Copyright ©1997-2008 Glenn Fleishman except as noted otherwise. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact Glenn Fleishman at glenn at glennf.com. Photo © 2008 Laurence Chen; used with permission.
Copyright ©1997-2008 Glenn Fleishman except as noted otherwise. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact Glenn Fleishman at glenn at glennf.com. Photo © 2008 Laurence Chen; used with permission.
Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo
� French Customer Service? | Main | Rheingold requires constant opinions �I broke down and switched my cell phone service from Verizon to Cingular last week. Why? Many, many reasons, incuding rollover minutes (instead of expire-at-the-end-of-the-month minutes), support for the Sony Ericsson T68i phone (more on that in a second), and GSM/GPRS-based service. The new plan with more features, minutes, etc., will cost me substantiall less than my Verizon plan, too.
But here's where it gets interested. I signed up for just the $4/month Wireless Internet package which adds GSM service to my phone. The T68i handles Bluetooth, as does my iBook with the addition of a $50 D-Link USB adapter. Because Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar handles Bluetooth with ease as another networking flavor, I can make data calls from my Mac over the phone.
True, it's at just 9600 bps -- I could pay a lot more for GPRS and get better downstream speeds -- but that's good enough for email and text Web access. The funny part is this: I'm in a hotel in Palo Alto right now avoiding their $2/call charges or whatever they charge (there's no card here at Rickey's, a Hyatt property explaining it, but I paid $2 per call from my Westin room last week in Santa Clara).
The chain of connections is: iBook -> Bluetooth adapter -> Bluetooth phone -> GSM network -> modem somewhere in a GSM equipment office (yes, an actual modem!) -> Earthlink network. In the case of GPRS, the cell company is the ISP, too; with GSM, you dial a modem by proxy. Whatever. It works, and, so far as I can tell, the time is coming out of my 3000 minute a month of weekend/evening time.
Posted by Glennf at December 8, 2002 11:32 PM
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We won't have to wait much longer for the T-608. Looks like June 03 is the month! tap, tap, tap
Posted by: Zedneck at June 4, 2003 8:02 AM
Ned: I too am eagerly awaiting any Bluetooth phone for Sprint PCS, Sony Ericsson T608 or otherwise. Unfortunately I just called my local Sprint store and the rep there told me there won't be any Bluetooth phones available for Sprint PCS until 2004! I've been very happy with their service for the past several years but I may have to switch just to get Bluetooth. My Mac Powerbook and PAlm Tungsten need that wireless action! : )
Posted by: Lance C McGannon at December 19, 2002 4:02 PM
Ned: Yes, Ricky's is a Hyatt. I had a great stay. Huge rooms, and perfectly nice staff. Parking. You know, the lot. No in-room Internet.
Steve: GSM and Bluetooth have their own security issues that I haven't jumped into. Go to my 80211b.weblogger.com site and click the Wireless Insecurity link under Articles on the left, and follow the link to the National Institute of Standards and Technology paper on wireless security at the bottom. The NIST paper talks about Wi-Fi, but also Bluetooth and GSM.
Posted by: Glenn Fleishman at December 11, 2002 1:05 PM
Is Rickey's back to being a Hyatt property? A couple of years ago they were asked to remove their Hyatt badging because the place "didn't reflect Hyatt standards." In any case, I'm just waiting for the rumored Sony Ericsson T608 on Sprint PCS so that I can get in on some of this Bluetooth action myself.
Posted by: Ned Holbrook at December 11, 2002 10:24 AM
You have mentioned security issues concerning cleartext passwords and other sensitive information being transmitted over 802.11b in your Wi-Fi blog.
Are there any such issues with GSM and/or Bluetooth in the setup you describe above?
Posted by: Steve Tasher at December 10, 2002 10:02 PM
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