Re: Good cell phone to use as modem with Debian? cable? bluetooth?
A. F. Cano wrote:
My old cell phone (an ancient Audiovox CDM-8100) has died. I used it to
connect via ppp, at 14.4k, through an RS-232 cable, to the internet via
Verizon's #777 and qnc login. The cofiguration wasn't easy to set up
but once done, it worked. And yeah, I'm cheap: I don't need verizon's
fast data service at $80 a month.
I used to do this also with a Kyocera phone. Worked well, Verizon used
to just charge minutes for their 14.4k connectivity.
I'll share with you some observations since I've been going through this
process here recently also, changing things around again... some of the
stuff below may be COMPLETELY wrong, but it's my view of everything I've
researched so far...
Today's phones are a totally different breed. There are so many more
options. With a couple of hours of research I've already discoverd
that Verizon's web site is not very accurate about what features are
available in different phones and that they routinely cripple the
firmware so you can't (for instance) use bluetooth to transfer files.
Yes, they cripple a specific feature in Bluetooth on ALL of their
current phones. Buried in their website deep in the data support
section they show that they DO allow Bluetooth tethering to only one
device, and their salespeople tell me that the newer style Blackberry
and the $49.95 data plan for that phone also allows tethering.
People have found ways to turn the Bluetooth profiles back on, but
Verizon started sending letters to "abusers" last week, shutting off
their accounts and charging large fines.
It's not a good time to be a Verizon customer if you want data, because
they've just spent a lot of money on their EV-DO network (theoretical
maximum, 2Mb/s to a single phone on a single tower under perfect
conditions), and they want to recoup the costs. They want everyone to
buy the data cards and the $59 all-you-can-eat plan, but there's catches
with that too... see below.
I started with a careful look at the LG VX8100 and Motorola E815.
Sorry, I haven't looked at these, but www.howardforums.com is another
"interesting" place to start looking for advanced info on just about any
phone these days, including most of the hacks, from what I've found.
I spent the last few days going through the "what's next for my cell
service" searching and researching and yadda yadda. Sounds like you're
doing the same.
Given that these phones have bluetooth, I figured I'd use that to
connect the phone to the laptop instead of having to buy a $50
data cable every time verizon forces me to upgrade or the phone dies
and is no longer available/supported. This might also be useful to
not have to buy a new headset (assuming compatible protocols) with
every phone change.
I know NOTHING about Bluetooth on Linux. I'm planning to find out about
it as soon as I shuffle my T-Mobile data plan over to my new phone
(Motorola RAZR V3).
Right now my T-Mobile data plan is on my Sony/Ericsson GC-79 card, and
it works fine under Linux or Windows. I see they came out with a newer
card, and I think the only difference is 802.11g support??? The
website's contradictory in a couple of places. Linux support/acts like
a modem? Unknown. Which driver to use for the 802.11g? Unknown.
I don't have one of the newer model, and don't plan on getting one, so I
won't be trying it out on Linux.
I also wonder if the newer card is high-speed capable once T-Mobile
rolls that out, which won't be for a while. Fall of 2006 they say.
Cingular also has a number of high-speed cards available, but I haven't
done any Linux homework on them at all, because I decided to use
T-Mobile since I already had an account. I'm also cheap, and like you
-- just want low speed data and an ssh session. ;-) However there are
a couple of places that show how to make their cards work with the usual
odd-ball dialing strings like they're normal modems in Apple PowerBooks.
Search for Apple PowerBook + Cellular data to find those. The
information SHOULD be adaptable to Linux, easily.
So the first question is: is it possible to use the bluetooth
connection to establish a ppp connection between the debian laptop
and these phones? any other phones?
Verizon phones don't have the bluetooth profile necessary to connect a
laptop for data purposes. They want you to buy their high speed data
card.
