iPhone as modem for my laptop?

[Landlord]

Hello,

Can anyone assist me in getting my iPhone to work as a modem? Is it possible? How do I do it?

The laptop is running Vista, by the way :shudder:

Thanks!
Phil.

[mcflurry]

Out of the box, it is locked not to do it.

[Landlord]

mcflurry said:

Out of the box, it is locked not to do it.

Oh!

So I need to hack it, I presume?

[HiRich]

There is a piece of software out in the wild that will make the iPhone act as a 3G modem. It was banned from the AppStore because the AT&T contract in the USA excluded this use (the fuss was that the same terms did not apply in all countries).
You'll need to Google extensively, and hope it's hidden on the developer's website. All I can remember is:
- It was fairly early this year (not long after the AppStore opened?)
- It was probably the first piece of software to be delisted.
- It was covered extensively by the web magazines (MacWorld.co.uk, etc.)
IIRC, general view was it was really only for emergencies, but was brilliant for those emergencies, and everyone should have it just in case.

[Landlord]

Blimey. I'm not sure I want to dick around with my phone that much. I'm the type it all goes wrong for when doing things like that!!

Thanks for the response though chaps.

[spants]

the best is PDAnet but you need to jailbreak your iphone.
Tony

[cyberface]

Yup - use the 'pwnage tool' or 'quickpwn' to jailbreak the phone and install Cydia, and then use Cydia to install PdaNet. It's free and very easy.

Only downside is that I've experienced a bit of instability after installing PdaNet as it installs a daemon that runs in the background. However take that with a pinch of salt - my phone is extensively hacked and I have a *lot* of weird stuff on it - a clean phone with just Cydia and PdaNet will probably be OK.

As to concerns over jailbreaking / hacking - nothing the 'pwnage tool' (I fking *hate* that name, it sounds so bloody childish) does can affect the hardware, and if you screw up your phone by accident then iTunes can restore it to factory condition. There's no baseband hacking with the 3G iPhone jailbreak. Loads of people are running jailbroken phones and the software doesn't require any skillz of any sort to operate.

[Landlord]

cyberface said:

Yup - use the 'pwnage tool' or 'quickpwn' to jailbreak the phone and install Cydia, and then use Cydia to install PdaNet. It's free and very easy.

Only downside is that I've experienced a bit of instability after installing PdaNet as it installs a daemon that runs in the background. However take that with a pinch of salt - my phone is extensively hacked and I have a *lot* of weird stuff on it - a clean phone with just Cydia and PdaNet will probably be OK.

As to concerns over jailbreaking / hacking - nothing the 'pwnage tool' (I fking *hate* that name, it sounds so bloody childish) does can affect the hardware, and if you screw up your phone by accident then iTunes can restore it to factory condition. There's no baseband hacking with the 3G iPhone jailbreak. Loads of people are running jailbroken phones and the software doesn't require any skillz of any sort to operate.

Thanks cyber - though I have to say, that doesn't mean much to me!!

Can I be cheeky and ask you to either link or PM me links to QuickPWN, Cydia and PdaNet? I've done some googling a got spooked by comments saying "this isn't the official version. It's a trojan horse" and "Why can't I jailbreak my 3G phone" etc.

If you could say "install this one then this one", it'd be most appreciated!!

[pmanson]

Phil,

Get yourself one of those usb dongles from 3 on PAYG. You can normally get a good deal via Quidco. Normally around £10 p/month (PAYG) and you'll get HSDPA speeds instead of 3G

[Mr E]

pmanson said:

Phil,

Get yourself one of those usb dongles from 3 on PAYG. You can normally get a good deal via Quidco. Normally around £10 p/month (PAYG) and you'll get HSDPA speeds instead of 3G

HSDPA is 3G.

[pmanson]

Mr E said:

pmanson said:

Phil,

Get yourself one of those usb dongles from 3 on PAYG. You can normally get a good deal via Quidco. Normally around £10 p/month (PAYG) and you'll get HSDPA speeds instead of 3G

HSDPA is 3G.

Ah I thought it was faster for some reason....

Phil - Ignore me I appear to be talking out of my confused arse again.

Learn something new everyday.

Phill

[tribbles]

FAICR, 3G can be a combination of HSDPA or HSUPA depending on what speeds are going up/down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Packet_Acc...

[peterh2]

Landlord said:

cyberface said:

Yup - use the 'pwnage tool' or 'quickpwn' to jailbreak the phone and install Cydia, and then use Cydia to install PdaNet. It's free and very easy.

Only downside is that I've experienced a bit of instability after installing PdaNet as it installs a daemon that runs in the background. However take that with a pinch of salt - my phone is extensively hacked and I have a *lot* of weird stuff on it - a clean phone with just Cydia and PdaNet will probably be OK.

