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Wireless Networking Businesses Apple Hardware

One 3G Phone Connects 21 Macs on School Bus 47

Posted by pudge from the no-room-for-new-schools-but-plenty-of-parking-lots dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A BBC article talks about a project where a school bus with 21 Apple Power Macs is connected to the Internet using one 3G phone: 'On the bus, the phone is plugged into a laptop that acts as a server for other machines on board. Despite sharing the connection between 21 computers, the speed has impressed Mr Townsend. ''The service that children are getting through this phone is actually quicker than on their desktop machines in the school,'' he said.'"
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One 3G Phone Connects 21 Macs on School Bus More

One 3G Phone Connects 21 Macs on School Bus

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  • Well, more impressive than the looks of that bus-decoration anyways...

    Sharing a phone-connection between 21 macs getting decent speeds? For more than just emails?

    Imagine what a beowulf cluster of those could have done for the speed. No, half-serious!

    (Gotta stop posting on slashdot on an empty stomach)

  • I'm not suprised (Score:5, Funny)

    by alnapp ( 321260 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @09:51AM (#5423900) Homepage
    3G/21

    thats one seventh each

  • Cost? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by danrees ( 557289 ) <(dan) (at) (dwrees.co.uk)> on Monday March 03, 2003 @09:52AM (#5423902) Homepage
    Sounds good in theory, but isn't 3G data access prohibitively expensive, and charged per megabyte of data?
    • I wouldn't be surprised if it's partially donated in return for some small amount of advertising.

      -Adam

    • Re:Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trinn ( 523103 ) <livinglatexkali@gmail.com> on Monday March 03, 2003 @10:14AM (#5424053)
      Actually, on Sprint's 'Vision' network, their 3G data access is flat-rate per-month as long as your access is reasonable (that is, use your home connection to d/l those MP3s and ISOs). Generally their phones use a USB cable to emulate a modem, and you dial #777 (I think) into the virtual modem for a ppp connection at around 144kbps (pretty average 3G speed, about twice 56k dialup). As for what the flat-rate is, it's about $10/month.
      • Sprint Vision is CDMA2000 (2.5G), not WCDMA/UTMS (3G). Even though their marketing says otherwise, their technical information says so.

        • Re:Cost? (Score:3, Informative)

          by mgs1000 ( 583340 )
          Although CDMA2000 is not quite as technologically advanced as WCDMA, it is still considered "3G" by the ITU.

          I agree that Sprint marketing is usually far from truthful, (their ignorance of the actual meaning of term "PCS" is especially annoying) but they are correct to call it "3G".

    • Re:Cost? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ManxStef ( 469602 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @10:43AM (#5424280) Homepage
      Actually it shouldn't be that expensive; the typical price I've heard quoted is around the same as residential ADSL here (approx. 40-50 GBP) - indeed it's offered as an alternative for those that are too far from an exchange.

      Note that it is charged by the megabyte though, so running Kazaa all day will definitely hurt your wallet ;) Last I heard the breakdown was £25GBP per month for 20MB, plus £1 GBP per additional MB.

      Cheers,

      ManxStef

      (I'm on the Isle of Man BTW)

    • Re:Cost? (Score:3, Informative)

      by cyb97 ( 520582 )
      CTFP (Check the fscking pictures), if you look in the article (or even better) read the computerbus.com webpage you'll see that they're sponsored by ManxTelecom...

  • Laptop as server & 3G actual throughput (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @09:57AM (#5423944) Journal
    I just see their methodology as odd... according to the article:
    On the bus, the phone is plugged into a laptop that acts as a server for other machines on board.
    Well doesn't that seem sort of backwards? Since it's a bus with space and power constraints, shouldn't you set up the workstations as laptops but have a fixed, tower server?

    Nitpicking aside, 3G is definitely cool technology, but I'll wait until I see thousands of people trying to suck data at those kinds of speeds all from the same tower site before I become too impressed.

  • And we'll see that in the States in 2012? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @09:59AM (#5423957) Homepage Journal
    If we're lucky. I'm getting the Sprint PC Card with unlimited access (supposedly 144kbps) for $100/mo.

    I hope it's decent.
    • I've been looking at this. Unfortunately, they only have Windows drivers, and I can't find any reference to Linux support. I'd hate to have to set up a Windows notebook just for 'net use.

      Supposedly the Sprint PCS Vision Merlin card looks like a generic LAN card to the OS and requires no special drivers, but still has a Sprint app for establishing the connection. I'd love to hear if someone knows more about that or the others under Linux.

      Barring any good info on that, the Sony 608 is being announced by SprintPCS Tuesday, and it's got Bluetooth GPRS modem support like the T68i. No word from Sprint on whether you're allowed to use that, or if the Sprint PCS Vision service is restricted to the phone browser for that as it is with the other Sprint phones. Here's hoping.

