The other night I was downloading the MoTR podcast on my pocket PC via Bluetooth to my mobile phone’s UMTS (3G) modem. 350kbps isn’t such a bad rate and this is one of the ways I’ll be looking to use for streaming my music from home to my UMPC when it turns up in a few weeks. It appears though that we have slightly different mobile phone contracts than our U.S. cousins. This setup might not be possible for many people.
I put the question to the JKontheRun team in their MobileTechRoundup: Why do you need a separate cellular modem when you’ve probably got a mobile phone with a GPRS/EDGE/EVDO/UMTS/3G/whatever modem always with you and already available via Bluetooth or USB? They gave me the answers.
In the U.S. many contracts state that you’re not allowed to ‘tether’ your PC to cellular data via a mobile phone. This sounds a little crazy but I guess its aimed at keeping controls on data downloads. Data plans are often flat rate in the U.S. (see footnote) and I guess you could happily download a huge amount of data if you’re using a tethered PC and potentially run a VOIP application as the end device has enough processor power to run the codec software. Of course this theory goes out of the window with relatively powerful devices like UMPCs and smartphones that have built in cellular modems, GB drives, SD card slots and USB host capability.
For the time being though, the way to get round it in the U.S. (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is to buy a USB-based cellular modem, put your SIM card into that and then download to your hearts content. As a result of this little loophole, a number of USB-based Cellular modems are now being offered.
Mobility Today has tested three in the last month and seems to be happy with the results. The only downside being that it can put an extra strain on the battery. I’d also add that they’re expensive, ugly and who the hell is going to know if you’re using your mobile or a data modem anyway just by looking at the data usage?
Anyway, that said, you might not have a GPRS/EDGE/UMTS mobile or you might want to buy a new SIM card with a data-only contract for cost or billing purposes so there’s a few cases where these things might come in useful. If so, check out the reviews at Mobility Today.
Franklin Wireless USB EVDO USB adaptor
Falcom Samba 75 GPRS/EDGE USB adaptor
Falcom SAMBA GSM/GPRS USB adaptor
Steve / Chippy.
footnote: In Europe, flat rate plans are starting to appear. In Finland for example, you can even use HSDPA (1mbps) for 10 Euro per month. In Germany, flat rate is around 40 Euro per month (also 1Mbps if you have the phone and the coverage.) at 1mbps, quality video streaming and thin client working (vnc, remote desktop) are possible. Another case for a WebOS?
