Woo hoo! Truely Mobile Internet

Posted Thursday, March 10, 2005, at 01:00PM by Eric Richardson

Success came quicker than I might have thought... I'm now posting this via a GPRS/EDGE connection through my cell phone. I'm using my phone as a Bluetooth modem to give connectivity to my laptop.

Enough technical terms for you?

In layman's terms: My cell phone -- a Sony Ericsson s710 with service through Cingular -- offers internet access, in the form of Cingular's MEdia Net functionality. The phone offers the functionality to act as a modem, and in fact can connect wirelessly to the laptop as a Bluetooth modem. My laptop doesn't have Bluetooth built in, but I have a little bluetooth adaptor that plugs into the back of the computer (USB). So, to get internet access on my laptop the computer sees the phone as a modem and "dials" the internet (really it just tells the phone to use a certain profile). The phone connects to the internet and returns the connection information to the laptop. Voila, I'm on the internet.