I have a need to transfer some data from a remote location but unfortunately, there is very little communication infrastructure out in the desert. The only thing we have is a GSM tower off in the distance. GSM phones work and have good signal strength so that shouldn’t be an issue.
What I want to do is set up my laptop to do dial-up internet access via a GSM phone link. Ideally, the interface should be as easy to use as possible. We’ll be getting dial-up cards from local ISPs for the connection.
Does anyone know what kind of cards or USB devices are available for this? We’ll be running XP SP2 so there shouldn’t be any huge driver problems.
Many phone providers go out of their way to make this a pain. IF the company is providing you with hardware to facilitate this, following thier instructions will probably be the easiest. I can provide internet via my cell phone but it involves setting up drivers that came with my phone and manually confiiguring a dial up networking connection to some very odd looking settings that are unfortunately specific to my phone provider and would be of little use to you…
Here’s the card that my provider offers. It’s a quad-band GSM card that handles high-speed data and fits into the PCMCIA slot. HSDPA high-speed data is up to 384 kilobits per second; even the older EDGE GPRS data is ~100 kilobits per second.
If all you’re wanting to do is log text messages every few minutes, you might be able to get away with text messaging from a connected regular phone.
You’d have to check with your local GSM providers to see what they have.
Thanks for the info. I’ll see if I can’t get one of those cards. I’m in Saudi as you can see, so things like this aren’t common. I’ll see if Saudi Tel. has any offers for this. I suspect not though. I keep thinking that this should be simpler than it seems to be. It should be just like using dial-up from a desktop except that there is an RF link in the middle. I hadn’t realized that the carrier might deliberately screw this up.