Connecting a mobile to a laptop - what phone?

jister

Hi all,

Following on from this thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054883087

I want to purchase a phone so that I can surf using a laptop. At the moment I am 086 but an 087 ready to go would be ok.

Basically I am looking for a phone that is data compatible, and has HSD/HSCD.

IR, cable connection or bluetooth to the laptop is fine, although I don't know if my laptop is IR compatible as it is bluetooth.

I want to be charged for time on the phone line rather than data transferred. If my sums are correct 10 minutes on the net will cost me €10 using data transfer charges.

Can abybody advise anything?

Sam Vimes

the 6101 has hscsd and IR but a cable would be better. but i'm fairly confident that all the networks charge per kilobyte rather than time so you're out of luck there

jister

€219 for the phone sounds a bit high. If they are all charged on data transfer only and not time then I might be in trouble. €1 per minute is way too much.

hobie

I connected my Moto E770v thru bluetooth to my pc .... speed was 9.6 Kbps which is desperately slow and on RTG it cost me a small fortune .....

it was nice to see it worked and it might be possible to up the speed? ....... anyone know if it's possible to up the speed to say 40K? (which would be tolerable for simple web use) ....

swalsh

Internet time used via mobile phones are charged only by data download afaik, this is def. on vodafone

Random

Get a Nokia 3120 for €59 and a DKU-2 (I'm 99% sure that's the right cable for it!) for €35 (cheaper online no doubt!) and install the Nokia suite on your laptop.

I'm sure that would work ?


And your data charges will be per KB on GPRS unless you're using GSM WAP which is supported by phones such as the Nokia 1101 (though, you'll have fun trying to get a cable for that I'm sure).

hobie

Internet time used via mobile phones are charged only by data download afaik, this is def. on vodafone

Maybe it was just the way I was connected but I was definetely being charged by the minute on my Voda RTG phone ....

My Pc was simply using the Mob as a modem (via bluetooth) and using it to dial a regular dial-up ISP telephone number ....

wonder what I should have been doing to just pay for data ....

jister

I've received 1.3MB in the last 4 minutes, so at 1c/kb which I saw on the O2 site it would already have cost me €13.

Random

no it wouldn't jister.

1c per KB.

There's 1024KB in a MB. so 1.3MB = 1024*1.3 = 1331.2 = €13.32 or something ... that 24KB is pretty important when it's coming outta your credit !

rogue-entity

Mobile phones today have 4 ways of connecting to the net, but not all networks support all these methods.

M1) CSD (dialup over GSM). Maximum speed 9.6Kb (14.4Kb on O2 bill pay).
Charged by time online at about 6c/min offpeak/weekends.

M2) GPRS: Speed varies according to proximity to mast and number of "timeslots" available. On O2 the fastest I was able to get was 115.2Kb, it may be different on other networks.

M3) EDGE (High-Speed GPRS, Low End 3G spec). From what I have read, its theoretical maximum is 384Kb which is within the low end of the 3G speed ranges. AFAIK only Meteor will be investing in this as they have no UMTS licence. Prices will probably be the same for standard GPRS

M4) 3G/UMTS. Only available (for Internet access) from Voda and O2. Theoretical maximum speed is 1.2Mb. I dont know how much voda charges, and only voda at the moment are providing this to RTG customers, O2s I believe is strictly for business users with there 3G datacards, but I have heard of a few people being able to connect to the 3G network with 3G phones and O2 SIMs.

Tom Dunne

rogue-entity wrote:

M1) CSD (dialup over GSM). Maximum speed 9.6Kb (14.4Kb on O2 bill pay).
Charged by time online at about 6c/min offpeak/weekends.

Vodafone offer a couple of slots banded together to give 43kbps. See here for more details. Charged at a standard GSM call rate, irrespective of the amount of data transferred. You are charged only for the time connected.

jister

tom dunne wrote:

Vodafone offer a couple of slots banded together to give 43kbps. See here for more details. Charged at a standard GSM call rate, irrespective of the amount of data transferred. You are charged only for the time connected.

Thanks guys, this seems to be exactly what I want, so is there a ready to go phone that will do this (which one?) or do I need to switch back to Vodafone billpay from O2, I think my O2 contract will be up soon.

Yerac

I'd be very interested to see any results from this as I'm currently looking for a solution myself.

Can I just check something that has been said, that you can actually connect to an ordinary ISP for a standard call price (albeit painfully slow). So assuming I get hooked up correctly with equipment I can just setup to dial say IOL,eircom etc and be billed for the number of minutes it takes me to upload files?

