Mobility Site - View Single Post - The multiplatform Bible of using your handset as a modem

Menneisyys · 07-12-08, 11:55 AM

After pressing the Next button, enter *99# as the phone number:

In the next username/ password input field, with most mobile operators, you don’t need to fill in anything. You, on the other hand, might want to untick "Make this the default internet connection" if you also have other, more preferred connections. Press Next:

On the final screen, it’s worth ticking in "Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop" so that you can quickly find it (not just under Start / Settings / Network Connections) to connect:

After pressing Finish, the dial-in dialog appears. Just leave everything alone, except for ticking in "Save the user name and password for the following users":

Just press Dial and the connection is established.

Note that with both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones you’re required to have a connection set up for this to work. Otherwise, the system won’t even know the server (the APN) it should connect to. That is, if you encounter mysterious "Error 734: The PPP link control was terminated" error messages upon trying to dial out, make double-sure you’ve defined the right connections and that they do work in the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile. Note that this isn’t necessary with, for example, the pre-WM5 AKU3 Windows Mobile USB approach – there, you don’t even need to configure an access point on your handheld.

1.1.2.1.2 The WM5 AKU3+ / WM6 / WM6.1 approach

This will be MUCH easier than with the BT DUN approach.

1, start Internet Sharing on the phone

2, click Connect (the left softkey), making sure "Bluetooth PAN" is selected in the upper and an already-defined network connection is selected in the lower, "Network Connection" drop-down list. Internet Sharing will automatically make your phone discoverable.

3, start Start / Settings / Network Connections / Bluetooth Network Connection on the notebook. Click Add:

4, On the next screen, check "My device is set up and ready to be found" and click Next:

5, After the desktop finds the BT PAN-capable phones, it lists them. Select the one you’d like to connect to (in this case, "Werner Ruotsalainen"):

6, Click Next. On the next screen, just enter the passcode and do the same on the phone – in exactly the same way as explained in the previous subsection on setting up BT DUN.

7, after the successful pairing process, you’re returned to the Start / Settings / Network Connections / Bluetooth Network Connection dialog; now, it already lists the connection we’ve just set up:

Just select it and click Connect; the connection will be automatically set up.

1.1.2.2 Symbian

Making Symbian work is done in exactly the same way as the BT DUN in Windows Mobile – see section 1.1.2.1.1. In Symbian, you need to make the phone visible under Tools / Bluetooth / My Phone’s Visibility – make sure it reads "Shown to all".

1.1.2.3 BlackBerry

It’s pretty easy to set up a Bluetooth modem under BlackBerry. Basically, it’s exactly the same as with Windows Mobile and Symbian; the only difference is that you MUST supply the so-called "init string" to the phone. Without it, it simply won’t work. Note that there is an official, but long-outdated and, therefore, not recommended tutorial HERE.

1. Start Bluetooth Settings on the BlackBerry; select "Allow another device to find me" as is depicted in the following screenshot:

2. On the notebook, from Phone and Modem Options, add the device as usual: Add, search for the device, select it:

Pair the BlackBerry with your handset:

Don’t leave yet for Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard, unlike with the other two operating systems! Here comes the tricky part especially important with BlackBerries. For the new modem records just created in the initial modem list under the Modem tab of Phone and Modem Options, we need to define the init string. To do this, select the just-added record and click Properties:

There, go to the Advanced tab and enter the init string of the form

+CGDCONT=1,"IP","your APN"

where your APN is dependent on your wireless operator. In the following case, it’s "Internet" (that of T-Mobile):

Now, go to Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard and set up your connection as usual, as is already explained in the second half of section 1.1.2.1.1. Everything needs to be done as is explained there.

1.1.3 Wi-Fi

There may be cases you will want to prefer connecting via Wi-Fi to your smart phone to be used as a modem. Some of these are as follows:

- you want to prefer a cable-less solution because, for example, cables make using your gear awkward. This is a very common case with UMPC’s and tablet PC’s. With them, a USB cable make mobility much harder.

- your notebook (or any other Wi-Fi capable client) doesn’t have Bluetooth (or, for that matter, USB), ruling out all the other connection methods. Currently, with recent notebook models, this happens much more frequently than the lack of Wi-Fi.

- Bluetooth is plain slow for the line speed of your modem. This may be the case even with UMTS (see my benchmarks with the HTC Universal), let alone HSDPA, where, using current gear (very fast modems like the Nokia N95) and currently attainable line speeds (about 2000-2500 kbps for an extended time), the difference can be three- or four-fold.

Unfortunately, none of the mobile operating systems support Wi-Fi tethering connections out of the box. However, nothing is lost! There’re several solutions for both Symbian and Windows Mobile that do what you want; some even free. In the following, I explain all these solutions.

