Connecting a GPRS phone to a network?

Hi, i am presently doing work in Afghanistan and suffering from
primitive internet access but there appears to be a kinda solution but
i wanted to check with the networking gurus out there first.

The situation:
We have a 64kbps satellite connection that costs us $300/mo (robbery
if you ask me but hey) and the real kick in the pants is that this is
shared between as many as 10 users (normally 3-4 though). One of the
mobile phone providers here just started offering unlimited GPRS
access for $20 a months, so that seems like a possible (cheaper)
alternative. I was thinking about setting up the higher level staff
with their own GPRS service and then setting up our router with its
own mobile phone for the rest of the staff (that don't need internet
access but hey). So, we have a linksys WRT54G router that is enabling
us to share our satellite connection at the moment, would it be
possible (and not too expensive in terms of adapters etc) to connect
the router to an "always on phone" so the staff would still have net
access? Also, since i have never played with GPRS before any
recommendations, advice, pointing out of caveats (remember, we have an
uber expensive satellite as the only other alternative at the moment).

Also, would there be a way to say daisy-chain a few GPRS connections
to get an even faster speed? (probably a pipedream but i just though
I'd ask).

Cheers

-Gaiko

(E-Mail Removed) writes:

> Hi, i am presently doing work in Afghanistan and suffering from
> primitive internet access but there appears to be a kinda solution but
> i wanted to check with the networking gurus out there first.
>
> The situation:
> We have a 64kbps satellite connection that costs us $300/mo (robbery
> if you ask me but hey) and the real kick in the pants is that this is
> shared between as many as 10 users (normally 3-4 though). One of the
> mobile phone providers here just started offering unlimited GPRS
> access for $20 a months, so that seems like a possible (cheaper)
> alternative. I was thinking about setting up the higher level staff
> with their own GPRS service and then setting up our router with its
> own mobile phone for the rest of the staff (that don't need internet
> access but hey). So, we have a linksys WRT54G router that is enabling
> us to share our satellite connection at the moment, would it be
> possible (and not too expensive in terms of adapters etc) to connect
> the router to an "always on phone" so the staff would still have net
> access? Also, since i have never played with GPRS before any
> recommendations, advice, pointing out of caveats (remember, we have an
> uber expensive satellite as the only other alternative at the
> moment).

I'm not even sure you'd need a router. You may just need the switch
portion of your WRT54G. You may need to disable the wrt54g's dhcp
server to maximize your chances for success (when I've done this
before I was actually on a dumb hub).

If you are using Windows on at least one computer, Internet Conenction
Sharing with the Windows computer tethered to the phone is what I've
done in the past on a GSM phone. It's pretty darned simple too. You
just enable internet connection sharing on the dialup or network
connection that the tethering uses, computers on the same lan will
start getting ip addresses from the ICS computer, and stuff will just
magically work (even if the client machines are Linux).

I'm not sure how to do an ICS equivalent in Linux, though I strongly
suspect there has to be a way.

> Also, would there be a way to say daisy-chain a few GPRS connections
> to get an even faster speed? (probably a pipedream but i just though
> I'd ask).

I don't think there's a notion of "bonding" with GPRS. You could
segment the traffic though by having just one or two computers on each
network. You might need to get your hands on another switch or hub
though. Or, I wonder if you had two phones tethered to the ICS
computer what the route table would look like. Could be Windows would
load balance traffic between the two, I'm not sure. You might need to
fiddle with route priorities manually.


Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://toddh.net/

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 05:11:24 -0800 (PST), (E-Mail Removed)
wrote in
<bacdbfb4-7c9f-440f-97d4-(E-Mail Removed)>:

>We have a 64kbps satellite connection that costs us $300/mo (robbery
>if you ask me but hey)

If it were really robbery (a) you wouldn't be paying it and (b) there
would be some other better alternative.

>and the real kick in the pants is that this is
>shared between as many as 10 users (normally 3-4 though).

Ouch!

>One of the
>mobile phone providers here just started offering unlimited GPRS
>access for $20 a months, so that seems like a possible (cheaper)
>alternative.

Yep. If it's full speed, full Internet (not just WAP), and reliable.
But it won't be faster -- if it's not EGPRS(EDGE), figure about 50 Kbps
at best, less than your satellite link.

>I was thinking about setting up the higher level staff
>with their own GPRS service and then setting up our router with its
>own mobile phone for the rest of the staff (that don't need internet
>access but hey).

The most elegant solution is a wireless-wireless router that includes
GPRS.

>So, we have a linksys WRT54G router that is enabling
>us to share our satellite connection at the moment, would it be
>possible (and not too expensive in terms of adapters etc) to connect
>the router to an "always on phone" so the staff would still have net
>access?

Not to a phone, but reconfigured as a wireless access point (not router,
as described in the wiki below) and connected to a PC with GPRS access
that has ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) turned on. The PC will have
to be on for other computers to access the GPRS. The downside is that
sharing a GPRS connection on more than one computer will be as painful
as sharing your satellite connection.

>Also, since i have never played with GPRS before any
>recommendations, advice, pointing out of caveats (remember, we have an
>uber expensive satellite as the only other alternative at the moment).

Nothing special needed. Would suggest a GPRS PC Card rather than using
a cell phone -- the better cards have good antennas that can improve
speed.

>Also, would there be a way to say daisy-chain a few GPRS connections
>to get an even faster speed? (probably a pipedream but i just though
>I'd ask).

That's bonding. It's not practical from a faster pipe standpoint.

But it might well make sense to get different GPRS accounts for
different computers, or perhaps a smaller pool of GPRS adapters (3-5)
and accounts shared among a larger pool of computers, instead of trying
to share a single GPRS connection. "Can I have the wireless card now?"

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR AT&T/CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AT&T_Wireless_FAQ>

Thanks John and Todd, now i have a slightly better idea of what my
(GPRS) options are.

Cheers

-Gaiko

On Feb 9, 5:11*pm, gaikokujinkyofu...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, i am presently doing work in Afghanistan and suffering from
> primitive internet access but there appears to be a kinda solution but
> i wanted to check with the networking gurus out there first.
>
> The situation:
> We have a 64kbps satellite connection that costs us $300/mo (robbery
> if you ask me but hey) and the real kick in the pants is that this is
> shared between as many as 10 users (normally 3-4 though). One of the
> mobile phone providers here just started offering unlimited GPRS
> access for $20 a months, so that seems like a possible (cheaper)
> alternative. I was thinking about setting up the higher level staff
> with their own GPRS service and then setting up our router with its
> own mobile phone for the rest of the staff (that don't need internet
> access but hey). So, we have a linksys WRT54G router that is enabling
> us to share our satellite connection at the moment, would it be
> possible (and not too expensive in terms of adapters etc) to connect
> the router to an "always on phone" so the staff would still have net
> access? Also, since i have never played with GPRS before any
> recommendations, advice, pointing out of caveats (remember, we have an
> uber expensive satellite as the only other alternative at the moment).
>
> Also, would there be a way to say daisy-chain a few GPRS connections
> to get an even faster speed? (probably a pipedream but i just though
> I'd ask).
>
> Cheers
>
> -Gaiko