Non-gprs Internet access options without wifi (cel-dialup)

Rob openmoko at borfo.com
Fri Jan 12 16:55:27 CET 2007


 Hi...  I just stumbled across this project yesterday while getting over my
disappointment at the announcements that the iPhone would be a closed system
- not a surprising announcement at all, but disappointing nonetheless.
Anyhow, I'm pretty fired up about this project now that I've come across
it.  I've been hoping for a truly open phone for years, thanks for making it
happen.

It's a shame it won't have wifi, as that would make the device incredibly
useful to me...  It would be amazing to be able to make VoIP calls when a
802.11 is available, and data plans from celphone carriers in Canada are
really expensive.  There's wireless all over downtown Toronto now though,
and it would be great to have a phone that could use it.  The combination of
gps and wireless would make it possible to do some pretty cool stuff with
maps.  I'm sure it's been said ad nauseam, but this would really be an
amazing product with wifi.  I'm just sayin', is all...

Anyhow, even without wifi I'll probably be lining up to buy one of these
things even if only to show that there is a market for an open phone - I'll
hope there's wifi in v2.


In the meantime, I was thinking about how I could get around the lack of
wifi last night and something occurred to me...  Would it be possible with
this phone to set up a PPP dialup server on my machine at home, and get
dialup access to the internet by calling my home number?  This would be a
lot cheaper than downloading via GPRS because Canadian wireless carriers are
all apparently run by a bunch of jerks.  Would any extra hardware (eg: a
modem) have to be built into the phone in order to get PPP dialup access
this way, or could it just be done through software?  If hardware is needed,
is it too late to consider adding it to the specs?

There any other non-obvious options for Internet access with this phone that
don't involve GPRS?  I suppose IP over Avian Carriers would work...



I apologize if this has come up on the list before, I didn't read every
message.
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