Another note: In addition to the differences (that is, except for the possible power usage issues, advantages), the Wi-Fi approach has another very important advantage over the traditional ones: it allows for more than one clients connecting. All the reviewed Wi-Fi sharing applications support the connection of at least five notebooks (clients) over Wi-Fi. This also means that, except for the somewhat weaker security (some of these apps only support WEP, not more advanced encryption forms) and the need for using ad-hoc connections and not the traditional Access Point mode, they can fully replace the currently still very expensive (around 150-200 euros / dollars at least) 3G hardware routers like the $699+ (!) Proxicast's LAN-Cell 2 3G Cellular Router, the TDT Router Series, the D-Link 3G Mobile Router DIR-451, the Vodafone / Linksys / Cisco Systems' 3G / UMTS Router and the 2N(R) OfficeRoute for UMTS network. These Wi-Fi sharing apps can almost entirely make the (expensive) hardware routers unnecessary - all you need is a 3+G phone and a sharing app, and your mobile office, all your co-workers, is ready to have 3G access over 3+G.

First, I quickly explain how you can access your phones from Windows XP SP2+ as this info applies to all the available mobile phones and Wi-Fi applications running on them.

When you start a Wi-Fi server on your phone, it’ll create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. (Except for the free ICS Control on Windows Mobile, where this needs to be manually created.) Note: traditional Access Point-based networking doesn’t seem to work, even when some of the internet connection sharing apps do offer the ability to switch to Access Point mode. For example, in the Symbian (but not the Windows Mobile) version of WalkingHotSpot, you can, theoretically, switch to the other mode. However, it just won’t work.

To access these networks, on the notebook, all you need to do is going to Start / Settings / Network Connections / Wireless Network Connection and, probably after clicking "Refresh network list" in the upper left corner, highlight the mobile phone you’d like to connect to and, then, press Connect in the lower right corner:

That’s all you need to do on the notebook side. Fortunately, with third-party apps, setting up the Wi-Fi network sharing on mobile phones are also very easy. Basically, the default settings will just do with all of them (unless you want to protect your share with a WEP key or want to change the name of your ad-hoc network): after invocation, you just press the "Start" or "Connect" button and you’re set – the ad-hoc network is started and your only task is finding it inside Wireless Network Connection on the desktop (see the previous screenshot) and just connecting to it by clicking Connect – again, as has already been explained above.

You may also want to ask whether using Wi-Fi results in a much worse battery life. On the modem side, it’s, unfortunately, true – both Windows Mobile and Symbian* platforms suffer from major battery life degradation if you opt for using Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. I’ll show you a lot of real-world benchmarks later showing this.

*: I don’t know of similar Wi-Fi apps for BlackBerry and the current BB’s are all 2.75G – non-3+G – only, meaning Wi-Fi would be pretty much an overkill for them as the (theoretically) maximum attainable speed of non-EDR Bluetooth, 723 kbps, is well enough as it’s still far higher than the ~200 kbps practical maximum speed of the 2.75G EDGE. This is why BlackBerries are not discussed in here.

On the desktop / notebook side, the difference isn’t so pronounced. For example, with the HP TC1100 Tablet PC, there’s little difference in power usage between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-based access (assuming the latter doesn’t recharge the battery of the smartphone because, for example, it’s unable to – the case with the Nokia N95). That is, never ever think Wi-Fi equals much higher power consumption and much shorter laptop / notebook battery life. It’s simply not (always) true. In some of my measurements, Bluetooth DUN and PAN have even turned out to consume more power than Wi-Fi.

You may also want to ask how commonly used USB HSDPA modems like the Huawei E220 compare to wireless solutions as, as opposed to the wireless (cable-less) solution, it’s only the notebook battery that these modems draw the juice from. I’ve also made some thorough benchmarks (again, with the TC1100 and the Huawei E220 with the latest firmware) and found out that, on the whole, it resulted in an additional 1W of power consumption when continuously operating in HSDPA mode (and downloading a huge file) and 0.5W when idling, compared to the (on the whole, pretty much equal) Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth DUN / PAN figures. Compared to using a non-powered USB setup (benchmarked with the Nokia N95 acting as a USB HSDPA modem and disabled Wi-Fi / BT wireless on the tablet), the power usage difference was about 2 Watts while in transfer and about 1W when idling. Frankly, I expected considerably worse figures. Still, with a battery-friendly notebook (one that is continuously under 10W) – that is, at least a Pentium M / Centrino with low CPU load and not very high backlight level -, even these two Watts can mean as high as 20% battery life difference!

1.1.3.1 Windows Mobile

There are three alternatives for Windows Mobile: WalkingHotSpot (WHS), WMWifiRouter and ICS Control.

1.1.3.1.1 WalkingHotSpot (WHS)

WalkingHotSpot, which is already well-known on Symbian, is pretty much welcome on Windows Mobile. Apart from some (minor) differences like animation (which I find pretty much counter-productive, as it pretty much slows down navigating menus – the WHS folks promise a solution to the problem) and the lack of being able to make the server work in Access Point mode (which is pretty much redundant on Symbian as it just doesn’t work), the Windows Mobile version is exactly the same as on Symbian: you just start it, press Start and can already connect to it from up to four client devices. (Note that I've tested a non-public alpha version of the forthcoming, HTC Universal-compatible version 1.5. The currently available, at the time of writing, older WinMo version may be different from what I explain.)

