X-SciTech

Use Your Blackberry As A Modem

By Brian Kennedy

March 8, 2007 / 3:35 PM EST / CBS News

(BlackBerry)

Have you ever been disconnected from your email or the internet for an extended period of time (for some this is 30 minutes)? For everyone else, maybe you were delayed in an airport or on vacation—you know that trip "with no cell phones or blackberries." But what about the scores, spring training just started, after all. Or politics—there's a presidential race going on—and you have to know what the pundits are saying or writing You may be thinking about getting an air card—but you're just not sure if you can justify the expense. There is an something that you already have that might satisfy your needs: using your blackberry as a modem. Remember cell modems—using your cell phone to get 9600 baud? Things have come a long way since then, and with the wifi revolution, air cards gaining popularity, and wi-max on the way, we forgot that this device is more than email on our belt. The RIM folks knew what they were doing when making this part of their product.

If you have a blackberry (something made in the last 2 years or so)...and a similarly up-to-date laptop—you just may be able to create this legal union (though not with all corporate IT departments). Using your blackberry—simply connect it to your laptop with that USB cable that came with the blackberry (if you don't have one, it's probably still in the box). Well nothing is that easy, but if you have an hour or so—and can follow blog-direction well, you might have your emergency connectivity answer. For this assignment, I did it this afternoon for my T Mobile 7290 blackberry (full disclosure, I am a loyal and happy Verizon air card user). Air cards are GREAT...but as a responsible personal consumer, I'm not sure I would need this level of technology or expense. Now that I know my blackberry can cover my internet dead zones, maybe I would just get a blackberry and use it as a modem occasionally. I was surprised at how easy it was to set up—just some basic menu options and a few assumptions about my blackberry—and I'm set up.

After setting everything up, and connecting I went to my favorite web pages (Excite, ESPN and of course, cbsnews.com). I was also able to access my corporate webmail account and gmail. In my small experiment, the signal stayed connected for about 2 hours, no locking up. Refreshing the webmail was a bit slow, but internet mail was totally acceptable. Another great thing about this connection is that it will also work while moving--driving in a car or riding on a train.

All in all, if you want a last resort connection from places you cant get wifi, and don't want the expense of an aircard—this could be your answer.

A few things to know:

• Your corporate IT dept may block you from allowing this (as mine might if they read this).

• Expect this to be faster than the browser on your blackberry—not as fast as an aircard (PCMCIA or express card). Think dial up or a little less (though some services say they are much faster).

• Your blackberry battery will charge while connected to the computer...if the computer is not plugged in, be careful of power consumption.

• If not already on your desktop, you might need to download and install the Blackberry Desktop Manager software to set up and run this service.

• I installed this (on a Blackberry 7290) with the help of directions from www.blackberryforums.com