I was without broadband at home this weekend, because my local cable TV monopoly does not understand the concept of customer service. My Treo 600 saved the day (and the weekend), giving me 3x better than dial-up speeds, and I didn't have to buy any more software nor hardware than what came out of the box! That's remarkable attention to utility from PalmOne!
Something, probably a summer thunderstorm, had taken out the cable modem service. And the cable company repair people were out having a good weekend while I was disconnected from the world. < sniff >
I had just upgraded from a Treo 300 cell phone/PDA combination gadget from Sprint PCS, to its newer sibling, the Treo 600. My Treo 300 had bad battery life and did weird things whenever it had bad signal reception (like freezing and oftentimes requiring a soft reset before dialing out). I was fed up with my Treo 300.
The Treo 600 was slimmer, had a brighter LCD, more colors, more RAM, and a built-in digital camera. That and I had some extra cash in the form of my tax refund check. :-)
So in my time of need (remember, no cable modem) I used my Treo 600 as a USB modem. I dialed ##TETHERED (##83843733), hooked up the USB hotsync cable to my Linux router, set up a PPP dial-up connection from router to cell phone, and Shazam!, I was back online. And the connection speed wasn't half bad! I got three times better than I would have gotten with landline dial-up.
The only drawback was that the standard Palm hotsync cable does not charge the phone, so I was limited to 3.5 hour connection time maximum (which still isn't bad!). But there are charging hotsync cables, I just need to get one. Then I can power my cell from my Linux router's USB ports and stay online indefinitely. It's a good thing Sprint PCS has unlimited Internet access.
I recently found out it is possible to use the same setup with Mac OS X. Now I can head out to the beach with my cell, my PowerBook, and an extra laptop battery, and geek out Carribean style. :-)
Posted by pjcabrera at June 29, 2004 12:56 PM | TrackBack