Finally... A Usb Modem That Doesent Stick Out

[MDave]

Still too big for my tastes. Looks like I'll be tethering mine to my iphone, somehow.

 

[Falk]

Even if tethering over WiFi or BT is a piece of cake with Windows Mobile devices I probably won't go down that road. It's tedious to charge and carry around a PDA (Sharp EM-ONE) that I wanted to replace with the Pandora and that I won't miss once the Pandora has a reliable and fast internet connection that is always available.

BT tethering would limit me to 700 kbp/s as the PDA supports only the 1.X spec and while that is reasonably fast I'd rather have the full 7.2 / 2 mbp/s available Connecting over WiFi would probably offer full speed, but as it eats even extended batteries alive this method is not practical.

Someone mentioned earlier that normal tethering won't be a problem out of the box and that 3G USB dongle support would be added later on. I don't care at all if the dongle sticks out and really hope that it will find its way into the OS as soon as possible. It'd be a total deal breaker for me if this was amiss as the Pandora is simply too good a web browsing platform that should have had a 3G chip integrated to begin with!

 

[Mr devil45]

so i can use a 360 degree usb modem thingy once its added to os support?
back on topic, i've just realised that usb dongles work on eee pc , so they dont neccesarily need windows.[implification on developers of software] andora2:

 

[Falk]

They don't need it, but emphasis is usually put on Windows and - more and more common these days - Mac OS. Most producers simply do not care all that much for Linux, but that has not stopped people from writing drivers for all the hardware out there. Some Linux distros do an amazing job installing the correct drivers even for exotic configurations and it can't be impossible to support at least some of the 3G sticks on the market... maybe with a generic driver ? Many of the modems seem to use the same base chipset after all.

 

[Mr devil45]

the apex 880 is plug&play,i just found that out.

 

[OrR]

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6473
That's a thread from the german board about an internal GSM/UMTS modem. There are some links that might be interesting:
http://www.roundsolutions.com/gprs-modem/gc864.htm
http://www.roundsolutions.com/uc864.htm


Interesting stuff! Still not a realistic option, though:
-150€ for an UMTS module
-The thing is somewhat huge and probably won't fit into the Pandora (36,2 x 30 x 4.8mm)
-I don't see a sensible way how an average person could connect this, physically and in software. It might not be impossible for someone with technical and programming experience, though.

 

[fahrstuhl]

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6473
That's a thread from the german board about an internal GSM/UMTS modem. There are some links that might be interesting:
http://www.roundsolutions.com/gprs-modem/gc864.htm
http://www.roundsolutions.com/uc864.htm


Interesting stuff! Still not a realistic option, though:
-150€ for an UMTS module
-The thing is somewhat huge and probably won't fit into the Pandora (36,2 x 30 x 4.8mm)
-I don't see a sensible way how an average person could connect this, physically and in software. It might not be impossible for someone with technical and programming experience, though.


In addition someone in the german thread wrote that it would be quite unlikely for the serial connectors on the Pandora board to have a bandwidth of 7.6Mbit/s

 

[Bronek]

In addition someone in the german thread wrote that it would be quite unlikely for the serial connectors on the Pandora board to have a bandwidth of 7.6Mbit/s

USB is serial communication (not everything "serial" is RS-232), and I believe it is capable of transfers well beyond 7.2 Mbps .

 

[OrR]

In this case we are talking about RS-232, though. No idea how fast that is on the Pandora. If it's not fast enough for full 7.6 Mbit, maybe the modem could be slowed down?

 

[riosingh]

i know its possible to use a phone as a wireless modem, but i was planning on using a pandora as a skype phone , so i don't need another thing bouncing around my pockets just to make calls on.

Usb modems tend to be getting more generic by the day,but each cell phone company has their own software..this could mean a pandora mobile internet client,maybe?

This could also work:http://i.expansys.com/i/l/l161860.jpg
the um20 seems good aswell,i'll look into that andora2:

I think to use skype or any VOIP you need wifi, and its already built in to the pandora.

 

[Titcher]

Couldn't people looking for better mounting use something like this:

 

[riosingh]

Couldn't people looking for better mounting use something like this:

Do you think a yard of cable will stick out less than perpendicular a dongle?

 

[Titcher]

Do you think a yard of cable will stick out less than perpendicular a dongle?

There are far smaller cables available, that often come with cheap hubs and stuff, but the point I was trying to make was that with a small extension cable you can attach the dongle anywhere and not have to worry about as much sticking out at the sides.

 

[fahrstuhl]

In this case we are talking about RS-232, though. No idea how fast that is on the Pandora. If it's not fast enough for full 7.6 Mbit, maybe the modem could be slowed down?

UMTS hat in der Tat bis zu 7,2 Mbit
Das versenden eines Bytes per RS232 benötigt soweit ich weiß 11 bits in allem (8 bits + start + stop + parity ).
Man braucht also grob 10 MegaBaud, um eine Übertragung von 7,2 Mbit per RS232 zu realisieren. Hört sehr unrealistisch an.

Translation:
UMTS indeed has a bandwidth of 7.2Mbit/s
Sending a byte via RS232 needs, as far as I know, 11bits (8 bits + start + stop + parity ).
So you would need 10MegaBaud to realise a RS232 connection with 7.2Mbit/s. Sounds very unrealistic.

 

[Falk]

I think to use skype or any VOIP you need wifi, and its already built in to the pandora.

Think again! 3.5G is perfectly fine for VoIP, especially if you are not only using HSDPA but also HSUPA. Some mobile carriers have a rather backwards "do not use internet telephony" policy in place, but luckily few of them actually act on it and block SIP VoIP actively. There's no way to effectively block Skype anyway. Using a 3G dongle for internet telephony makes much more sense than relying on patchy WiFi networks that don't even support proper handover once you leave the coverage area of your hotspot.