Give me internet and phone too

September 5, 2007 2:17 PM

Help me use my phone's internet on my laptop, without disabling the phone.

The phone is on Tmobile & has internet access. I want to use the phone's(Dash) internet on a laptop. Apparently you can buy a module that you plug the sim card into and put that into the laptop and voila, free internet access via the internet that the phone has.

But that disables the phone. Of course the option offered by them was to get a second line with internet on it - but no, you can't just get that, you'd have to get a phone plan as well, which ends up being forty or fifty bucks.

How can I have a working phone (at least receive calls) and use the free internet through the phone (Dash)? Is there a way to tap into the internet the phone has without taking the sim card out of the phone?

The phone can't be useless for large blocks of time.
Is there some other option?

posted by cashman to technology (10 comments total)

You shouldn't need to remove SIM card. Just plug in your phone to the USB port and set it up as a dial-up modem. Check T-Mobile's wireless configurator for more info.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:27 PM on September 5, 2007

Unfortunately, I don't have a Treo (nor am I sure which OS it uses), so I can't be 100% sure this will work for you; but with my Sprint Q I have a program called PDANet. It's available for WM5 and Palm devices. It basically allows you to use your phone as a modem via your dataplan while still allowing your phone to recieve calls. At any rate, it's free to try if you'd like to give it a shot.
posted by aranyx at 2:27 PM on September 5, 2007

...and by Treo, i mean Dash
posted by aranyx at 2:28 PM on September 5, 2007

By the way, that works fine on my Blackberry device and I can use it as a tethered modem while still being able to receive phone calls.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:28 PM on September 5, 2007

Even if you get the physical SIM problem worked out, using the intarweb from your computer behaves like making a phone call. It's "dialing" something like "*99#".

E.g., I use my phone to get on the 'net with my laptop all the time. The laptop and phone speak Bluetooth-ese, and the phone speaks GSM to some nearby tower.

I can receive calls and make calls, but when I do, the GPRS ("data") call is put (effectively) on hold. No traffic flows. In a contest, voice seems always to win priority, at least with this phone (Nokia N73).

So, my point: If your computer can talk to your phone somehow, then you can do this. Beware that you can only do one thing at a time, but your voice channel is always available.
posted by cmiller at 2:31 PM on September 5, 2007

I have done tech support calls using phone and internet simultaneously on my (AT&T, 3G) Blackjack. In fact, for extra recursiveness, the support guy I was talking to on my phone while I was also using it for broadband was also remoted into my machine via the same connection. It wasn't the fastest connection ever, and my phone was wicked hot after 3 hours of this, but it got the job done.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:49 PM on September 5, 2007

Ah, 'round these backwaters (Orlando, Florida), we have only EDGE.
posted by cmiller at 3:06 PM on September 5, 2007

EDGE is simply enhanced GPRS.
posted by Burhanistan at 3:13 PM on September 5, 2007

Thanks for the help - I'm still trying to get it to work.
posted by cashman at 5:13 PM on September 5, 2007

For further resources: HowardForums-->T-Mobile-->WindowsMobile.
posted by Myself at 4:58 AM on September 6, 2007