Mobile Internet


neverused

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Dec 12, 2009
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Ok, I must admit that despite my searching, I have not found an answer to my question, though I know so little that I may not have even recognized it to begin with. If possible, I would like to be able to use these two components to enable me to use my future Pandora with internet connectivity at all times:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9533
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9427

It appears that there are Linux drivers available, however I'm not sure it's possible or worth the hassle, versus a regular mobile broadband service from a local carrier. Ideally, I would use this only for internet and perhaps SMS, but rarely make any phone calls, if ever.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
If you're just interested in mobile Internet what's wrong with a 3G usb key ?

Two of them have been reported working with the Pandora alrady.

http://pandorawiki.org/USB_compatibility_list

I am pretty sure the Pandora will ship with network manager so it should be easy to set it up if you have a supported adapter.
 
In my capacity as absolutely no form of expert whatsoever... I would imagine you'd be able to pick up a known-supported USB 3g-stick (i.e. Huawei E160 or one of the other supported devices) from your local mobile-network provider for less than the cost of those Sparkfun modules. It is a pretty "easy-mode" approach and might not be the most elegant thing ever (but I guess you could use a USB port-redirecting-thingy to tuck the modem back behind the Pandora, perhaps?).

The "Three" network here in the UK now offer a standalone 3G-modem-and-wifi-router product on both contract and pay-as-you-go plans (they call it "mifi") which is something I'm considering - switch it on, leave it in my pocket, and connect to it by wifi. That would mean nothing plugged into the Pandora at all - and I could use the same connection with my PSP, netbook lappy, or whatever else comes to hand. I believe the Mifi unit needs a Windows machine to do its initial setup - that's not a problem for me, your milage may vary.
 
There are a few 3g sticks that work, :rolleyes: but I do believe what he wants is an internal slot.

I would also like to have one of the little devices he has found inside the pandora awell, but I don't think 3G MBB dongles were really popular or affordable (or even around??) when they were designing the pandora.

It would be hard to fit one inside, you could go for the "mifi" or 3G MBB or try and fit one yourself.. The device is designed to be hacked and played with.... :rolleyes: :pandora2ut4:
 
Be careful of the Three network, worst. signal. ever.
I made the mistake of getting a pay monthly contract with them a couple years ago, 18 months of never being able to use it followed.
 
I should imagine that there is no way to integrate this into the unit itself without a new case or case parts at the very least. An inelegant solution would be to simply have a separate unit that would connect to the Pandora and just stay external.

Please correct if me if I'm wrong, can I assume that the "mifi" simply acts a hub for multiple wifi connections (up to 5 I think) over a 3G network? If so that may be a better idea than a USB dongle, as I would think it would use considerably less of the Panora's battery while on the internet.
 
Don't forget you can also tether to a 3g phone over bluetooth, no need to carry another piece of hardware.

It'll probably be slower than a direct 3G usb dongle, but you probably aren't going to be downloading gigs whilst on the move. Hell, my new phone doesn't do HDSPA, so it's not going to be particularly fast for me anyway ;)
 
There was thread from someone looking into using this GPRS modem (29 usd) from dealextreme.

I'm not sure how it ended, and while gprs is "slow" it more available / cheaper and maybe it uses less power then the 250mA of the 3g dongles.
So it might be an option for people wanting to use mainly IM/mail...

Edit: for the price of those 2 sparcfun items you can get a basic phone with 3g and BT and simply pair it...
 
