GPRS/GSM/3G/Edge card successes/failures

I now have three cards for accessing GPRS on my H/PCs (and PC): a Nokia D311 and two Sierra Wireless cards (860 and 750). The Nokia card works wonderfully on my H/PC 2000 devices, but AFAIK no one has found a driver for it that works in CE 4.x .net. I ordered the 860 in hopes that its CE .net drivers would work in my skeye.pad, but thus far I'm having no luck. AFAIK, the card is locked, but it is branded Cingular, which is my carrier. I figured I'd have better luck with the 750, so I got one of those as well; however, when I got it, I noticed that it is branded T-Mobile. (I don't recall seeing this in the eBay listing, but that was probably just my old brain not paying attention.) If the card is locked, then I assume that means that it won't read my Cingular SIM card.

I think it goes without saying that I'm still an amateur when it comes to dealing with these cards. Maybe others here can share their experiences with GPRS/GSM/3G/Edge cards.

heh, i wish i 'd seen this thread before posting a new one yesterday

ok here is my success - failure list:

(note that i only use european versions of the cards but this shouldn't matter)

GSM:
i have some option branded thing here, that is gsm *and* 56k modem combo, actually i have two of these, but couldnt see how to get it working in a hpc, didnt try too much

GPRS:
merlin g201: tested on j720 and 900c, standard modem, no driver needed, on hpc2000 extra connection delay required: i have a thread on it here: http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=6996 (but never owned this card, just played with it, dont have it anymore)
nokia d211: i've used it on jornada 7xx, intermec 6651. gprs part would not work in hpc2000 900: it disconnected immediately when trying to connect to my provider's apn. and of course no way for it on cenet. isn't a standard modem.
sierra 750 (vodafone branded version): even though vodafone, mine was already unlocked. native hpc2000 driver for arm / mips, cenet driver, all work nicely (cenet tested by me on netbook pro ) but it isn't a standard modem. sold this one
fujitsu connect2air: - it doesnt say the model and i dont have any manual for it, but they only had one for that loox pda so i think this is the model - this is a CF gprs card! not crappy pcmcia! and works in anything, standard modem, no driver needed, no terminal tricks. works even on nec 750c. didnt work on sharp hc4500 though, it didnt recognize it as a modem, strange. and typing in the driver name didnt help. i thought ce 2.0 was a standard platform?? anyway need to try on ce 1.0 later


EDGE:
sierra 775: supplied native hpc2000 and cenet drivers work like a charm. (both strongarm and xscale). not standard modem.
sonyericsson GC85: tested on j720, standard modem, no driver needed, just an extra command: my thread here: http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9264&pos...
sonyericsson GC83: had one here earlier, but i couldnt get it to work.. amateur. probably needed the same command. didnt keep it as it was missing the 900mhz band. i think isotherm reported it as working in jornada 720.

3G/HSDPA:
sierra 850 (european version of 860): works beautifully on 900c with supplied native cenet driver. xscale only. not standard modem

as for your 860. i checked and the driver (as i mentioned above) is compiled for thumb enabled ARM does the skeyepad have xscale or strongarm?
so, darn it!!! can use it only in 900c now.. maybe sig3 too, later, the driver does load fine on cenet 4.1, but the card is pcmcia, so i ordered a cf to pcmcia card, just for fun (wow it arrived just now!)
about your 750, maybe someone unlocked it and didnt erase the tmobile logo off it , it is worth a try, insert your sim and see if it dials etc etc. i think the watcher software will tell you if it is locked or not and is ready to connect.

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-07 9:39 AM

update. i tried the sierra 850 (hsdpa) in sig3 and nexio s160, with the cf-pcmcia adapter

there is some software problem though.

on the sig3, after a few kbytes got transferred the driver stops communicating with the card, cant do anything at all, cant turn radio off, cant even check card firmware bootloader version etc. - i need to reinsert card to get the comm back.
with vodafone HU i get exactly 1 http page (hpcfactor.com etc) downloaded before this happens. everytime. with the other hungarian provider i have i get like 10 kbyte (so less than 1 page) before it stops communicating, and it takes 1 min for the card to find signal and to get connected in the first place.. true, we have bad signal at home, but the 900c (either in cf or pcmcia slot) finds the network right away and connects fine, downloads fine etc.

in the cf slot on the nexio, vodafone seems to work stable except once or twice i lost the connection (not the driver connection just network connection), and only soft reset helped. i havent been able to connect to the other provider AT ALL. it could not find the provider or when it found signal it instantly lost it again, bad signal again but ..still..works fine on 900c. i even went to the garden to test, no luck.

probably some driveer issue on cenet 4.1, or maybe the japanese OS on sig3, oh well

to reiterate, the 900c works perfect with this card and has perfect hsdpa connection, i've been able to achieve 1.2mbps download speed with it, files etc download so quickly ..just like wifi. wow.

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-09 6:40 PM

In answer to your question above, my skeye.pad has an SA-1100 processor.

I'm just trying to get access to GPRS at this point. But I found out how expensive it can be: about 5-6 hours of browsing cost me about $85. Guess I need to pull the card out while reading each page, and then reinsert when I want to go to another page.

oh well lost case with the skeyepad

no, it doesnt matter how much time you spend online. what matters is the amount of data transferred, and if you dont load pages you should have no traffic, no worries. turn off images, this will speed up page loading and will reduce the data transfer too..
also why would you pull the card out if you can just disconnect it from the net via software..

I thought it'd take longer to load new pages by closing the browser and then opening it later - especially while browsing the forums on this site, which is mostly what I was doing. (Posted a few times while using GPRS.)

Re: charges
I believe my bill says it's $0.01 per "kByte/min."

i don't understand the comment about closing the browser. i meant disconnecting from the internet. has nothing to do with the browser being open or not (though, do not use autodial in it, i'd say).

if it says that then you were not using gprs... maybe you were using (hs)csd ("dialup" for gsm) or similar accidentally?? what was the phone number you used on the hpc to dial in?

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-12 4:45 AM

After further review, I realize that the slash in "kByte/min" (it actually says "Msg/KB/Min" ) means "or" and not "per." Yes, it is GPRS - the phone is GPRS-enabled, and the bill says GPRS. But clearly I underestimated the number of kilobytes used to build each page.

Boy, I'm really an amateur. It has never occurred to me to use "Work Offline" in IE (though it's moot since I've finally figured out that I am only being billed by data and not by logged-on time as well).

I'm not familiar with HSDPA - how does one gain access to it?

Edited by CE Geek 2007-06-12 5:39 AM

ok that explains it.. btw, don't worry i've never used "work offline". with gprs you are not getting extra traffic if you are not downloading anything explicitly. but if you are worried it is enough to disconnect using the network icon in the systray
and don't forget to turn off pictures. that'll eat up your kbytes really fast and they are not even useful most of the time.

Yeah, but it's less fun browsing this forum without looking at avatars and sigs.

to be honest? i never look at them.. (ok first time i see a new poster i do then thats enough)
and this really speeds up gprs

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-12 5:49 AM

With the D211 Card there is a Linux software.
Doesn't it work with JLIME?
gerhard.eichhorn@bluewin.ch