It compares to the other contender in this category, WMWifiRouter, pretty well. The drawbacks (as of the current, 1.5 alpha) version are slightly (albeit not much) higher power consumption and the complete (!) lack of DMZ / port forwarding capabilities (please see THIS and THIS for an explanation; THIS, THIS and THIS also shows some real-world consequences of these problems). The latter means that, while all clients will work on the notebook, some specific functionality like RTSP streaming or Internet Relay Chat DCC chat / send initiation simply won’t work. If you plan to access your notebook in this way, for the time being, it’s really-really preferable going for WMWifiRouter instead. Or, ICS Control, if you don’t mind the somewhat less intuitive interface requiring some intricate knowledge of Windows Mobile networking.

1.1.3.1.2 WMWifiRouter

This (as of current, tested version, 1.07; note that at the time of writing not even closed betas of the forthcoming, major breakthrough version, 1.20 were available) is, currently, before the DMZ / port forwarding and the slightly higher power usage issues of WHS are fixed, without doubt the best Wi-Fi tool for Wi-Fi connection sharing, as long as you don’t want to learn how ICS Control needs to be configured. It’s commercial and is available HERE. While its starting / stopping the network connection can be a bit on the slow side compared to the alternatives (including WHS), this can certainly be lived with.

A very useful feature of WMWifiRouter is Crash recovery, which even "kicks in" at bootup time, checking everything is restored. Once it happened to me that the sharing phone no longer handed out local IP addresses to the clients and they, consequently, couldn’t access the Internet. (Interestingly, the desktop Windows XP SP3 didn’t display any error message; only Windows Mobile. I was lucky to have noticed the error message on my iPAQ 210 acting as a client; otherwise, I would have had a hard time finding out what the problem was.) Explicitly running crash recovery fixed the issue.

It has a LOT of goodies only fully-fledged, external access point hardware; for example, you can define port forwarding rules. (This is also supported by the free ICS Control, by the way.)

1.1.3.1.3 ICS Control

This free(!) title is way more complicated to use than the previous two titles for casual users. (For example, you need to manually enable Wi-Fi for Wi-Fi-based internet sharing to work – the previous two titles do this automatically.) However, once you learn to master it, you’ll find it pretty nice as it offers almost the same functionality as the above-mentioned, commercial titles. Sure, you don’t get for example usage statistics (which WMWifiRouter offers), but is still pretty nice. Also, it works on pre-WM5 AKU3 devices (WMWifiRouter and WHS only works on devices with WM5 AKU3 or later – that is, models that already have the new, Internet Sharing-based architecture).

People that started using Wi-Fi connection sharing before the user-friendly WMWifiRouter / WalkingHotSpot - that is, folks that followed my old tutorial - will surely find this application easy-to-use. Other users, however, might want to go for the commercial alternatives instead. If you’re a newbie and don’t want to learn the secrets of network configuration via ICS Control, prefer WMWifiRouter (or WalkingHotSpot, if its port forwarding / DMZ issues are fixed).

1.1.3.1.4 WinMo power consumption benchmarks

Below is a HTC Trinity (with the original, official WM5 AKU 3.3 ROM) showing the transfer of a 7.4Mbyte file (Firefox 3.0) via BT PAN first and, then, Wi-Fi (using WMWifiRouter) second.

As can clearly be seen, operating in Wi-Fi mode consumes way more power. The case is, incidentally, the same with the HTC Universal (running Tomal’s latest, 7.7 WM6.1 ROM). There, using Wi-Fi introduces about 150…200 mA additional Amperage, compared to the plain BT DUN / PAN or USB usage.

1.1.3.2 Symbian s60v3

There are two different products for the Symbian s60v3 operating system. (Note that, now that the competing Symbian platform, UIQ is officially declared as a dead-end, I don’t review UIQ products, only s60v3 ones.)

1.1.3.2.1 WalkingHotSpot

The Symbian version of this application, as with the Windows Mobile one, is pretty much recommended. It’s considerably better than the current, 2.0 version of JoikuSpot Premium, the most important alternative. Hope the bugs / problems of the latter will be fixed really soon.

Note that, as with the WinMo version, the trial version of WalkingHotSpot is severely restricted: if you have more than one device you’d like to use it with, you’ll only be able to do with the first one you use WHS with.

1.1.3.2.2 JoikuSpot Light / Premium

As with WMWifiRouter on Windows Mobile, it comes in two (a free Light and a commercial Premium) versions. Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no trial of the Premium version – this should be fixed. (Yes, I’ve long been pushing the importance of providing preferably time- but not functionality-limited versions of applications [but not necessarily games] so that prospective users can give them a try and don’t need to rely on sometimes overly biased, ad-like reviews. Of course, you won’t see any disguised advertisements from me of apps that don’t have a trial version at all. The mileage of some other reviewers, however, may vary.)

(Joiku Premium showing three clients connected)

The free(!!!) Light version is a perfect choice for anyone only wanting to browse the net and not use any kind of non-Web-based messengers (like MSN Messenger) or (again, non-Web-based) mailer applications trying to access the Net via the native POP3, IMAP and SMTP protocols. (Again and again, Web-based frontends will work.)

