Macs With 3G — More Connectivity, More Problems 73
narramissic writes "In a recent blog post, Josh Fruhlinger muses on the possibility of 3G radio receivers turning up in future Mac notebooks (as foretold by Apple job postings and the mention of WWAN hardware in Snow Leopard beta releases). 'At first glance,' says Fruhlinger, 'this seems like a reasonably awesome idea.' But will the target market be willing to take on the additional telecom charge? 'And, more to the point,' he says, 'most of us have gotten accustomed to the idea of one Internet connection per household, shared with a wireless router. The latter idea could be covered by a router that connects to the Internet over a 3G connection — something like the MiFi hotspot. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple had such a thing in the pipeline, an Airport station (Airport Mobility?) that didn't need to be plugged into the wall. That would explain the search for 3G experts, anyway.'"
ASUS already does this (Score:5, Informative)
I think many people are not aware that some ASUS EeePC netbooks already have an HSPA modem (a.k.a. 3.75G) builtin.
E.g. the model 901 GO sold in Italy or in Germany. They're pretty awesome, you can find them on Ebay and at least the Italian ones were sold by the operator TIM, but they are not locked in any way.
One Internet connection per household... (Score:4, Informative)
is no longer the trend here in Asia, at least in HK, Japan and S. Korea where we have cheap, unlimited internet connection over 3G from the PC or Notebook, mostly via HSDPA (7.2/14.4 Downlink, see Smartone-Vodafone [smartone-vodafone.com]), HSPA+ (21Mbps downlink, see HK CSL [hkcsl.com])
Naturally, it would be much more convenient if this is built-in.
In fact, many netbooks are already has HSPA modem built-in, and some are already working at 21Mbps speed, such as this one [hkcsl.com].
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This is nothing new... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has done it allready with the iPhone nearly 3 years ago!
My iPhone 3G prefers the available and configured WiFi connections at home and at work and falls back to 3G everywhere else.
I'm wondering why it took them so long to add this to their laptop range... it would be very useful to have connectivity everywhere.
In europe most 3G network operators have been oferring subsidised laptops (mostly 3G enabled netbooks from dell, hp etc) with 3G data contracts for over a year now.
Unfortunately said contracts usually come with low data caps (like 5 or 10GB) but the point of 3G is to complement WiFi access and not replace it -- meaning that they provide the reassurance that you will be connected anywhere, anytime, but you should plan to download gigs of stuff while on a WiFi network instead.
Right... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, 3G netbooks are pretty common and you can indeed buy some tele plans with a netbook for free. Oddly enough, often ones without a 3G modem. I on the other hand bought my acer one with 3G just from a shop for 259 euro.
So what exactly is the problem? Only an idiotic laptop company is going to make their new laptop exclusive to a telecom. Phones, yes, they need a telecom. PC's don't.
Re:Nothing new here... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if i'd want a 3G modem built in, it becomes a little harder to get the modem in position for good reception. I'm happier using my HSPDA modem outside of my laptop.
plus with a pay as you go contract i'm free to use the thing or not as required. There is also an issue of roaming which is quite easy to encounter at which point the data plan goes out the window, and you pay through the nose.
People are being fooled a little into thinking a mobile internet connection will only work for one computer /etc/sysctl.conf change this line to net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
for Linux users its pretty easy to share it
and the following
ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.1
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -s 192.168.2.0/24 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp0 -p tcp --dport 3074 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.254
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp0 -p udp --dport 88 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.254
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp0 -p udp --dport 3074 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.254
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i ppp0 -p udp -m multiport --dports 88,3074 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.254
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -d 192.168.2.254 -p tcp --dport 3074 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -d 192.168.2.254 -p udp -m multiport --dports 88,3074 -j ACCEPT
can be run as a script by root.
all you then need to do is connect eth0 on the to the wan port on a router and set the wan port to a static address of 192.168.2.254 and a gateway of 192.168.2.1 set dns to 192.168.2.1
and now you have a lan using a 3g interface, incidentally tethering a mobile will use ppp0 so once you can connect with the tethered mobile you can do the same.
My setup goes one step further chaining a second router to expand the range using tomato firmware and wds +access point mode. Performance wise it seems reasonable, the Eircom adsl link I used before used to top out at about 300kb/s download - 3G hspda modem 222kb/s The relatively small cap of 10gb in 30 days is a bit limiting but I figure the last day of the month will be good to use up whats remaining of the cap.
If you don't want to tie up a computer sharing there are a number of routers available for about 100 which will do the same job.