@fiveseven :

3's signal has been getting progressively better over the last two years, when I first had 3 it was very slow and didn't work in many places around the house, and it dropped back to gprs for long periods etc, nowdays it's solid HSDPA, and fast enough to stream youtube for eg, I see downloads get to 700+MBS, I live out in the wilds, so it's a long way to my nearest mast, I tried Vodaphones dongle, since they claimed superior coverage, but that was totally useless and kept dropping out all the time, far, far worse than 3

of course this is just anecdotal, but 3's got way better than what it was when we first took it up, and compared to BT the uptime is vastly better, the last year we used BT we had lines out for a total of 142 days out of a full year :angry: , and every time we called em out over the latest fault, they kept saying that their diagnostics said the lines where ok (once this was when I could see the 4WD that had skidded off the road and come to rest on the remains of the line pole from where I was stood in the house :rolleyes: ), so we switched to mobiles for phone and internet, downtime so far? 0 days in two years.

oh! we have everything PAYG too, so no chance of huge bills getting run up by accident either :D

edit clarified text
 
Will Pandora recognize an internet over USB signal from my phone?

I'm running a modified Samsung i910 Omnia.
I can use Internet Connection Sharing or ICS along with another application that essentially turns my phone into a wifi hotspot along with my Windows 7 Netbook.

I know connecting via wifi will work fine, but I'd like to use ICS over USB to save power if I can.
 
A long time ago, ED made a forum post from his devboard connected to the internet through USB.
 
I wanted to ask the nearly the same question as the neverused, but I wanted to know whether there are any products out there that could fit the sim card and the antennae and other stuff inside something small enough to put in the Pandors SDHC slot? would that even work? am i just retarded? like a 3g sdhc card? xD prolly doesnt exist eh?
 
Im a Cat said:
I wanted to ask the nearly the same question as the neverused, but I wanted to know whether there are any products out there that could fit the sim card and the antennae and other stuff inside something small enough to put in the Pandors SDHC slot? would that even work? am i just retarded? like a 3g sdhc card? xD prolly doesnt exist eh?

what you're looking for would be called a 3G SDIO. I just looked through 3 pages of Google for it, and all I could find were topics asking if it existed.

-God Ginrai
 
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A cell radio is too large to fit inside an SD card. They're too large to fit anywhere inside a Pandora without a modified case. You're pretty much limited to external devices until cell radios are shrunk down quite a bit.
 
well poop that sucks >:\ although, my cellphone doesnt have a sim card so i would be out of luck anyways lol.
 
Chip said:
A cell radio is too large to fit inside an SD card. They're too large to fit anywhere inside a Pandora without a modified case. You're pretty much limited to external devices until cell radios are shrunk down quite a bit.

It doesn't need to fit inside an SD-card. It's rare that you see an SDIO device that doesn't spill out of the SD card slot.

-God Ginrai
 
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Yes, but that makes it an external solution, doesn't it? GSM radios are definitely too thick and possibly too wide to fit inside the slot, so the entire device would have to sit outside. At that point, you're much better off using a USB dongle, which we already know work, and which would be less likely to snap off from the slightest bump.

In other words, there are perfectly good reasons why nobody has bothered to make a SDIO cell radio, and why in all likelihood, nobody ever will.
 
Try the 3 mifi dongle. Its like a wireless router and you dont need to connect it to the Pandora (thus saving battery power) The 3 Huawei 160 dongle may be tricky to get to work as it has a self install program for windows - I couldn't get it to work with Linux on a web book without downloading a load of betavine programs and then it was temperamental at best of times. You can get a mifi dongle and stick in a 3 PAYG sim card or you can buy the PAYG mifi dongle for £50 and put in a 3 contract sim card. It has a good range so you can place on a window sill. 3's network has improved alot as other people have said. I have 20 meg broadband with Virgin media and get an upload speed around 0.75 mbs. With 3 and the dongle on my window sill I get 1.5mbs! 3 are currently rolling out 7.2mbs on the data network. Coverage in rural areas isnt too good, but have a look at their coverage map. Maybe usage is so good as everyone thinks they are poo and dont use them! The mifi dongle is like a wifi router, so you just configure on windows to the settings you want (like change the ssid and broadcast etc) then switch it on and go to wifi in your o/s settings and then connect as you would to any wifi router...

Oh yeah its also available on Vodafone...
 
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