The commercial, just-released Premium, currently, as of version 2.0, compared to the Symbian version of WHS, has some drawbacks, which the otherwise excellent and overly user-oriented (it’s worth checking out their Web site – they have an excellent forum with a lot of customer service feedback) Joiku folks will hopefully soon fix.

1.1.3.2.3 Power consumption benchmarks

Below is a Nokia N95 Power Profiler screenshot showing the downloading of a 24Mbyte file, followed by some idling to see the idle power consumption. The four test setups are separated by a vertical white line. (Note that the white vertical line in exactly the center of the screen isn’t one of them.)

The cases are as follows:

1: N95 standard, built-in Bluetooth dial-up. The transfer speed was about one-third of that of the Wi-Fi / USB case; hence the much longer in-transfer section. Note that, after the transfer (during idling), the power consumption periodically fluctuated between ~0.25W (with backlight on) and 1.3W. Note that fluctuation isn’t necessarily the case in all cases – in another test, I’ve encountered far less fluctuation with BT DUN and far more with WHS. That is, pay more attention to the minimal power consumption.

2: WalkingHotSpot (WHS): as can be seen, during transfer, there is about 2.8W power consumption (I’ve made several more tests to make sure it’s indeed around 2.7…2.8W and is indeed much higher than with USB / BT DUN and definitely less than with Joiku Light); while idling, about 1.20W.

3: USB (using Nokia PC Suite to connect): slightly more power-consuming (but, of course, about 3… 3.5 times faster) transfer and a bit higher idling power consumption than with Bluetooth DUN; however, the latter doesn’t show idle fluctuation. (Again, don’t be mislead by fluctuation!)

4: Joiku Light (shows two transfer tests to make sure the speeds are correctly benchmarked): the highest (about 3.3W) in-transfer power consumption of all. There seems to be more fluctuation while idling – but, again, don’t be mislead by their frequency (with other benchmarks, there may me much fewer peaks).The minimal idle power consumption is about the same as with WHS – that is, about 1.20W. Note that I’ve repeated the tests with Joiku Premium, with, unfortunately, very similar results.

1.2 Charts

In this chapter, I provide you with two all-in-one charts for Symbian and Windows Mobile, comparing the individual techniques attainable speed, battery life etc.-wise. With Wi-Fi, I’ve also listed the available Wi-Fi internet sharing applications.

Note that the maximal download speeds, approximately 230 kbyte/s I've provided in the Symbian chart, has been measured in Vodafone Hungary's network, repeating the tests several times at different times of the day to make sure the results aren't affected by any HSDPA network congestion. Your mileage may vary - that is, you may have much less / much more HSDPA download speeds depending on your wireless operator, the average network congestion, the firmware version of your phone/modem (my Nokia N95 has the latest, v21 firmware) etc.

Note that I’ve also provided advanced information like putting the clients in a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) so that they can function as a server and whether Symbian / Windows Mobile clients are compatible with them. Again, you’ll want to read my previous articles for more info on what DMZ is and what the point in tethering another mobile device to a Symbian / WinMo / BlackBerry phone is.

Windows Mobile:

(in HTML format HERE)

Symbian:

(in HTML format HERE)

[1]: couldn’t test because the desktop Windows IRC client couldn’t join channels on clients – the other users saw the new user using Joiku Premium logged in, but the desktop IRC client of the latter didn’t display the new channel list window AND I couldn’t run the RTSP test on WinMo clients because of the lack of compatibility with client Windows Mobile devices

1.2.1 Verdict (only applies to Wi-Fi tethering!)

If you have a Symbian phone you'd like to use as a modem accessed through Wi-Fi, and you want to use other applications than just Web browsers and/or HTTP tunneling-capable messaging clients, go for WalkingHotSpot - at least for the time being, before the (current, as of version 2.0) bugs of JoikuSpot Premium are fixed and its power consumption is a bit lowered. If, on the other hand, you only want to browse the Web on the client(s), the free JoikuSpot Light might be the way to go if you don't deem it necessary to pay extra for WHS.

If you have a Windows Mobile phone, then, I recommend WMWifiRouter. While the direct (commercial and easy-to-use) alternative, WalkingHotSpot is indeed a sound product on Windows Mobile (too), I still consider WMWifiRouter better (lower power consumption, much more configuration features etc.), particularly in the light of the forthcoming, 1.20 version. That is, make sure you check out WMWifiRouter first.

Appendix

My previous, now-outdated and, as generic tutorials, not any more recommended articles (but for background / advanced info, you WILL want to read them) are as follows:

Another long-awaited breakthrough: dial-up Internet Sharing over Wi-Fi!

One of the BEST hacks of the year: Dial-up Networking Through Bluetooth Under WM5 AKU3 / WM6: at last, it’s WORKING, thanks to XDA-Dev folks (incl. me)!

The new dial-up networking model of the WM5 AKU3 – a must if you use your WM phones as modems

Using Pocket PC Phone Edition devices as modems via Bluetooth on notebooks - is it indeed as complicated as some state?

