Blackberry Tethered Modem - Part II
May 2nd, 2007 by Larry
I’ve had this Blackberry 8703e since late February, so now I have more experience with using it as an EVDO modem. As I write this, I am sitting in the Marriott hotel in Anaheim California. Rather than pay for daily Internet access, I decided to use the Blackberry.
Performance is quite good. I’d say it’s about like using DSL. Generally I am running double-digit kbps rates, but it peaks well up in the triple-digit range. During this session, my maximum transmit rate was 53.5kbps. Receive rates are higher. I maxed at 413.5kbps during this session.
What’s best about this unit is the sense of freedom it gives me. I am totally self contained and don’t have to sit among the hordes in the lobby of this fine establishment to use the free Wi-Fi. At airports, I no longer pay for Internet access. If my cable modem goes down at home (highly unlikely) I have an alternative. A week or so ago, they moved me to a new office at work. Unfortunately, the IT guys and the movers were on different schedules. I would have been offline and unproductive for an entire day but for my trusty Blackberry.
I have no problem using the office VPN while connected this way, but I do tend to postpone really large downloads (say 50 MB or more) when possible.
All in all, if you are on the fence about EVDO, my recommendation is for you to do it. Since I already had an unlimited data plan due to my heavy email use, this functionality added only $15 per month to my bill. If you start from scratch, the hit is around $60 per month where I am.
I’m curious if you had any issues getting your office vpn to work.
I’m having issues getting mine to work so was curious as to what vpn client you were using and if there were any special settings you needed to add or change.
thanks Mattie
Mattie, thanks for stopping by and for your question. We use the Shiva VPN client. I had no issues at all, but speed can be a problem. VPNs are more sensitive to weak or slow connections than, say, Instant Message clients. I use the tethered modem connection (EVDO) with the VPN just fine in general. It works best when I am in a hotel room saving $10 per day as opposed to on the train and in transit. Signal can be spotty then due to tunnels or coverage gaps. In that situation, I have to reconnect on occasion. SOmetimes I do just give up.
Thanks for getting back with me so quickly. I’m using the microsoft XP VPN client.
I’m getting the error 721 when I try to connect. I can disconnet my blackberry and go back to regular wireless and VPN comes right up.
So far, I can’t seem to find anything or anyone that has had any luck or issues, other than you.
Thanks for your input…its helpfull
Mattie
Well I did some quick research on that error. It is a failure of the remote server or cellular host to connect. It may be that this setup uses a port that your IT guys have blocked. I’d check with them on that.
I’m trying to confirm if I am seeing things or not… If you go under network settings and choose the properties of the blackberry dialup device and then “Configure” to drill down to the baud rate of this device, default is 115kbs, I can change mine to 980kbs…
I now see spikes to 560kbs on the upstream… Have you seen this tweak?
Daniel
My default was 230400, but I have never tried a larger number. I won’t be connecting that way for a while, but when I do, I’ll try the faster maximum and see if it changes anything. I was on last night on the train ride home and did a 14MB upload to my ftp server. The maximum throughput I got at any time was 16KB per second. But the train is a tough environment because cellular coverage is spotty and signal strngth varies all over the map.
OK, so I see no difference with a higher setting here. Take my results with a grain of salt however since I do this on a moving train.