Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Possible Sprint/Apple announcement @ WWDC

I

illumin8

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 20, 2003
427
0
East Coast, US
I just read in the SprintPCS newsgroup that Sprint is supposed to launch the Sony/Erricson T608 phone on June 23rd. This is the first phone that supports Bluetooth and Sprint's high speed PCS Vision data (1xRTT).

Wouldn't it be awesome if Sprint and Apple had a joint announcement at WWDC announcing both the updated 15" PowerBook and the first Sprint Bluetooth phone that gives you 160kbps wireless data from anywhere in Sprint's coverage area and syncs with iSync?
 
i would be excited but im so fed up with sprint. ive had a terrible time with them so I am jumping to att wireless. luckily i had 30 days incase att is just as bad to take back everything.

iJon
 
I think the idea is to take advantage of SprintPCS Vision and the 3G wireless network. The phone would provide the wireless access through bluetooth. If the T608 has the right software to allow for this setup it should be ok.

Already you can buy a PCMCIA based wireless card from Sprint to tie into the 3G network. Unfortunately, their current Sprint Connection software only works with Windows I believe.

But since Apple has stated that iSync will work with Sprint and the T608 you have to assume for now that the phone should provide the same type of wireless access using bluetooth between your computer and the phone.

This should be smilar to the T68i and T-Mobile. The only real difference in the data network for T-Mobile is GPRS instead of 3G and their plans charge you per minute essentially. You can get SprintPCS Vision plans with UNLIMITED wireless access.
 
wow thats great! so technically.... anywhere my sprint phone would get service... i could surf the web on my powerbook... wirelessly. Just how fast is it? (as compared to say a cable modem)... i suppose if the service were good enough i could cancel my cable internet service
and surf using my unlimited sprint vision? now that sounds cool!
 
It already works for other Sprint phones

I've used a couple of Sprint phones now to get data service for my powerbook from their 3G network. For the samsung "vision" phones, you can buy a USB cable to connect the phone (Sprint won't sell this to you, but a 3rd party will).

The laptop then sees the phone as a modem. The coolest part is that there is a "Sprint Vision" profile built into OSX.

The speeds aren't anything to write home about. The "3G" network can get max speeds of 128K (supposedly), but the latency is really long. Still, it's so cool that I can hook up and check my mail and surf from the train.

NOTE: Sprint's policy is that their $10/month unlimited data service is ONLY for data consumed by the phone - not using the phone as a modem. Some people have been sent huge bills by Sprint for abusing the "unlimited" service this way. My experience, though, is that if you use it for only occasional use, it stays under the radar. The people who got in trouble tended to be people who said "Why should I keep my land ISP?"... Right now, Sprint can't tell the difference between tethered laptop traffic and on-device usage, but they know for certain that no mobile phone app can consume data as fast as a tethered laptop.
 
you already can access the pcs vision network using the connection cards. you dont have to use any sprint software. the merlin c201 card works flawlessy with any mac with a pcmcia card and os x 10.2.6.
 
Originally posted by sparkleytone
you already can access the pcs vision network using the connection cards.
Click to expand...

That's true, but the cost is much higher than going through a phone. $100/mo for the data plan - and that's with a cap on total bandwidth, no? $10/month for the unlimited phone plan.
 
Re: It already works for other Sprint phones

Originally posted by mstecker
NOTE: Sprint's policy is that their $10/month unlimited data service is ONLY for data consumed by the phone - not using the phone as a modem. Some people have been sent huge bills by Sprint for abusing the "unlimited" service this way. My experience, though, is that if you use it for only occasional use, it stays under the radar. The people who got in trouble tended to be people who said "Why should I keep my land ISP?"... Right now, Sprint can't tell the difference between tethered laptop traffic and on-device usage, but they know for certain that no mobile phone app can consume data as fast as a tethered laptop.
Click to expand...
Ahh... thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm thinking of switching to Spring service when the T608 comes out and I was wondering how that worked out. I think if I only use it when I'm travelling and away from an ethernet jack I should be OK...

On the other hand, if I stay in a coffee shop downloading MP3s from a P2P network all day I'm pretty much asking for trouble.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back