Motorola iDEN / Nextel data service
Unfortunately, CDPD service sucks around where I live, so it has been necessary to set up an alternative. I have a Nextel phone, and for an extra $10/mo and the price of a serial cable, I can make data calls. Unfortunately, Nextel isn't an ISP, so you need to either set up a modem to dial into or have a dialup ISP account. Also, the calls are at 9600 bps, which is actually less bandwidth than CDPD. My experience, however, has been that the reliability has been higher and the latency is actually much lower. Lastly, and most significantly, the calls are billed exactly like voice calls -- by the minute (fortunately, my plan has a lot of minutes).

There are a couple of tricks to setting this up.

1. Rather than counting on autobauding, you should set your phone to expect a particular speed. I use 57600, which is the top speed a Palm can do.
2. The dial string should be set like this:

set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER ABORT NO\\sDIALTONE TIMEOUT 5 \
\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK ATE1Q0 OK \\dATDT\\T TIMEOUT 60 CONNECT"

3. Specify the phone number as the area code and phone number (no 1 in front)

That's about it. I used to use ucom and uvscom to talk to an IOGear UG-232A serial port connected to the phone's serial cable, but recently I upgraded to the USB cable made for the phone, which works perfectly with the umodem driver.

Update! There's a new service offered by Nextel called PacketStream. It is a direct Internet connection (though their unmeasured service goes through a NAT gateway), so no ISP is required, and it is either unmeasured or (depending on the plan you pick) measured by the kilobyte, not the minute. I've been getting something like 20 kbps over it, so it's sort of like 1st generation Ricochet. You can also receive phone calls while using it (though it does stop data I/O). You simply dial the phone number "S=2" and you're connected.

I dont know if it just my phone or what but i just picked up my boost i450 and the GPS is HORRIBLE, i barely get any signal on the phone, and when i do, it isnt giving me the right location of where i am!

You probably have assisted gps turned on. Turn that off.

We're an international forum, post in whatever langauge you like.

I got mine yesterday and i haven't been able to connect to the net (no cable yet so i'm trying from the phone itself)

Every time I try to access a site it give me "error 500 call you service provider" and in details it say "1019 compile error" So i call CS and they told me that is something going on with the new activations and the web bla bla bla ... so I'm going to give this POS a try tomorrow and if it does work i go to the Fricking store and buy a PCMCIA card for Verizon or Sprint and i get done with this (i have a MII so it will be perfect) the only thing is that i did want to try surfing the net with some thing cheap like this but if is no other way SO BE IT!!!!!!!!!

Thanatos.

I got mine yesterday and i haven't been able to connect to the net (no cable yet so i'm trying from the phone itself)

Every time I try to access a site it give me "error 500 call you service provider" and in details it say "1019 compile error" So i call CS and they told me that is something going on with the new activations and the web bla bla bla ... so I'm going to give this POS a try tomorrow and if it does work i go to the Fricking store and buy a PCMCIA card for Verizon or Sprint and i get done with this (i have a MII so it will be perfect) the only thing is that i did want to try surfing the net with some thing cheap like this but if is no other way SO BE IT!!!!!!!!!

Thanatos.

We're an international forum, post in whatever langauge you like.

Th i450 is $80.

P.S. I finally found a site with the Codeplug software! http://www.wog.com

Does anyone know any touchscreen friendly DUN software? Or some API calls for DUN in windows? I usually am switching between evdo, boost, and wifi and its a PITA to do that all via connection manager.

do you switch by priority (which connection is faster)? If so i think i could make a manager program that would automatically connect to the best available service. It would probably help me too. I'm getting my boost phone today and will need something to manage that, my verizon phone, and my wifi.

Unfortunately, that site is down (or something). Is there any way we can get that codeplug software linked to in this thread or somewhere?

Thanks,
-mark