      • Supposedly the Sprint PCS Vision Merlin card looks like a generic LAN card to the OS and requires no special drivers, but still has a Sprint app for establishing the connection. I'd love to hear if someone knows more about that or the others under Linux.


        Phones are visible to the computer as plain old AT-compatible modems. From what I remember, so are the "Merlin" PCMCIA cards. You don't need a special applicaton to make the connection, all you need is the PPP client built into the operating system, and possibly a tweaked modem script to feed it the right initialization string. Linux? OS X? No problem. This has been working on our side of the river for a few years now.

        Barring any good info on that, the Sony 608 is being announced by SprintPCS Tuesday, and it's got Bluetooth GPRS modem support like the T68i. No word from Sprint on whether you're allowed to use that, or if the Sprint PCS Vision service is restricted to the phone browser for that as it is with the other Sprint phones. Here's hoping.


        GPRS is packet data for GSM. The T608, being a CDMA handset, uses data over CDMA. 1xRTT cdma2000, where available.

        Last I checked, you could plug into a Sprint phone and surf. Or a phone from any of a number of other carriers. Nothing new there, and all stateside.

        Mark
      • I would prefer to use a PowerBook (15" when they are available in Aluminium) but I'm stuck using my Dell Inspiron 8100. I have linux on it as well (dual boot) but I cannot get my wi-fi card to work (kernel panic on boot up).

        OS X is so freaking sweeeeet. I guess I could just go Bluetooth through a phone but the unlimited part of the sprint plan is appealing.
    • You can do this now with Macs and Bluetooth phones over GPRS.

  • Ohhhhhhhhhh .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by one9nine ( 526521 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @10:34AM (#5424195) Journal
    The Macs on the bus go zip, zip, zip. Zip, zip, zip. Zip, zip, zip. The Macs on the bus go zip, zip, zip, all through the town.

    Mr. Townsend's phone bill goes through the roof, through the roof, through the roof ...

  • 21 computers (Score:5, Funny)

    by moc.tfosorcimgllib ( 602636 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @10:40AM (#5424263) Journal
    Thet's one heck of a game of bolo [lgm.com]!

  • I can't wait until... (Score:5, Funny)

    by archetypeone ( 599370 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @10:43AM (#5424283) Homepage
    we can /. a school bus.

  • How about the US? (Score:3, Informative)

    by iankerickson ( 116267 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @11:52AM (#5424752) Homepage
    Is there anything comparable in the US? I have a cell-phone, and have thought about using it to get on-line (sort of a portable broadband connection), but the speeds available are either pathetic (like the 9600 baud from cingular) or the cost is obscene. Is there anything in America worth even looking at? I'm not talking about downloading 600 meg ISOs or albulms worth of MP3. I mostly want it so I can place my one PC wherever I want in the apartment with out having to tape phone cabling to the baseboard or shelling out money to SBC just to "activate" more than the one live RJ-11 port in my unit (in the worst possible place in the apartment of course).

    Something faster that dialup but cheaper than DSL/Roadrunner and that would work on a NexTel motorola phone (one of those with the "CB-radio" chat function - I have an i30sx) would be ideal. Of course I could google for it (and have), but what do the rest of you recommend?

    • Re:How about the US? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mgs1000 ( 583340 )
      The best you can do to ditch the Nextel phone, (I hope you aren't under contract) and get either a GPRS phone from ATT or Voicestream/T-Mobile, or get a CDMA2000 phone from Sprint.

      Many people have been posting that they've had success using a SonyEricsson T68 w/GPRS service on their Macs for internet access. (over a bluetooth connection)

    • Re:How about the US? (Score:4, Informative)

      by merlyn ( 9918 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @01:04PM (#5425260) Homepage Journal
      I'm reasonably pleased with my Verizon Express service. It's advertised as "3G" by the stupid-market-droids, although of course it's really "2.5G" in the form of 1xRTT. This gives 144K bi-directional service in 30+ metro areas, falling back to CDPD (14.4K) as long as there's a digital signal.

      The plan I picked shares minutes for either voice or data, which seemed like a good compromise. I've used it in a dozen different metro areas with consistently good results.

      My TiBook takes about 10-12 seconds to connect, and about the same to disconnect. Faster than a modem handshake, but slower than my cable modem. {grin}

  • I've wanted to try to get online from my new phone (i used to be able to from my 2G PCS phone @14.4kbps), but I havn't been able to find any reliable information.

    I have SprintPCS with the $10/mo Unlimited Vision plan, an LG-5350 phone, and an iBook with USB support, running OS X.

    Any pointers on where to pick up a USB cable and info on a modem script/number to dial?
  • The article never says the bus was moving while the 21 computers were active. In fact, from the looks of the picture, it'd be unsafe if it was.

    I was able to use my old Richochet modem at 55mph. Back then, it was supposed to be the only technology that could.

    I've been meaning to try my Sanyo 4900 (Sprint PCS Vision) with my TiBook in the car ...

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