Motorola V66 and T-Mobile Internet
Taken from bits of the site that were recoverable from archive.org. Maybe incomplete.
We finally switched over from AT&T to T-Mobile. T-Mobile is a GSM based service (Rather than the TDMA service that we had from AT&T, though AT&T wireless does offer GSM phones too), so it’s still not as widely adopted as the other cell phone generations. However, the coverage here is good enough for most purposes.
T-Mobile is different than most cellular providers in that they offer an unlimited data service for an extra $20. Most of them charge something ridiculous, like $80 for 100MB. Given that it may be difficult to actually use it, since it isn’t the fastest thing in the world, that’s still sort of ridiculous. Verizon is the only one that comes close in that it allows you to convert your minutes into data for an additional fee.
Despite the fact that it may be slow and have a high lag, the ability to use GPRS is still rather cool. GPRS stands for “General Packet Radio Service”, which essentially means that you’re able to transfer data directly over GSM. Packet Radio isn’t traditionally known for having high speeds, but you can supposedly get 56k speeds over it in some areas. I don’t believe I’m in one of those areas, but I do connect to the phone at 115kbps so if I do enter one of these areas, it should automagically turn on.
The v66 is a great phone because it is fully supported by Mac OS X. In Mac OS X 10.3, the usb phone drivers are already included and you simply have to plug the phone in. You can use iSync to transfer your datebook and contacts between the phone and avoid having to manually keep them synchronized. To take advantage of the gprs feature (if you’ve paid the $20 for it with T-Mobile), you plug the phone in, and open up system preferences. It will notice the fact that you’ve plugged the phone in and let you select it as a network device.
You can then pick a script (available at http://www.taniwha.org.uk/) to use with your model phone–prefer GPRS over vanilla GSM, which relies on an relatively slow analog connection normally used for stuff like faxing (and of course defeats the whole purpose of getting GPRS service!).
After you have stuck the script into the proper directory (see http://homepage.mac.com/jrc/contrib/tzones/ for a quick walkthrough), you pick the script from the internet connect menu for the phone and then put in a phone number. Mine was internet2.voicestream.com, but it could vary. Then you pretend like you’re connecting to a regular modem and get online.