(They also hide a HUGE number of "not allowed" activities for the high
speed cards in the fine print and can turn even those off for
"excessive" data use. Nice, eh? That one's supremely bad... tell
people that they can get "unlimited" high speed connectivity and then
put limits on it in the fine print. Downloading a CD is reported to be
enough traffic that you'll get "flagged" as an excessive user on their
network, but not a lot of reports of that yet, so take with a grain of
salt.)
My research also shows that Cingular used to allow (well, ignored
really) Bluetooth tethering (as it's called) with their data plan added
onto the phone service, but they're getting more negative toward this.
They appear to be ready to follow in Verizon's footsteps, and start
cracking down, but people ARE tethering on Cingular, and they don't
appear to cripple their phone's Bluetooth like Verizon has been for a
long time now. Having the right data plan to avoid overage charges
appears to be CRITICAL on Cingular's network, also.
T-Mobile and Sprint still appear to completely allow tethering and don't
complain about it as long as you have the appropriate data plan added to
the phone. I discarded Sprint early-on in my search so I don't know the
details for sure on their plans, since their network is very poor here.
T-Mobile also sells their Sony/Ericsson GC79 and one newer model dual
802.11 and GPRS cards, and their network is not yet high-speed. 56K
max. For a fixed rate of $29.95 without a qualifying phone plan, and
$19.95 with one -- it's an awfully easy way to make Linux "just work" on
celluar data... at a slow data rate. With ndiswrapper you can also use
the on-board 802.11 portion of the card, and BOTH are capable of
operating at the same time, leading to some interesting possibilities
with an AD-HOC 802.11b network and routing/NAT'ing to the cellular PPP
connection. I haven't messed around with this, but can't see why it
wouldn't work.
I have one of the GC-79 cards and it works fine under Linux with some
"funky" modem setup strings and standard ppp scripts.
What I'm planning to do is as soon as that contract runs out for that
"line" of service, is moving the data plan to the RAZR (this also lowers
the price, unlimited Internet data plan on T-Mobile with a qualified
voice plan of $39 or greater is only a $19.95 add-on).
The bad news on T-Mobile is that the phone does NOT have the ASN enabled
for IP access if you don't have the all-you-can-eat data plan, at all.
Apparently they send this down when you activate data.
They also (for some dumb reason), completely hid the native e-mail
application Motorola provides on the phone itself that will do POP3 and
IMAP, and instead push you to use their web-based system through the WAP
browser. Dumb. Why do that? Getting the e-mail client back is
supposedly possible via a hack if you're willing to reflash the phone,
remove all the T-Mobile branding and screens and go back to a stock
Motorola flash of code... supposedly. I haven't attempted this, and may
not... we'll see how brave I get.
I have serial ports on both laptops I use (Dell 8600 and IBM thinkpad
600E) so if I have to buy a cable it would be a serial cable, unless
it is preferable/easy/possible to use USB cable with Debian and a cell
phone. Has anyone done this?
The carriers don't treat the USB cable any different than the bluetooth
connection other than crippling Bluetooth regularly, as far as I can
tell. Whether or not USB drivers have been put in the Linux kernel for
these devices, I can't tell yet as I haven't attempted to even plug the
RAZR into a Linux box... yet.
The USB cable is only necessary if you want to get into hacking your
phone to re-enable features the carrier turned off (something they frown
upon) or hack the phone for other reasons. (Example: There are hacks
available for the Motorola RAZR that will allow you to continue a
speakerphone call with the flip closed.)
You have to re-flash the phone to do many of these hacks, and it
definitely for the time-being requires Windows to do it, also.
Bluetooth won't cut it for these hacks as far as I can tell. You need a
real cable.
Many of the modern phones are switching from proprietary connectors to
mini-USB 5-pin directly on the phone. This is probably the only really
"good" news about the newer hardware. The Motorola RAZR is a USB device
using a standard mini-USB A to B cable for both connectivity to the
phone and charging these days... many phones are switching to this.
Blackberry/RIM phones have been similar now for quite some time, as well.