As to concerns over jailbreaking / hacking - nothing the 'pwnage tool' (I fking *hate* that name, it sounds so bloody childish) does can affect the hardware, and if you screw up your phone by accident then iTunes can restore it to factory condition. There's no baseband hacking with the 3G iPhone jailbreak. Loads of people are running jailbroken phones and the software doesn't require any skillz of any sort to operate.

Thanks cyber - though I have to say, that doesn't mean much to me!!

Can I be cheeky and ask you to either link or PM me links to QuickPWN, Cydia and PdaNet? I've done some googling a got spooked by comments saying "this isn't the official version. It's a trojan horse" and "Why can't I jailbreak my 3G phone" etc.

If you could say "install this one then this one", it'd be most appreciated!!

It's really very easy to do:

1) Download http://www.theiphoneguru.org/wp-content/uploads/Qu...
2) Extract the .zip file and run QuickPwn
3) Follow QuickPwn's instructions
4) Open "Cydia" on your iPhone and search for PdaNet
5) Click install on PdaNet

Job done

[Mr E]

pmanson said:

Ah I thought it was faster for some reason....

Phil - Ignore me I appear to be talking out of my confused arse again.

3G a combination of the W-CDMA (Wideband, Code Division Multiple Access) radio end and signalling defined by 3GPP.

There are 3 standards that are of interest from a data speed point of view;

Release 99 (R99) - This was the original standard. Your data connection is a dedicated resource for you alone, and will allow a maximum of 384kbps down, and 384kbps up. All 3G phones can do this.

Release 5 (R5) - This introduces the concept of HSDPA. As data traffic is usually bursty, rather than assign you a data pipe that you might use 50% of the time, we assign a big chunk of radio spectrum to a high speed downlink channel that everyone shares. Then we have trick schedulers on the NodeBs (radio towers) that juggle slots on that channel to try to give everyone the best service possible. We also change juggle various bits and pieces to balance speed and reliability. If you're under the tower you'll get more speed than if you're on the edge of the cell.

Speed-wise, it depends on a lot of things. Signal strength and other people wanting to use the same resource obviously. But also, it depends on how good the modem is in the phone - if it can handle more timeslots at once, it can get more data (the wiki link above details the catagories).

Most modern mid to high end handsets are usually category 6 (3.6Mbps). The 3G iPhone is particularly slow as the chip is a cat 12 device.

I've got a couple of Samsungs that are cat 8 devices, along with a few Ovation USB sticks running at 7.2Mbps.

There are still low end UEs based on old chassis that are non HSDPA, so all the flashy networks in the world won't make them go faster.


Then (finally) we have Release 6 (R6). This is HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access). Conceptually the same as HSDPA above (there are some tecchy differences), but in the other direction. Peak speeds will not be as high, but data transfer is asymmetric anyway. Starting to see phones arrive that support this, and the networks are rolling it out, but it's not common yet.

Oh, and HSUPA will murder your battery I suspect.

Edited by Mr E on Monday 24th November 17:34

[Landlord]

peterh2 said:

Landlord said:

cyberface said:

Yup - use the 'pwnage tool' or 'quickpwn' to jailbreak the phone and install Cydia, and then use Cydia to install PdaNet. It's free and very easy.

Only downside is that I've experienced a bit of instability after installing PdaNet as it installs a daemon that runs in the background. However take that with a pinch of salt - my phone is extensively hacked and I have a *lot* of weird stuff on it - a clean phone with just Cydia and PdaNet will probably be OK.

As to concerns over jailbreaking / hacking - nothing the 'pwnage tool' (I fking *hate* that name, it sounds so bloody childish) does can affect the hardware, and if you screw up your phone by accident then iTunes can restore it to factory condition. There's no baseband hacking with the 3G iPhone jailbreak. Loads of people are running jailbroken phones and the software doesn't require any skillz of any sort to operate.

Thanks cyber - though I have to say, that doesn't mean much to me!!

Can I be cheeky and ask you to either link or PM me links to QuickPWN, Cydia and PdaNet? I've done some googling a got spooked by comments saying "this isn't the official version. It's a trojan horse" and "Why can't I jailbreak my 3G phone" etc.

If you could say "install this one then this one", it'd be most appreciated!!

It's really very easy to do:

1) Download http://www.theiphoneguru.org/wp-content/uploads/Qu...
2) Extract the .zip file and run QuickPwn
3) Follow QuickPwn's instructions
4) Open "Cydia" on your iPhone and search for PdaNet
5) Click install on PdaNet

Job done

That looks OK to me... I'll give it a go. Thanks very much!

[carlymart]

i have just done this and it works fine

[Landlord]

carlymart said:

i have just done this and it works fine

Me too!

Whomever coded this thing is awesome and I, literally, LOVE peteh2.