Use your Pocket PC Phone Edition as a modem for your other Pocket PC's! - a full tutorial

07-12-08, 11:55 AM	#2 (permalink)
Menneisyys Contributing Reviewer Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 4,575 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	After pressing the Next button, enter 99# as the phone number: In the next username/ password input field, with most mobile operators, you don’t need to fill in anything. You, on the other hand, might want to untick "Make this the default internet connection" if you also have other, more preferred connections. Press Next: On the final screen, it’s worth ticking in "Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop" so that you can quickly find it (not just under Start / Settings / Network Connections) to connect: After pressing Finish, the dial-in dialog appears. Just leave everything alone, except for ticking in "Save the user name and password for the following users": Just press Dial and the connection is established. Note that with both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones you’re required to have a connection set up for this to work. Otherwise, the system won’t even know the server (the APN) it should connect to. That is, if you encounter mysterious "Error 734: The PPP link control was terminated" error messages upon trying to dial out, make double-sure you’ve defined the right connections and that they do work in the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile. Note that this isn’t necessary with, for example, the pre-WM5 AKU3 Windows Mobile USB approach – there, you don’t even need to configure an access point on your handheld. 1.1.2.1.2 The WM5 AKU3+ / WM6 / WM6.1 approach* This will be MUCH easier than with the BT DUN approach. 1, start Internet Sharing on the phone 2, click Connect (the left softkey), making sure "Bluetooth PAN" is selected in the upper and an already-defined network connection is selected in the lower, "Network Connection" drop-down list. Internet Sharing will automatically make your phone discoverable. 3, start Start / Settings / Network Connections / Bluetooth Network Connection on the notebook. Click Add: 4, On the next screen, check "My device is set up and ready to be found" and click Next: 5, After the desktop finds the BT PAN-capable phones, it lists them. Select the one you’d like to connect to (in this case, "Werner Ruotsalainen"): 6, Click Next. On the next screen, just enter the passcode and do the same on the phone – in exactly the same way as explained in the previous subsection on setting up BT DUN. 7, after the successful pairing process, you’re returned to the Start / Settings / Network Connections / Bluetooth Network Connection dialog; now, it already lists the connection we’ve just set up: Just select it and click Connect; the connection will be automatically set up. 1.1.2.2 Symbian Making Symbian work is done in exactly the same way as the BT DUN in Windows Mobile – see section 1.1.2.1.1. In Symbian, you need to make the phone visible under Tools / Bluetooth / My Phone’s Visibility – make sure it reads "Shown to all". 1.1.2.3 BlackBerry It’s pretty easy to set up a Bluetooth modem under BlackBerry. Basically, it’s exactly the same as with Windows Mobile and Symbian; the only difference is that you MUST supply the so-called "init string" to the phone. Without it, it simply won’t work. Note that there is an official, but long-outdated and, therefore, not recommended tutorial HERE. 1. Start Bluetooth Settings on the BlackBerry; select "Allow another device to find me" as is depicted in the following screenshot: 2. On the notebook, from Phone and Modem Options, add the device as usual: Add, search for the device, select it: Pair the BlackBerry with your handset: Don’t leave yet for Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard, unlike with the other two operating systems! Here comes the tricky part especially important with BlackBerries. For the new modem records just created in the initial modem list under the Modem tab of Phone and Modem Options, we need to define the init string. To do this, select the just-added record and click Properties: There, go to the Advanced tab and enter the init string of the form +CGDCONT=1,"IP","your APN" where your APN is dependent on your wireless operator. In the following case, it’s "Internet" (that of T-Mobile): Now, go to Start / Settings / Network Connections / New Connection Wizard and set up your connection as usual, as is already explained in the second half of section 1.1.2.1.1. Everything needs to be done as is explained there. 1.1.3 Wi-Fi There may be cases you will want to prefer connecting via Wi-Fi to your smart phone to be used as a modem. Some of these are as follows: - you want to prefer a cable-less solution because, for example, cables make using your gear awkward. This is a very common case with UMPC’s and tablet PC’s. With them, a USB cable make mobility much harder. - your notebook (or any other Wi-Fi capable client) doesn’t have Bluetooth (or, for that matter, USB), ruling out all the other connection methods. Currently, with recent notebook models, this happens much more frequently than the lack of Wi-Fi. - Bluetooth is plain slow for the line speed of your modem. This may be the case even with UMTS (see my benchmarks with the HTC Universal), let alone HSDPA, where, using current gear (very fast modems like the Nokia N95) and currently attainable line speeds (about 2000-2500 kbps for an extended time), the difference can be three- or four-fold. Unfortunately, none of the mobile operating systems support Wi-Fi tethering connections out of the box. However, nothing is lost! There’re several solutions for both Symbian and Windows Mobile that do what you want; some even free. In the following, I explain all these solutions. Another note: In addition to the differences (that is, except