Tom Dunne

You can surely.

However, I believe Vodafone and O2 have (or at least had) their own ISP number, so that you could use them instead (at no extra cost, apart from the telephone number).

Bear in mind it's been a year or two since I looked at this stuff, so this information may be out of date.

hobie

Can I just check something that has been said, that you can actually connect to an ordinary ISP for a standard call price (albeit painfully slow). So assuming I get hooked up correctly with equipment I can just setup to dial say IOL,eircom etc and be billed for the number of minutes it takes me to upload files?

That's what I did ... simply put in the dialup no of eircom and password and off I went into the cyber world ..... all-be-it at 9.6kbps

If you can get something like 40kbps as mentioned above you will have a very viable connection as long as your not downloading massive files, videos, games etc ....

Yerac

Cheers for the info.

Yerac

Just an add-on to this, Vodafone told me today that High Speed Data was only available to post-paid customers and not Ready to Go.

(Sorry mis-typed originally)

jister

Yerac wrote:

Just an add-on to this, Vodafone told me today that High Speed Data was only available to pre-paid customers and not Ready to Go.

I think I am going to go back to Vodafone when my O2 contract is up and get the correct phone to do this. I'm not sure when I will get around it but I think my 12 months with 02 is up in the next couple of months.

Ham Ahoy!

I have SonyEricsson V800, with IR, bluetooth AND a data cable. It's a 3G vodafone, and it's about e170-270, not sure. If you need data storage on the go, I recommend a memory stick or flash drive, though.

also, most laptops can recieve and send via bluetooth, but only receive through IR.

Tom Dunne

Ham Ahoy! wrote:

also, most laptops can recieve and send via bluetooth, but only receive through IR.

That is utter nonsense.

Bluetooth is built in to approx. 2% of laptops, the other 98% need a dongle of some form.

IR is two way, except, of course, for remote controls for TVs/vcrs/DVD players.

Ham Ahoy!

all the laptops i've ever connected my phone two were HP Pavillions, so I guess my knowledge on the subject is limited.

jister

Just to update,

I borrowed a friends bluetooth phone and I was able to connect using dialup at an unimpressive 9.6KBs. It took a while to download stuff but got there eventually.

There's one thing though, according to this page you can achieve 14.4KBs, so how come I can only get 9.6?

hobie

I was able to connect using dialup at an unimpressive 9.6KBs

oh memories ....

will I ever forget ...

Tom Dunne

jister wrote:

There's one thing though, according to this page you can achieve 14.4KBs, so how come I can only get 9.6?

You have to be on Vodafone bill-pay. You also have to activate the HSD feature on your account. And finally, your phone has to have HSD capability.

jister

tom dunne wrote:

You have to be on Vodafone bill-pay. You also have to activate the HSD feature on your account. And finally, your phone has to have HSD capability.

Is that not to receive the 43.2kB or do I need to get the HSD feature activated to get the 14.4kB as well ?

The phone I tested was the Nokia 6822 which has bluetooth and HSD, it was also a billpay phone but the HSD feature had not been enabled.

Thanks for the help anyway, I am almost there now, which is:) a lot better than paying for data transfer.

Tom Dunne

jister wrote:

Is that not to receive the 43.2kB or do I need to get the HSD feature activated to get the 14.4kB as well ?

Sorry, it is to get 43.2k.

9.6 is the bog standard transfer rate - I am not so sure you can get 14.4, I believe it is either 9.6 or 43k, nothing in the middle, AFAIR.

You can get 14.4 on O2 - that's the fastes HSD they offer.

jister

I got switched over to Vodafone yesterday (billpay package with 200 minutes €49/month) and then contacted them to set up the high speed, they sent me on an email with some instructions and codes etc. that I needed to set it up. It took a bit of messing but after about 20 minutes I had it all figured out.

The first time I connected I only gor 14.4kBs, the second time 38.4 and another time I got 28.8., it seems to be a bit hit and miss, I have never got 43.2 yet!

Here's what the best bit will hopefully be. The instructions included an 087 mobile number that i use for dialup, rather than the usual eircom dialup number. If I can set this up as phone a friend for free then I get 100 minutes a month free internet access! But for €69 a month I can switch to the 400 minutes a month package and get unlimited phone a friend minutes which looks like it will be unlimited free internet access over the mobile.

If this works out I will nearly consider getting rid of my landline altogether, I could have wireless internet around the house (and anywhere in the country) without broadband!