VisorCentral.com - Can I use my Thinmodem with a Cell Phone?

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Posted by mcgowinwt on 01-04-2002 04:24 PM:

Can I use my Thinmodem with a Cell Phone?

I have a Thinmodem Springboard, and I use a Panasonic cell phone that does not support data transfer (i.e., I think that means it is not "internet ready" and doesn't have a browser). It seems to me that I could hook the Thinmodem to the cell phone with a cable and have wireless internet access.

Am I right? If so, does anyone know where I could get more info and find a cable?

Posted by MarkEagle on 01-04-2002 10:33 PM:

To the best of my knowledge, you can't use a cell phone with the Thinmodem as it requires the good old Ma Bell wiring; cell phones do not work the way regular phones do.

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Posted by nwhitfield on 01-06-2002 11:52 PM:

Re: Can I use my Thinmodem with a Cell Phone?

quote:
Originally posted by mcgowinwt
I have a Thinmodem Springboard, and I use a Panasonic cell phone that does not support data transfer (i.e., I think that means it is not "internet ready" and doesn't have a browser).

The answer is almost certainly no; if it's an analogue cell phone, then there'd be too much interference. And if it's a digital one, then it's a big fat no as well.

When you make a call over a digital cell phone network, your voice is digitised, using pretty tightly optimised methods, to take up as little space as possible. The way it's done pretty much guarantees that data calls, which use a much wider range of noises than speech, will be scrambled.

So, when you use a cell phone with a 'modem' what it's really doing is looking like a modem, though it's much closer to an ISDN terminal adaptor. The usual modem squeaks and buzzes don't get sent over the air; instead it's just data - up to the rate of information used for a standard voice call (9.600bps on GSM). It's only when the data leaves the cellphone network to connect to the rest of the world that it's turned into ordinary modem tones - and if you're calling a direct digital service, that might not happen at all; for instance, many cell phone companies have an internet service on their own switches, which is actually giving an end-to-end digital connection from your cellphone to the net. It might look like an ordinary modem is involved, but that's just a technicality to make things work with any old software.

The exact sordid details will differ from one system to another, but all digital phone systems work in a similar way. Squirting analogue noises over a digital cellphone link (or some compressed fixed digital links) is a great way to render them next to useless - though if you chose a really slow speed, you might get a bit of joy, I suppose.

Nigel.

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