Laptop Wireless Internet

You might be miles away from the nearest Internet connection and you really need to get on the Internet with you laptop. So if you have the right windows mobile device with a data plan, you can connect up with 802.11 or USB port to your cellular phone.

A great way for laptop wireless access using your cellular connection is with a software program called JoikuSpot. This software program will turn your phone into an actual WiFi access point and allows you to use your phones 3G communications. After that it is very easy to connect your laptop to the Internet.

The JoikuSpot program needs to run on a cell phone that has the Symbian operating system. This is found on high-end phones like Nokias and Samsungs. The lite version only allows web browsing, but buying the full JoikuSpot program for 25 Euros you can have other connections like instant messaging or encryption. Interestingly, they also have another application that takes several 3G phones and groups them together for even faster WiFi connection from one 3G phone.

So if you don’t have a high-end phone for WiFi connection, there is still a way to connect your laptop with a USB cable. Here is how you can do this if you have a Window Mobile phone manufactured by HTC, High Tech Computer Corporation.
Your laptop views your phone as a serial port modem with a USB port accessory, and you dial in to establish an Internet connection. You do the dialing in process with an executable program running on your laptop. Once the connection is established, this program routes your Internet packets back and forth through the serial port modem because it appears as a network device to your computer.

Before you can do this, however, there is a process called ActiveSync running on both your phone and laptop that interferes with the dialing in process. So, the first thing you want to do is deactivate ActiveSync on your laptop. Run task manager and look for the process called wcescomm.exe and terminate it. You then want to end the ActiveSync on your windows mobile phone by going to “settings” then “system” then “memory.” When you see “running programs” and find ActiveSync, end the process on your phone. This is all of course temporary and you can restart ActiveSync by rebooting your notebook and re-enabling it on your phone if needed later.

On your HTC phone under “programs” there is an icon called “modem link.” Set the connection dialog box to USB. Baud rate will say unused. The access point name will be the carrier that your phone uses like “wap.cingular” for Internet access. Select active. Status will then change to say active. As soon as you do that connect your phone to your laptop. You will find the found new hardware wizard with “generic serial” listed. Select install from list or specific location advanced. The driver inf file that you will download and unzip just sets up modem settings in the registry using the extra USB serial port created by your phone. Set the search for best driver in location to the unzipped folder with this modem driver inf file. Next you need to run the USB modem dialer found in the unzipped folder. Enter your username and password for your Internet data plan, dial in, and you now have a wireless Internet access on your notebook.

Reference Links:
JoikuSpot
HTC usb modem driver and dialer

Here is a video of using JoikuSpot on a Nokia phone: