Cell Phone tethered as Dial-up Modem

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:53 pm

Can you in theory connect your cell phone to your computer/laptop and install the drivers to make it show up as a USB Modem and dial in to a service provider like sbc global or yahoo and only get charged for the minutes used and not the kb transfered. I realize that the speed will be crappy but it would be a hell of a lot better than paying $20-$60 a month for the data plans. Anyway all I would use it for is to check my email and of course benheck. If this for some reason isn't allowed (don't see why not) then you can just delete it.

Regards

Post by **marshallh** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:28 pm

I do it with my LG VX8300 phone, a USB cable, and some drivers. I get around 20-100KB/s downloads with EVDO.

It violates their terms of use, and they (Verizon) want you to pay about $60/month to get the same thing. Of course, these are the folks that want me to pay $40 up front, and $5 a month, just to be able play MP3s that I already own on the phone. This MP3 feature comes built-into the phone, but Verizon disables it and makes you pay for something the phone already has.

If you don't mind risking bricking your phone and diving into hex editors, go ahead. That is, if your phone has been documented by someone else.

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:35 pm

I don't think he meant hacking the phone for EVDO. He meant using dialup, but with a cell phone. I think it's an interesting idea. If you could get a program that could make your phone think your computer is a headset, then you could maybe fudge something that way. I'm not sure, though.

Post by **marshallh** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:49 pm

I doubt it would be possible, because when digital cell phone conversations are transmitted, they're compressed with a very lossy codec that drops all frequencies outside of the normal human speaking range. I would guarantee that this would wreak havoc with attempts to fax or dial computers.

My dad did this using an old analog cell phone (Motorola MicroTac) more than a decade ago - speeds were around 800-1200 baud.

Kyosho · Post by **Kyosho** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:04 am

marshallh wrote:I doubt it would be possible, because when digital cell phone conversations are transmitted, they're compressed with a very lossy codec that drops all frequencies outside of the normal human speaking range. I would guarantee that this would wreak havoc with attempts to fax or dial computers.

Exactly. I have tried this. I bought a cheap cellphone headset (for the male jack on it mainly), connected the wires from it to the correct wires from a phone cord, then plugged it into my PC's dialup modem. I fooled my computer into dialing without a dial tone (I can't get to a dial tone on my cell phone), and timed it just right so that when my computer was finished dialing (to nothing) I would hit SEND with the correct number on my phone, got the volume levels right, so that my modem and computer could "talk" through my cell phone to the computer at the local switch. It almost worked. Almost. It definitely recognized the signal and stuff. But it wouldn't work. I couldn't get a solid connection. The signal quality just wasn't good enough, as Marshall said.

Now, it should be noted that I have a Sprint cell phone which uses "digital" or whatever and not GSM. I have been told if you use a cell phone (and provider) which uses GSM the quality is a little higher and it may work. Not WILL work, but MAY work.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:01 pm

Well I have connected with it before by having it show up as a Motorola USB Modem in the hardware manager. It dials my isp number on the phone but my question is whether cingular with charge me for doing that since I wouldn't be using data just minutes.

Regards

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:19 pm

The phone has no idea what you're doing. It's just sending sound back and forth. You would get charged for however long you were surfing for and for however the dialup company charged you.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:28 pm

So all I would get charged for is the amount my ISP charges and minutes from my phone?

Regards

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:48 pm

I done this with my phone but it costs a lot. When I connected my phone to the computer using the USB cable that came with it was recognized as a modem. Software came with the phone to let me dial up with it and it worked but as I said before it cost me a lot of my credit. Hope that helped.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:52 pm

While that answered some questions. You were connecting via your wireless cellphone companies software where as I would just use the phone to dial in to my ISP which I pay $10 a month for the dial up at home.

Regards and hope this help clears some confusion.

Bass Creator · Post by **Bass Creator** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:57 pm

with my sony ericson i can make my computer a head set and OR it has the option of making the phone a modem with bluetooth

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:52 pm

Bay_Wolf wrote:So all I would get charged for is the amount my ISP charges and minutes from my phone?

Regards

That's the idea. I'm not completely sure, but it makes sense if you think about it.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:54 pm

Thanks for all of your guys help/advice.

Regards

warmachine · Post by **warmachine** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:56 am

Someone has done this with the iPhone and it was very much a hassle, if I recall. The cracked open the bluetooth system on the iPhone and tethered it as a modem; the EDGE functionality served as the internet connection, but I don't think bluetooth permitted very "blazing" speeds.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:19 am

I was able to get that done on my T-Mobile SDA... it was incredibly slow, (1KB/s) but it worked. Don't believe me? Check out the instructions... http://support.t-mobile.com/knowbase/ro ... ICE=Manual and look at page 70.