Greetings From The Uk - Mac / R-connect ...

[butterball 0]

First of all, I'd like to say hello from London / UK.

I will be coming to stay in India ( Kerala / Kollam / Cochin mainly ) for about 6 months. During this time I'd like to connect my laptop ( Mac Powerbook OSx ) to a mobile phone for basic surfing & updating my own website.

On an India travel forum I have been reading up about the best and fastest option and the RELIANCE seems to be one of the fastest connections around.

Officially, the software does not support Mac, however, on the following thread I read this :

http://www.indiamike.com/india/showthread.php?t=2767

Does anyone have any experience of doing this ?

Are Samsung handsets like the one used ( ie second hand ) readily available ?

I'd be interested in any tips, recommendations, dealers in the area who may supply the necessary cable & phone ( and buy it back later ! ) and any users who may have tried this type of connection.

I look forward to any help you may be able to offer

bb

Edited October 5, 2004 by butterball

[Code 0]

I think the best option for U wud be a Reliance FWP. This set can be obtained for a Deposit of Rs 2500 and Installation charges of approx 800. R-Connect(internet) charges are also cheaper as compared to mobile. U can return the set once U want to return to Uk after 6 months.

See reliance website for more details:

Reliance FWP

Installation should be simple as it is visible to your Mac system as a Hayes compatible 28 kbps modem. See this post for the details.

[Utsav 0]

Yes butterball, you'll be paying only 800/- as installation charge apart from usage charges as 2500/- is refundable deposit.

[pratikmhatre 0]

Hi

Word of caution from me

I was using R connect INTERNET fro m reliance mobile and billed for very high amount which is wrong bill .

Now they have disconnected my fone and asking for payment

So if you are ready to face such problems and wrong huge bill will not matter to you ,

then go for Reliance o/w forget about it and consider other options

ALL THE BEST

First of all, I'd like to say hello from London / UK. 

I will be coming to stay in India ( Kerala / Kollam / Cochin mainly ) for about 6 months. During this time I'd like to connect my laptop ( Mac Powerbook OSx ) to a mobile phone for basic surfing & updating my own website.

On an India travel forum I have been reading up about the best and fastest option and the RELIANCE seems to be one of the fastest connections around.

Officially, the software does not support Mac, however, on the following thread I read this :

http://www.indiamike.com/india/showthread.php?t=2767

Does anyone have any experience of doing this ?

Are Samsung handsets like the one used ( ie second hand ) readily available ?

I'd be interested in any tips, recommendations, dealers in the area who may supply the necessary cable & phone ( and buy it back later ! ) and any users who may have tried this type of connection.

I look forward to any help you may be able to offer

bb

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[butterball 0]

Thanks guys for the replies..

The only problem with the FWP is that I also anticipate moving around the country ! Hence the interest in the mobile connection...

I have heard it IS possible to sync a Mac to a SAMSUNG Reliance ( as explained in the thread above and pasted here again ) :

reliance mac secrets

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The only way that I know of of hooking up a mac with a reliance phone is to get a samsung phone model and a samsung usb data cable. For me, this meant going more than a few hours out of my way by bus to Kottayam, Kerala, the only office still carrying samsung products. Once you've got the phone and cord, you don't need the CD at all. A macintosh will automatically recognise that there's another modem option. Go into system preferences (note: this is all for OSX), click network...

Go to the network port configurations and you should see a new option "Samsung CDMA Technologies" Use that for your modem. Configure using PPP. Your account name and password are your phone number without the zero in front of the area code. The telephone number is #777 (this part would have been set up by the CD that's not mac compatible).

When you buy the phone, they'll give you the number you have to dial to activate the modem in the phone.

Now, back in your network preferences... under "modem" you need to choose SUNTAC U-Cable D3 (PDC)... Now you should be able to go to Internet connect, click on Samsung CDMA technologies and dial up.

Recently, Reliance went to a pre-paid plan. This is probably your best bet,rather than having to deal with bills that never come and the hells of indian bureaucracy. However! If you're not quite so middle of nowhere as me (meaning a city the size of Kottayam, Kerala... or bigger) they're going to be starting up a cable modem service very soon, so that should be checked into before getting a not so fast WLL phone connection.

Hope this helps!

Julie

Also , Pratikmhatre, I'm asuming it was a technical error in the billing ? I hope you manage to sort it out... I was planning on going pre-pay ..

bb

[GizmoFreak 0]

Hello

In the post you mentioned that a SAMSUNG phone and SAMSUNG data cable would work with the Mac - would you have any idea perhaps WHICH model ?

The few listed on their site are Discontinued and also the OS version they were listed for is also obsolete . So effectively there is no clear solution.

Can you please suggest what to do next ? I found out about their Sierra Wireless card solution but the prices are HYSTERICAL . The card itself is a PCMCIA and would work great through the Mac PCMCIA slot - BUT when i asked Reliance, its Rs 14,000 for the CARD alone - forget the schemes AND - this is the limit - they say there is NO WARRANTY on the hardware (card).

How can one spend such money without a warranty ?!!!!