for the possible power usage issues, advantages), the Wi-Fi approach has another very important advantage over the traditional ones: it allows for more than one clients connecting. All the reviewed Wi-Fi sharing applications support the connection of at least five notebooks (clients) over Wi-Fi. This also means that, except for the somewhat weaker security (some of these apps only support WEP, not more advanced encryption forms) and the need for using ad-hoc connections and not the traditional Access Point mode, they can fully replace the currently still very expensive (around 150-200 euros / dollars at least) 3G hardware routers like the $699+ (!) Proxicast's LAN-Cell 2 3G Cellular Router, the TDT Router Series, the D-Link 3G Mobile Router DIR-451, the Vodafone / Linksys / Cisco Systems' 3G / UMTS Router and the 2N(R) OfficeRoute for UMTS network. These Wi-Fi sharing apps can almost entirely make the (expensive) hardware routers unnecessary - all you need is a 3+G phone and a sharing app, and your mobile office, all your co-workers, is ready to have 3G access over 3+G. First, I quickly explain how you can access your phones from Windows XP SP2+ as this info applies to all the available mobile phones and Wi-Fi applications running on them. When you start a Wi-Fi server on your phone, it’ll create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. (Except for the free ICS Control on Windows Mobile, where this needs to be manually created.) Note: traditional Access Point-based networking doesn’t seem to work, even when some of the internet connection sharing apps do offer the ability to switch to Access Point mode. For example, in the Symbian (but not the Windows Mobile) version of WalkingHotSpot, you can, theoretically, switch to the other mode. However, it just won’t work. To access these networks, on the notebook, all you need to do is going to Start / Settings / Network Connections / Wireless Network Connection and, probably after clicking "Refresh network list" in the upper left corner, highlight the mobile phone you’d like to connect to and, then, press Connect in the lower right corner: That’s all you need to do on the notebook side. Fortunately, with third-party apps, setting up the Wi-Fi network sharing on mobile phones are also very easy. Basically, the default settings will just do with all of them (unless you want to protect your share with a WEP key or want to change the name of your ad-hoc network): after invocation, you just press the "Start" or "Connect" button and you’re set – the ad-hoc network is started and your only task is finding it inside Wireless Network Connection on the desktop (see the previous screenshot) and just connecting to it by clicking Connect – again, as has already been explained above. You may also want to ask whether using Wi-Fi results in a much worse battery life. On the modem side, it’s, unfortunately, true – both Windows Mobile and Symbian* platforms suffer from major battery life degradation if you opt for using Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. I’ll show you a lot of real-world benchmarks later showing this. : I don’t know of similar Wi-Fi apps for BlackBerry and the current BB’s are all 2.75G – non-3+G – only, meaning Wi-Fi would be pretty much an overkill for them as the (theoretically) maximum attainable speed of non-EDR Bluetooth, 723 kbps, is well enough as it’s still far higher than the ~200 kbps practical maximum speed of the 2.75G EDGE. This is why BlackBerries are not discussed in here. On the desktop / notebook side, the difference isn’t so pronounced. For example, with the HP TC1100 Tablet PC, there’s little difference in power usage between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-based access (assuming the latter doesn’t recharge the battery of the smartphone because, for example, it’s unable to – the case with the Nokia N95). That is, never ever think Wi-Fi equals much higher power consumption and much shorter laptop / notebook battery life. It’s simply not (always) true. In some of my measurements, Bluetooth DUN and PAN have even turned out to consume more power than Wi-Fi. You may also want to ask how commonly used USB HSDPA modems like the Huawei E220* compare to wireless solutions as, as opposed to the wireless (cable-less) solution, it’s only the notebook battery that these modems draw the juice from. I’ve also made some thorough benchmarks (again, with the TC1100 and the Huawei E220 with the latest firmware) and found out that, on the whole, it resulted in an additional 1W of power consumption when continuously operating in HSDPA mode (and downloading a huge file) and 0.5W when idling, compared to the (on the whole, pretty much equal) Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth DUN / PAN figures. Compared to using a non-powered USB setup (benchmarked with the Nokia N95 acting as a USB HSDPA modem and disabled Wi-Fi / BT wireless on the tablet), the power usage difference was about 2 Watts while in transfer and about 1W when idling. Frankly, I expected considerably worse figures. Still, with a battery-friendly notebook (one that is continuously under 10W) – that is, at least a Pentium M / Centrino with low CPU load and not very high backlight level -, even these two Watts can mean as high as 20% battery life difference! 1.1.3.1 Windows Mobile There are three alternatives for Windows Mobile: WalkingHotSpot (WHS), WMWifiRouter and ICS Control. 