Hands-on Report--Bluetooth, TiBook and T68i

We have been using our Sony Ericsson T68i cell phone for several weeks now to connect to the internet with our 500 MHz PowerBook G4. Our TiBook is equipped with a D-Link DWB-120M Bluetooth module from the Apple Store and Apple's Bluetooth Software Preview 1 and 2. The T68i phone has a built-in Bluetooth modem and uses TDMA technology. We use it to connect via VoiceStream's GSM and GPRS networks. VoiceStream costs $39.99 per month in our area for 500 day minutes, voice or data.

An internet connection via GSM using Bluetooth is very easy to do. We have been unable to find any GSM Mac OS X drivers for the T68i so we used the Ericsson T39m 9.6 v110 driver supplied with Mac OS X 10.1.4. John Richey's web site explains how to set up the Network Preference Pane and Internet Connect application for GSM. With GSM one can dial any ISP. We use Earthlink.

Unfortunately, only a 9.6kbps connection is supported by GSM in the US at this time. How many of you are old enough to remember surfing the internet with a 9.6K modem? Now it seems glacial. But email is fine as long as there are no large attached files. Web surfing today with lots of ads and complex web pages is very slow. Still, it works so we are able to get on the internet in lots of places and times where previously it was impossible (our car, parked of course) or difficult, like in airports. We have almost dropped our TiBook many times while balancing it precariously and trying to get the dial sequence to work. Are the phone companies populated with complete idiots? Don't they realize how much revenue they are missing by not making it easy to use a laptop in an airport? VoiceStream now gets most of our airport expenditures.

Fortunately, VoiceStream also supports GPRS. GPRS is much faster than GSM. It seems like a 28-56K modem connection when we download and upload email. With GPRS we have to use VoiceStream's service called iStream rather than just dialing up our ISP of choice. iStream costs an additional $19.99 per month and provides just 5 MB of bandwidth per month. This is fine for light email while out of the office and for occasionally checking our MyiStream web page but not for web surfing.

This PowerPage web page explains how to set up a T68i phone and a TiBook to use GPRS with VoiceStream and where to get beta drivers. It's more complicated than GSM but it works and is much faster than GSM for email. Unfortunately, we have been unable to get any web pages to load with our TiBook via our T68i phone and GPRS. With Internet Explorer, we get an unrecognized file type error message and no response from the other browsers that we tried, Mozilla and OmniWeb. VoiceStream tech support and Sony Ericsson claim that the problem is with Apple's Bluetooth Software. We can't resolve it because the T68i phone is not yet supported by VoiceStream and Apple's software is an unsupported beta version so far.

In summary, Bluetooth is an excellent but developing technology. Fortunately, we bought two D-Link Bluetooth adapters when they were initially available from the Apple Store. Since then the Apple Store has suspended sales for some unannounced reason. We especially like the cordless Bluetooth headset that we use with our T68i while driving. Internet connections for email and modest web surfing are now possible in places where previously it was impossible, difficult or very slow with other technology.