feedback on tethering on EDGE with a Blackberry 8310

[Eric47]

Thoughts:

great tool, espically if you have a laptop. in this case, i do not and it is only for temporary use, but works great. I have to admit though, from past reviews i read and by having DSL most of my digital life, i was a bit weary of tethering, but during this process i think i may have changed my mind. keeep reading and you will see why.

Necessities:

Luckily with the blackberyy, as most everything about it, it is pretty "out of the box" ready. heres what youll have to do for those of you that are not already familiar with the process.

Take into consideration this is not only for blackberrys but almost all AT&T phones (excluding the iphone). Mainly all the PDA's and many of the Qualcomm chipset phones such as the various 3G Samsungs and LG's, possibly some of the Nokia's as well, never tried though.

You'll also need a data cable, again, in this case, the blackberry luckily comes equipped (this is partly why you payed the little extra for this gem of a phone).

Procedures:

NOW..Before you proceed to jumping and hooking up your phone you will need to do 2 THINGS BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT HOOKING UP YOUR TETHERED PHONE

1. Figure out a way to get the AT&T communications manager onto your computer. there is a couple ways to do this. by either borrowing a CD with it from a friend who has An AirCard or from an AT&T store that will lend you one. OR find a friend who has internet access and can goto www.wireless.att.com/communicationsmanager to download the latest version and to save it to your thumb drive (or better yet to your phones microSD card bc AT&T allows you to use your SD card for file transfer )

once you have this you will wanto install the program then restart your computer.

YOU MUST RESTART YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE RUNNING THE PROGRAM OR HOOKING UP THE PHONE!

once youve done this and the program is back running, THEN you can hook your phone up and it should be able to recognize it and get you online.

NOTE IF YOUR USING A LAPTOP YOUR WIFI MUST BE TURNED OFF OR IT WILL CONFUSE YOUR COMPUTER AND IT WILL NOT WORK.

Overall thoughts:

The speed of it is not bad, in my house i have moderate coverage, usually 3 bars, and im usually cruising and downloading around 50kb which is not bad with the Accelerator that is built into the program for your web browsing pleasure.
At my parents house, which is usually full signal, ive hit 150-200kb which is in DSL range...not bad

Other benefits:

for 59.99/monthly for unlimited tethering/internet on the phone/ and unlimited email on the phone. Not to mention, no intial purchase price, and no contracts with this feature just like all at&t features.

Not to mention, no modems are necessary, no wires, no mess, no fuss, and if you travel alot its 100% portable.

AT&T does not have a limit on tethering data usage, not in their TOS, nowhere, their only exception would probably be if you were using it to DL gobs of pr0n or run a server off of it somehow or some other dedicated line. Normal Usage of download and browsing is truely what this is ment for anyhow.

if you are in a 3G area and you have a 3G phone tethering, id say expect at least 100kb-2MB/Sec depending on signal.


honestly im thinking about just keeping it this way instead of getting DSL..

I also love the way you can still text message easily from your phone and recieve and make calls while almost seamlessly interrupting your internet service..as soon as you hang up, your internet browsing can immediately continue.

just thought i would share this experience.

-Eric

[Eric47]

not to bump my own thread or anything, but has anyone else had good/bad experiences tethering?

i wonder how well it is speed wise on other networks, i know i read that EV-DO is technically faster theoretically, but i also am very aware of the fact that in real life situations it does not seem that fast.

[mrcamp]

Tethering works quite well for me with both my Samsung blackjack and Treo 750. These are 3G phones, so speeds are awesome! I use the data cable with the blackjack and Bluetooth with the treo. I've also had pretty good speeds when I used my V551.

Originally Posted by EricN4707

not to bump my own thread or anything, but has anyone else had good/bad experiences tethering?

i wonder how well it is speed wise on other networks, i know i read that EV-DO is technically faster theoretically, but i also am very aware of the fact that in real life situations it does not seem that fast.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by EricN4707

not to bump my own thread or anything, but has anyone else had good/bad experiences tethering?

i wonder how well it is speed wise on other networks, i know i read that EV-DO is technically faster theoretically, but i also am very aware of the fact that in real life situations it does not seem that fast.

Here's the breakdown of my teathering expereinces.

GPRS - ~30k - comprable to dialup speeds

EDGE - ~110k - comprable to ISDN speeds

3G HSDPA - ~1000k - comprable with a low end ADSL2 line.

Remember that these numbers are highly dependent on how close you are to the tower, your device, and how the network is setup in your area. Your speeds may be faster or slower than what I have experienced.

-Jay

[Eric47]

so how is tethering with EV-DO compare i wonder? i know our 3G works quite well and out runs most household DSL's for the price you pay. i know the theoretical speeds of EV-DO are suppose to be much faster than EDGE but in real life are they? and how do they compare to HSDPA or HSUPA?

[andy6432668]

CDMA and hsdpa 3G about the same speed as EDGE and CDMA 1xRTT which is painfully slow little faster then dialup but not much.

[Eric47]

EDGE is quite a bit faster than a dial up..i think you may be mistaken..its like a slow DSL actually...maybe 1x is slow like dial up..

i guess the reason i bring this up is because everytime i mess with a phone with EV-DO like the Sprint Touch or VZW Envy or Voyager im less than impressed with its web abilities..it never seemed much faster than EDGE and way slower than HSDPA...is it possibly this way in real life bench tests bc of the number of users accessing and the CDMA weakness to fill up?

[efparri]

AT&T is changing its data offerings on January 20, 2008. Tethering will be a $30.00 add-on to a Blackberry or PDA data packages. Tethering will no longer be unlimited but will have a soft five gigabte per month cap. You will not be charged for overages but the carrier may cancel your data package at its discretion.

[Eric47]

Originally Posted by efparri

AT&T is changing its data offerings on January 20, 2008. Tethering will be a $30.00 add-on to a Blackberry or PDA data packages. Tethering will no longer be unlimited but will have a soft five gigabte per month cap. You will not be charged for overages but the carrier may cancel your data package at its discretion.

thats already the cost. not to mention as of right now there is no limit, if there is going to be one its not out yet.

[andy6432668]

When AT&T cancels you for going over their 5 gig limit then go with Sprint truly unlimited.

[elmo01]

Originally Posted by andy6432668

When AT&T cancels you for going over their 5 gig limit then go with Sprint truly unlimited.

it looks like SPRINT covered their butt in the same way

Data Services: Data-capable phone required for Nextel Data Service Packs, Nextel Text Messaging, Web Plan, My Nextel Address Book, Mobile Email Enhanced and MobilePics. Pricing for Nextel Data Services Pack is for Private IP addresses only. We reserve the right to restrict usage if it adversely affects network performance. If user is not subscribed to a "DATA ACCESS FOR YOUR PC" Plan, a Data Access Pay-As-You-Go charge is incurred when using network-aware applications such as GPS services and Java-enabled games and services

[Eric47]

yea every company has a "soft cap" or some sort of "reserve" . if they didnt they would just be asking for someone to try and run their whole apartment complex off of a data card.