Road worrying - or how I got connectivity and learned to love Windows Mobile
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Windows Mobile, Networking, Wireless, Mobile, Microsoft on
We’ve been on the road for the last few weeks, doing a round of Stateside conferences and company visits. That’s meant relying on the “free” wifi in motels and conference halls. Consumer hardware really doesn’t cut it when you’re using a couple of Linksys routers to cover a hundred plus rooms - especially when it’s the cheapest motel nearest the CES halls. Every room was probably full of journalists and analysts trying to get online, and the routers just waved their little rubber feet in the air and gave up.
Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem. I’d have dug out a good book and gone cold turkey on my Internet addiction. After all, I didn’t need to read a dozen gadget blogs to tell me what I’d just seen that day. However I had the IT Pro editorial team back in the UK waiting for copy - and lack of connectivity wasn’t what I needed. I could have gone to a Starbucks for some of their wifi, but not many are still open at 1 am, even in Vegas. I could have used a 3G card, but this shiny new HP Compaq 2710P tablet is a Santa Rosa machine, so only has a ExpressCard slot - and my Vodafone 3G card is, yes, a PC Card.
Luckily there was a solution. I had my trusty old HTC TYTN with me, and Vegas is on of the few places in the US with decent 3G connectivity (I’m writing this in the heart of the tech world, in a coffee shop in less than a mile from eBay’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, where 3G is a rare and precious thing). Microsoft has added support for Internet Connection Sharing to Windows Mobile 6 (it’s in 5 too, but well hidden) - which means you can use a Windows Mobile 6 phone as a Bluetooth internet gateway.
Getting it working is pretty easy. You’ll first need to pair the phone with your laptop. The rest is simple. Click the Internet Sharing icon on the phone to start using it as a gateway. You’ll need to choose whether it uses USB or Bluetooth (we’d recommend plugging it in to the mains and using Bluetooth, as that way you won’t flatten the phone’s battery running two radios).
Click connect, and go back to your PC. Right click the taskbar Bluetooth icon (if it’s not there, enable it first). You can then select the option of joining a Bluetooth PAN. This is a Personal Area Network, an IP network running over a bluetooth connection. In the dialogue box that pops up, click to choose the device you’re planning on connecting with.
Hey Presto! You’re online.
It’ll be slower than WiFi, but at least it’s a connection. Of course you don’t need to be in a Vegas motel room to use this - it’ll work in Starbucks (no need to pay T-mobile, unless you’ve got one of the new Web’n'Walk contracts that let you use WiFi as part of your standard mobile contract) or in the park, or on the train, or in even in the back of a taxi.
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Sony ericsson Games - January 25, 2008 on 1:01 pm
This article is nice one and i really enjoy while reading this……….good simon and merry
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