[clug] Phone / USB Modems

[Ian Munsie]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Ian McLeod<ianmcleod75 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the Symbian app to transform the phone in to a WLAN AP is the way to
> go - I'll dig around and see how expensive and good it is.

The free ones that I've tried are all rubbish, including such silly
features as a captive portal and only supporting HTTP[S]. I believe
that the commercial ones are better but since I have it working with
bluetooth for $0 I saw no reason to pay for one that would probably
also turn out to be almost as rubbishy.

Also, none of them will turn the phone into a WLAN *AP*, best they are
able to do is share the connection over an insecure ad-hoc connection
(which you should verify that your Linux box will even handle first
since many Linux wireless drivers still have trouble with ad-hoc). The
ones I've looked at that claim to be "secure" do so with access
control lists - ie, only requires intermediate wireless knowledge to
bypass. AFAIK none support WPA because I don't think it's possible (in
practice, not sure about theory) with ad-hoc.

Having said that if you do find a good $0 one I would be interested to
know about it. I occasionally find myself in a situation where I want
to share my connection with others and that would be a convenient way
to do it (at the moment I can do it with my EEE acting as a NAT
gateway).


If you are still having trouble getting the phone to work as a
bluetooth modem you could always bring it and the laptop along to the
next CLUG meeting and I'll be happy to help out.

Cheers,
-I

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