Posted by Scott Laird
Sat, 08 Jan 2005 02:08:38 GMT
A lot of people were amazed that PalmOne could introduce the Treo 650 without any sort of WiFi ability at all. Since most of the companies building Windows-based competitors are including WiFi now, it seemed only reasonable that Palm would follow their lead. Instead, they introduced the Treo 650 with only a vague promise that they might support SDIO WiFi cards eventually. Since they made the same basic promise with the original Treo 600, and nothing ever came of it, a lot of people assumed that the 650 would be a WiFi-free zone.
That doesn’t actually appear to be the case, however. First, someone hacked Palm’s own SD WiFi card drivers to work (sort of) on the Treo 650. There were two major problems with that, however. First, it screwed up the phone’s ability to do IP via the cellular network. Second, even once that gets fixed, it leaves you without a flash card in your Treo. Since the Treo needs all the storage it can get, this doesn’t strike me as a workable long-term solution.
At CES, Enfora introduced a second solution, in the form of a WiFi “sled” for the Treo 600 and 650. Similar in concept to their earlier models for Palm devices, it’s basically a clip-on brick that provides extra battery power and WiFi via the docking connector at the bottom of the phone. At $150, the price isn’t too bad, but it’s probably too bulky for everyday use.
For truly compromiseless WiFi, Treo users will probably have to wait for next year’s model. I’d love to have a handheld with WiFi so I could get fast, free connectivity at home and at work, but Palm doesn’t seem particularly eager to address that need.
Posted in Phones, Handheld and PDA | Tags enfora, palm, treo, treo650, wifi | 5 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 03 Sep 2004 23:46:09 GMT
WiFi Networking News is reporting that an industry group is building specs for roaming between WiFi and GSM networks. The group includes most of the big players: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, T-Mobile, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, Alcatel, and others. The “Unlicensed Mobile Access” (UMA) spec is supposed to make it possible for users to use a WiFi-enabled cell phone and have calls seamlessly handed off between GSM, public WiFI, and private WiFi networks.
Personally, I’d love to be able to roam between my home wireless/VoIP network and the cellular network, and at least in theory that’s what this group is working on, but I have real doubt about any of the carriers implementing this in any reasonable manner. I can’t see any obvious business case for them letting users migrate calls off of the carriers’ high-priced networks and onto low-cost private networks. If wireless rates free-fall, like some have predicted, then it’s possible that they could use this to prop up their revenue, but that’s about the only case that I can see for it–most carriers seem very determined to keep people from migrating traffic off of their networks in any way, shape, or form. Witness the Verizon Bluetooth Debacle for an example–the carriers don’t seem to have a problem with working against their customers best interests. As consolidation continues in the industry, I fully expect to see more cartel-like behavior on their parts, and less innovation and flexibility.
Posted in Phones, Computer Networking | Tags gsm, voip, wifi | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:20:47 GMT
Okay, this is just strange. As mentioned before, I have a Cisco 7940 IP Phone in my kitchen, currently connected to a Linksys WET11 wireless Ethernet bridge. I’ve been having problems lately with weird connection failures, which I assumed was caused by low signal strength.
That is, until I looked at my logs. Apparently the phone has left my network and migrated onto one of my neighbors’ networks, because the phone is now logging in from Comcast’s IP space. This is strange on several fronts–first, the WET11 is supposed to be hard-coded to use my SSID. Second, I’ve never seen any of my neighbors’ networks from my PowerBook, and I’ve looked around a few times, just to see if I could track down the source of my interference.
I’ll try moving everything to a different channel tonight and see if that helps. Failing that, I guess I’ll have to pull out my drill and start pulling Cat 5 through the basement this weekend.
Posted in Computer Networking | Tags broken, cisco, linksys, voip, wifi | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:32:38 GMT
We’ve had a wireless network at home for over 3.5 years, and I’ve had a wireless-equipped PowerBook for almost two years. In all that time, I’ve never managed to get the laptop to work wirelessly from anyplace actually useful. This is a generic failing of the Titanium PowerBooks–their wireless antenna is inside of a big, titanium faraday cage, leaving them with a frustratingly short range. So, I haven’t been able to use the laptop from the living room couch, or from the bedroom. Instead, I’ve been limited to 30 or so feet, which draws the line somewhere in the middle of the dining room.
Until today. A couple weeks ago our second wireless access point died. It was a cheap (at the time) SMC, which replaced the original Apple “UFO” base station which basically melted itself down. I was faced with a dilemma–I could buy a high-power wireless card and antenna, plug it all into one of my Linux boxes, and then run HostAP, or I could buy another cheap AP. In the end, I decided that it was better to have a working network now then to wait for the HostAP hardware to arrive via FedEX, so we bought a Linksys WRT54G. The nice thing about this specific model is that it runs Linux under the hood, and there are a few hacked firmware loads for it that give it a number of features that Linksys never planned on. Including the ability to crank the transmitter power from a wimpy (but common) 30 mW up to 84 mW. It’s not the 200 mW that high-end stuff can handle, but it’s good enough to finally let me sit on the couch and use the computer. It only took two years.
Posted in Personal | Tags house, powerbook, wifi, wrt54g | 2 comments
