again, with the TC1100 and the Huawei E220 with the latest firmware) and found out that, on the whole, it resulted in an additional 1W of power consumption when continuously operating in HSDPA mode (and downloading a huge file) and 0.5W when idling, compared to the (on the whole, pretty much equal) Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth DUN / PAN figures. Compared to using a non-powered USB setup (benchmarked with the Nokia N95 acting as a USB HSDPA modem and disabled Wi-Fi / BT wireless on the tablet), the power usage difference was about 2 Watts while in transfer and about 1W when idling. Frankly, I expected considerably worse figures. Still, with a battery-friendly notebook (one that is continuously under 10W) – that is, at least a Pentium M / Centrino with low CPU load and not very high backlight level -, even these two Watts can mean as high as 20% battery life difference!

1.1.3.1 Windows Mobile

There are three alternatives for Windows Mobile: WalkingHotSpot (WHS), WMWifiRouter and ICS Control.

1.1.3.1.1 WalkingHotSpot (WHS)

WalkingHotSpot, which is already well-known on Symbian, is pretty much welcome on Windows Mobile. Apart from some (minor) differences like animation (which I find pretty much counter-productive, as it pretty much slows down navigating menus – the WHS folks promise a solution to the problem) and the lack of being able to make the server work in Access Point mode (which is pretty much redundant on Symbian as it just doesn’t work), the Windows Mobile version is exactly the same as on Symbian: you just start it, press Start and can already connect to it from up to four client devices. (Note that I've tested a non-public alpha version of the forthcoming, HTC Universal-compatible version 1.5. The currently available, at the time of writing, older WinMo version may be different from what I explain.)