Project PDA

The cell phone has become an integral and, for some, essential communications tool that has helped owners gain help in emergencies.

9.9 million Internet surfing adults in the U.S. use a personal digital assistant (PDA) or cell phone to access the Internet.  This analysis – which includes U.S. persons age 18+ who used the Internet from a PC in the first quarter of 2002 – determined that among the 19.1 million users owning a PDA, 5.0 million access the Internet with those devices.  Among the 67.2 million online users that own a cell phone, 5.8 million access the Internet with those devices. (Note: duplication among users that access the Internet with both a PDA and a cell phone has been removed from the total of 9.9 million.)

One of the ever-present challenges facing mobile application developers is maintaining the look and feel of applications across different devices. There is an untold number of mobile devices such as PDAs and cell phones on the market today and each device has different behaviors and a different graphical user interface.

Using your cell phone as a modem will not be as fast as using a Wi-Fi hot spot or other broadband connection method. The speed will also be affected by whether your connection is analog or digital at the time you are using the cell phone as a modem. If you only require the Internet connection to send and receive email and do light Internet surfing, then the connection speed will be adequate for your needs.

There are a couple of downsides, though: The Mobile Office kit doesn't let you wirelessly connect a Bluetooth phone as your modem, and it works only with selected cell phones. The company's VAIO T-Series portables allow you to go wireless using Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Cingular's EDGE ("Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution"). Cingular work on Cingular's EDGE/GPRS network. You'll get the fastest speeds, about 100 to 130 kbps on average, in areas where EDGE service is available. Otherwise, expect up to 50 kbps on the slower GPRS network. T-Mobile offers the $200 Sony Ericsson GC79 card for use with notebooks on the T-Mobile GRPS Internet service.

By creating PPP connections with RFCOMM serial ports, you can use your cell phone for Internet access. For example, to connect to AT&T Wireless’s GPRS network with a Nokia 3650, use the peers script.

Some cell providers (ie Verizon) include internet service as part of their data plan. This means that to connect to the internet you don't have to call a local ISP. You simply connect the cell phone to the laptop using a data cable (see below), and the cell connects to the Verizon internet access point immediately.