Is anyone using one of these phones with Debian? as a modem? how do you
transfer files (pictures, mp3, phone lists) given the sorry state of
the crippled bluetooth software? Is bluetooth crippled on every
verizon phone? Is there a way to change this?
AFAIK, Verizon's completely crippled and will call you a thief and
disable your service if you manage to enable high-speed data services
through bluetooth or cable tethering unless you have the data plans.
Even then their reps don't understand it, and would rather you had their
PCMCIA card.
Because the phones use the same profiles to connect to the computer via
Bluetooth whether you're using high-speed of low-speed data services,
Verizon simply cripples the Bluetooth to avoid the "problem".
This makes it very difficult for you to tether. It *might* be
permissable to tether using a cable and only use your minutes for low
speed data, but I really can't find anything that states this either way
right now... they're in transition and they really want you to buy the
high speed card and stuff it in your laptop... so their reps are all
quite confused, as usual.
Since all phones have a GPS these days, is it possible to access the
GPS data from the Debian laptop to use, say, in geographic programs such as
GPSdrive and/or gpsd? Has someone done this? via bluetooth? via cable?
I'm not up on this -- I've seen websites with discussion and software
for SOME phones to do this, and I know that there is Java code that will
run on some Nextel devices to pull the GPS data and send it out the
serial port on the bottom of the phone as an NMEA string, from talking
with a friend in Albany, NY who's done it. I don't think it's free and
only works on a limited number of models. The Java software runs
directly on the phone, and then Linux/Windows/Mac could use the NMEA
data just like any other GPS. I don't have any details from him on this
at all, Nextel's not a good option here, price or network-coverage-wise,
so I never looked into it.
I have a PDA (Handera) that I keep synced with kpilot and the IR port.
Is it possible to sync the phone list to these phones? how? If not
these phones, what verizon-compatible phones do people use that can
do this? I'd rather not re-enter every phone number manually.
IR seems to be falling by the wayside...
This is very phone-specific. With the RAZR (as an example), you have to
buy Motorola's "Mobile Phone Tools" CD and that will sync with things
like Outlook, etc. It also contains the USB driver for Windows.
Supposedly also there's support for the Mac via iSync, but I haven't
seen any open-source code that can "speak" to the RAZR yet... so far.
It seems like it might be something that could be reverse-engineered
over time.
Any pros/cons about the removable memory? I understand there are
adapters to plug the trasflash/miniSd cards into a PCcard slot,
correct? How does this work with Debian? Given that these phones
use/create different files, it would be nice to sync/DL them to the
laptop. Any phone specific software in Debian or are these phones
recognized as storage devices? I presume if a USB cable is used they
should be, but what about a bluetooth connection? How is the memory
handled with a serial (rs-232) cable?
Not a clue here at all on the memory questions.
Any other suggestions or info on using a current generation cell phone
with Debian would be welcome. http://www.mobiledia.com has good
descriptions of the phones and reviews. Any recommendations? other
phones? Is it reasonable to expect that firmware shortcomings might be
improved via firmware downloads? or is this not at all possible?
I'll let you know if/when I finally get the RAZR working on T-Mobile.
Probably do a write-up on my website also. But I am waiting for
confirmation that my earlier contract has expired for the GC-79.
Additionally, I *think* I should be able to pull the SIM card out of the
RAZR once that plan is on it and stuff it in the GC-79 and it'd still
work, so that's my "backup" plan. $10 a month cheaper, and I already
own the hardware. Very cool, if that works.
If it does, you might be able to do something like move to T-Mobile, add
the $19.95 all-you-can-eat data plan, buy a used GC-79 on eBay and just
move the SIM card... moving the SIM isn't super "easy" on these tiny
phones, but it should be do-able... gotta love GSM having those!
Hopefully that helps... I'm as confused as you are, but working on it! ;-)
I'd be very interested in hearing other's responses as well... who's
using mobile cellular data on Linux out there? Speak up!
Nate
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