Twelve Black Code Monkeys

One thing that you can use many digital cell phones for (not just Smartphones like the Treo 650) is as a modem for your computer. So you can travel around with your laptop and establish a connection anywhere you have a data signal - even in a moving train or car. I actually tried this out first way back about four years ago when I managed to get my old Motorola P280 to connect with a free ISP and connected it via it’s infrared port to my Sony Clie. I remember reading some email trying to browse the web a bit before it crashed. I only tried this a few times because back then the applications were just not very robust and even if they were, the speeds I was getting were glacial.

I never did try this with my Treo 600. I was perfectly happy to have a phone that could do many of the things I use the internet for. Plus I would have had to buy a cable or at least an additional piece of software.

One of the big things I kept hearing about when the Treo 650 first came out was the fact that Dial-Up Networking, or “DUN” (which basically means using your phone as a modem for your computer) was crippled for the Sprint (and later Cingular) versions of the phone. Specifically, you couldn’t use Bluetooth to connect your phone to your laptop. You could still get a cable or perhaps even do infrared, but infrared requires your phone’s infrared port is facing the computer’s, and it’s very easy for this connection to be broken if one moves slightly out of place. A cable of course means extra money, possibly software which costs yet more. Bluetooth is a wireless technology that allows the phone to communicate with the computer from up to 30 feet away. You do, however, need to buy a Bluetooth device for your computer in most instances. I bought one made by Belkin that slips into a USB port on my laptop. They can be had for $10-20 if you look around.

Of course, despite buying an unlocked version of the Treo 650 which didn’t have the limitations of the branded models, I still just never got around to getting DUN working on my phone. So, this weekend I got motivated for some reason and I set about trying to get this working and while I consider myself pretty technical, it really took me way longer than it should have. PalmOne provides a document that will get you started, but you still need information specific to your wireless carrier. In my case it was Tmobile. Specifically you need to know their APN (Access Point Number). For Tmobile in the U.S. it is internet2.voicestream.com. Voicestream used to be Tmobile’s name before they changed it about 3 years ago. Even after configuring everything precisely, I kept getting these vague error messages. Finally, I changed or reset something and at least it was trying to dial, but would tell me there was a hardware failure. I also had issues with comm Ports on my laptop, but eventually got that taken care of. After hitting my head against the wall for a while longer I finally posted a message to a TreoCentral.com forum asking for advice, and a response made me go back and check to make sure my APN was set correctly. Of course there was a typo! I had written “voicestram” instead of “voicestream.” I’m sure many of you techies have experienced this same sort of thing either with your software or hardware configurations: after struggling for hours on something that just doesn’t want to work, finally something occurs to you and you realize that there’s this really simple stupid thing that you’ve gotten wrong. It’s usually something very basic - enough to make you feel like an idiot!

In any case, I finally got it working and the speed did not seem all that bad, although I only used it to load up a couple of web pages. The one thing that concerns me a little is that when I spoke to Tmobile (when getting the proper APN), they told me that when I use this type of connection it counts as a call, not as data. This is a bit problematic in that I have an unlimited data package so I’m used to being able to pick up email, browse the web, etc., whenever I want. I have unlimited calling on nights and weekends, but during peak hours, I really have to watch my minutes. Recently we’ve been going over by a bit, which has resulted in some painful bills!

DUN is great when you really want to see and use the web in all its glory. It’s great to have a hand-held device where you can go check a web page from anywhere and not be encumbered by an actual computer, but there are also times when you really want to spend lots of time reading blogs, doing research, etc., and while you might have to use some minutes from your cell phone plan to use DUN, you also avoid having to pay for Wifi access. Wifi access can be very cheap, of course, or even free - I was getting all of this working this weekend from a Panera, which offers free Wifi at many of their locations - but it doesn’t come even close to how ubiquitous cell phone signals are. I could use DUN in the middle of a lake, or on a moving train, as I said. It can take a while to get set up properly, especially if you make dumb mistakes like me, but it really can be a very nice option for internet connectivity if you don’t mind the relatively slow speeds of 1-2 times that of a 56K modem…