1.1.3.1.1 WalkingHotSpot (WHS) WalkingHotSpot, which is already well-known on Symbian, is pretty much welcome on Windows Mobile. Apart from some (minor) differences like animation (which I find pretty much counter-productive, as it pretty much slows down navigating menus – the WHS folks promise a solution to the problem) and the lack of being able to make the server work in Access Point mode (which is pretty much redundant on Symbian as it just doesn’t work), the Windows Mobile version is exactly the same as on Symbian: you just start it, press Start and can already connect to it from up to four client devices. (Note that I've tested a non-public alpha version of the forthcoming, HTC Universal-compatible version 1.5. The currently available, at the time of writing, older WinMo version may be different from what I explain.) It compares to the other contender in this category, WMWifiRouter, pretty well. The drawbacks (as of the current, 1.5 alpha) version are slightly (albeit not much) higher power consumption and the complete (!) lack of DMZ / port forwarding capabilities (please see THIS and THIS for an explanation; THIS, THIS and THIS also shows some real-world consequences of these problems). The latter means that, while all clients will work on the notebook, some specific functionality like RTSP streaming or Internet Relay Chat DCC chat / send initiation simply won’t work. If you plan to access your notebook in this way, for the time being, it’s really-really preferable going for WMWifiRouter instead. Or, ICS Control, if you don’t mind the somewhat less intuitive interface requiring some intricate knowledge of Windows Mobile networking. 1.1.3.1.2 WMWifiRouter This (as of current, tested version, 1.07; note that at the time of writing not even closed betas of the forthcoming, major breakthrough version, 1.20 were available) is, currently, before the DMZ / port forwarding and the slightly higher power usage issues of WHS are fixed, without doubt the best Wi-Fi tool for Wi-Fi connection sharing, as long as you don’t want to learn how ICS Control needs to be configured. It’s commercial and is available HERE. While its starting / stopping the network connection can be a bit on the slow side compared to the alternatives (including WHS), this can certainly be lived with. A very useful feature of WMWifiRouter is Crash recovery, which even "kicks in" at bootup time, checking everything is restored. Once it happened to me that the sharing phone no longer handed out local IP addresses to the clients and they, consequently, couldn’t access the Internet. (Interestingly, the desktop Windows XP SP3 didn’t display any error message; only Windows Mobile. I was lucky to have noticed the error message on my iPAQ 210 acting as a client; otherwise, I would have had a hard time finding out what the problem was.) Explicitly running crash recovery fixed the issue. It has a LOT of goodies only fully-fledged, external access point hardware; for example, you can define port forwarding rules. (This is also supported by the free ICS Control, by the way.) 1.1.3.1.3 ICS Control This free(!) title is way more complicated to use than the previous two titles for casual users. (For example, you need to manually enable Wi-Fi for Wi-Fi-based internet sharing to work – the previous two titles do this automatically.) However, once you learn to master it, you’ll find it pretty nice as it offers almost the same functionality as the above-mentioned, commercial titles. Sure, you don’t get for example usage statistics (which WMWifiRouter offers), but is still pretty nice. Also, it works on pre-WM5 AKU3 devices (WMWifiRouter and WHS only works on devices with WM5 AKU3 or later – that is, models that already have the new, Internet Sharing-based architecture). People that started using Wi-Fi connection sharing before the user-friendly WMWifiRouter / WalkingHotSpot - that is, folks that followed my old tutorial - will surely find this application easy-to-use. Other users, however, might want to go for the commercial alternatives instead. If you’re a newbie and don’t want to learn the secrets of network configuration via ICS Control, prefer WMWifiRouter (or WalkingHotSpot, if its port forwarding / DMZ issues are fixed). 1.1.3.1.4 WinMo power consumption benchmarks Below is a HTC Trinity (with the original, official WM5 AKU 3.3 ROM) showing the transfer of a 7.4Mbyte file (Firefox 3.0) via BT PAN first and, then, Wi-Fi (using WMWifiRouter) second. As can clearly be seen, operating in Wi-Fi mode consumes way more power. The case is, incidentally, the same with the HTC Universal (running Tomal’s latest, 7.7 WM6.1 ROM). There, using Wi-Fi introduces about 150…200 mA additional Amperage, compared to the plain BT DUN / PAN or USB usage. 1.1.3.2 Symbian s60v3 There are two different products for the Symbian s60v3 operating system. (Note that, now that the competing Symbian platform, UIQ is officially declared as a dead-end, I don’t review UIQ products, only s60v3 ones.) 1.1.3.2.1 WalkingHotSpot The Symbian version of this application, as with the Windows Mobile one, is pretty much recommended. It’s considerably better than the current, 2.0 version of JoikuSpot Premium, the most important alternative. Hope the bugs / problems of the latter will be fixed really soon. Note that, as with the WinMo version, the trial version of WalkingHotSpot is severely restricted: if you have more than one device you’d like to use it with, you’ll only be able to do with the first one you use WHS with. 1.1.3.2.2 JoikuSpot Light / Premium As with WMWifiRouter on Windows Mobile, it comes in two (a free Light and a commercial Premium) versions. Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no trial of the Premium version – this should be fixed. (Yes, I’ve long been pushing the importance of providing preferably time- but not functionality-limited versions of applications [but not necessarily games] so that prospective users can give them a try and don’t need to rely on sometimes overly biased, ad-like reviews. Of course, you won’t see any disguised advertisements from me of apps that don’t have a trial version at all. The mileage of some other reviewers, however, may vary.) (Joiku Premium showing three clients connected) The free(!!!) Light version is a perfect choice for anyone only wanting to browse the net and not use any kind of non-Web-based messengers (like MSN Messenger) or (again, non-Web-based) mailer applications trying to access the Net via the native POP3, IMAP and SMTP protocols. (Again and again, Web-based frontends will work.) The commercial, just-released Premium, currently, as of version 2.0, compared to the Symbian version of WHS, has some drawbacks, which the otherwise excellent and overly user-oriented (it’s worth checking out their Web site – they have an excellent forum with a lot of customer service feedback) Joiku folks will hopefully soon fix. 1.1.3.2.3 Power consumption benchmarks Below is a Nokia N95 Power Profiler screenshot showing the downloading of a 24Mbyte file, followed by some idling to see the idle power consumption. The four test setups are separated by a vertical white line. (Note that the white vertical line in exactly the center of the screen isn’t one of them.) The cases are as follows: 1: N95 standard, built-in Bluetooth dial-up. The transfer speed was about one-third of that of the Wi-Fi / USB case; hence the much longer in-transfer section. Note that, after the transfer (during idling), the power consumption periodically fluctuated between ~0.25W (with backlight on) and 1.3W. Note that fluctuation isn’t necessarily the case in all cases – in another test, I’ve encountered far less fluctuation with BT DUN and far more with WHS. That is, pay more attention to the minimal power consumption. 2: WalkingHotSpot (WHS): as can be seen, during transfer, there is about 2.8W power consumption (I’ve made several more tests to make sure it’s indeed around 2.7…2.8W and is indeed much higher than with USB / BT DUN and definitely less than with Joiku Light); while idling, about 1.20W. 3: USB (using Nokia PC Suite to connect): slightly more power-consuming (but, of course, about 3… 3.5 times faster) transfer and a bit higher idling power consumption than with Bluetooth DUN; however, the latter doesn’t show idle fluctuation. (Again, don’t be mislead by fluctuation!) 4: Joiku Light (shows two transfer tests to make sure the speeds are correctly benchmarked): the highest (about 3.3W) in-transfer power consumption of all. There seems to be more fluctuation while idling – but, again, don’t be mislead by their frequency (with other benchmarks, there may me much fewer peaks).The minimal idle power consumption is about the same as with WHS – that is, about 1.20W. Note that I’ve repeated the tests with Joiku Premium, with, unfortunately, very similar results. 1.2 Charts In this chapter, I provide you with two all-in-one charts for Symbian and Windows Mobile, comparing the individual techniques attainable speed, battery life etc.-wise. With Wi-Fi, I’ve also listed the available Wi-Fi internet sharing applications. Note that the maximal download speeds, approximately 230 kbyte/s I've provided in the Symbian chart, has been measured in Vodafone Hungary's network, repeating the tests several times at different times of the day to make sure the results aren't affected by any HSDPA network congestion. Your mileage may vary - that is, you may have much less / much more HSDPA download speeds depending on your wireless operator, the average network congestion, the firmware version of your phone/modem (my Nokia N95 has the latest, v21 firmware) etc. Note that I’ve also provided advanced information like putting the clients in a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) so that they can function as a server and whether Symbian / Windows Mobile clients are compatible with them. Again, you’ll want to read my previous articles for more info on what DMZ is and what the point in tethering another mobile device to a Symbian / WinMo / BlackBerry phone is. Windows Mobile: (in HTML format HERE) Symbian: (in HTML format HERE) [1]: couldn’t test because the desktop Windows IRC client couldn’t join channels on clients – the other users saw the new user using Joiku Premium logged in, but the desktop IRC client of the latter didn’t display the new channel list window AND I couldn’t run the RTSP test on WinMo clients because of the lack of compatibility with client Windows Mobile devices 1.2.1 Verdict (only applies to Wi-Fi tethering!) If you have a Symbian phone you'd like to use as a modem accessed through Wi-Fi, and you want to use other applications than just Web browsers and/or HTTP tunneling-capable messaging clients, go for WalkingHotSpot - at least for the time being, before the (current, as of version 2.0) bugs of JoikuSpot Premium are fixed and its power consumption is a bit lowered. If, on the other hand, you only want to browse the Web on the client(s), the free JoikuSpot Light might be the way to go if you don't deem it necessary to pay extra for WHS. If you have a Windows Mobile phone, then, I recommend WMWifiRouter. While the direct (commercial and easy-to-use) alternative, WalkingHotSpot is indeed a sound product on Windows Mobile (too), I still consider WMWifiRouter better (lower power consumption, much more configuration features etc.), particularly in the light of the forthcoming, 1.20 version. That is, make sure you check out WMWifiRouter first. Appendix My previous, now-outdated and, as generic tutorials, not any more recommended articles (but for background / advanced info, you WILL want to read them) are as follows: Another long-awaited breakthrough: dial-up Internet Sharing over Wi-Fi! One of the BEST hacks of the year: Dial-up Networking Through Bluetooth Under WM5 AKU3 / WM6: at last, it’s WORKING, thanks to XDA-Dev folks (incl. me)! The new dial-up networking model of the WM5 AKU3 – a must if you use your WM phones as modems Using Pocket PC Phone Edition devices as modems via Bluetooth on notebooks - is it indeed as complicated as some state? Use your Pocket PC Phone Edition as a modem for your other Pocket PC's! - a full tutorial __________________ MS MVP- Mobile Devices.