Using Cingular Communication Manager (broadband) with Macs

[SafetyGuy]

I will post this and see what flushes out. I now have a Cingular broadband card running with their Communication Manager on my wife's PC. I have a Mac PowerBook G4 with Virtual PC in it. I tried to set up the card to run in the Mac, and installed the Communication Manager in the virtual PC side. It finds the card, or rather I will say the card activates and shows it has a signal, but won't let me run broadband on the Mac.

Any suggestions?

Paul

p.s. - I finally joined the blue board! Keep the noise down!

 

[SkyHog]

I will post this and see what flushes out. I now have a Cingular broadband card running with their Communication Manager on my wife's PC. I have a Mac PowerBook G4 with Virtual PC in it. I tried to set up the card to run in the Mac, and installed the Communication Manager in the virtual PC side. It finds the card, or rather I will say the card activates and shows it has a signal, but won't let me run broadband on the Mac.

Any suggestions?

Paul

p.s. - I finally joined the blue board! Keep the noise down!

With Sprint, you have to activate the card after getting it working by using their software. Maybe Cingular is the same?

 

[mikea]

Virtual PC? Wow! I think you're lucky you got it to work that far.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I will post this and see what flushes out. I now have a Cingular broadband card running with their Communication Manager on my wife's PC. I have a Mac PowerBook G4 with Virtual PC in it. I tried to set up the card to run in the Mac, and installed the Communication Manager in the virtual PC side. It finds the card, or rather I will say the card activates and shows it has a signal, but won't let me run broadband on the Mac.

Any suggestions?

Have you tried to get it to work specifically on the Mac side?

IIRC, Virtual PC tries (and usually succeeds) to just use the network hardware that's set up on the Mac side of things.

Now, I haven't used a Cingular card yet, but I do use Bluetooth to connect to Cingular through my phone. You should be able to configure it using the Network panel in System Preferences. The "telephone number" should be WAP.CINGULAR, the account name WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM and the password CINGULAR1. That seems to work for both GPRS and EDGE, but I don't know about HSDPA.

Also, go here to download the proper modem scripts. There's a ton of other info there as well.

Hope this helps!

Kent

 

[jesse]

Buy a Mac and it'll just work!!!


oh..crap...wait....uhh---buy an Iphone!

 

[EdFred]

Buy a Mac and it'll just work!!!


oh..crap...wait....uhh---buy an Iphone!

Damn straight!!!!!!!!

 

[jason]

I don't understand how this is possible. Are you sure it's a mac? You should just have to turn it on. It should automatically find the card in the sealed package....levitate it across the room...insert the card into itself and initiate a connection that delivers at least 1 Gigabit of synchronous bandwidth.

If it doesn't happen exactly as described above a team of Geniuses (none of whom should have a foreign accent) should already have knocked on your door offering to replace this uncooperative machine with one that has at least twice as much RAM.

 

[mikea]

SafetyGuy, wrong place to ask for help.

Try asking at: http://macfixit.com or http://www.macobserver.com/forums/ or http://forum.maccast.com/

 

[mikea]

I don't understand how this is possible. Are you sure it's a mac? You should just have to turn it on. It should automatically find the card in the sealed package....levitate it across the room...insert the card into itself and initiate a connection that delivers at least 1 Gigabit of synchronous bandwidth.

If it doesn't happen exactly as described above a team of Geniuses (none of whom should have a foreign accent) should already have knocked on your door offering to replace this uncooperative machine with one that has at least twice as much RAM.

Buy a Mac and it'll just work!!!


oh..crap...wait....uhh---buy an Iphone!

You guys are really funny except:

a) The card only has Windows software
therefore
b) He's running Microsoft Windows on Microsoft Virtual PC
therefore
c) because it's Microsoft Windows, he's supposed to take NOT WORK as the final answer.

He's just NOT used to that answer like you are because he has a Mac Powerbook.

 

[jesse]

You guys are really funny except:

a) The card only has Windows software
therefore
b) He's running Microsoft Windows on Microsoft Virtual PC
therefore
c) because it's Microsoft Windows, he's supposed to take NOT WORK as the final answer.

He's just NOT used to that answer like you are because he has a Mac Powerbook.

Wow...All these requirements, exceptions..I thought them there Macs were just supposed to work!

 

[jason]

You guys are really funny except:

a) The card only has Windows software
therefore
b) He's running Microsoft Windows on Microsoft Virtual PC
therefore
c) because it's Microsoft Windows, he's supposed to take NOT WORK as the final answer.

He's just NOT used to that answer like you are because he has a Mac Powerbook.

You had over 13 hours to stew over my comments and that's the best you could do?

Mike, you and I both know that were he using a PC he would already have it working.

 

[EdFred]

You had over 13 hours to stew over my comments and that's the best you could do?

Mike, you and I both know that were he using a PC he would already have it working.

See my sig.

 

[jason]

See my sig.

Sorry, Ed. I know your sigs trump all...even logic. I will obey.

 

[KennyFlys]

The apple has a worm.

 

[SafetyGuy]

Obviously the blue board is full of comedians. Mike and Kent, thanks for your input, appreciated.

Paul

 

[SafetyGuy]

You had over 13 hours to stew over my comments and that's the best you could do?

Mike, you and I both know that were he using a PC he would already have it working.

I already told you in my OP that I was running the card in my wife's PC... sigh.

 

[jason]

I already told you in my OP that I was running the card in my wife's PC... sigh.

Paul,

I'm sorry. You just happened to stumble in after a week long debate. I didn't take lack your lack of tenure into account when I posted...and you just happened to pick the one subject that would draw that kind of response out of me.

Welcome to PoA. I'm glad that you're here.

Jason

 

[SkyHog]

Obviously the blue board is full of comedians. Mike and Kent, thanks for your input, appreciated.

Paul

Hey now, I offered decent advice too! I actually stayed away from the Mac vs. PC stuff this time!!

BTW, I am fairly certain that the answer lies in the activation of the card. If you have access to a straight PC, not an emulated one, you may be able to get it activated using the software through a PC, then take it to the Mac.

The software for activating the cards is usually pretty finnicky, so I'd assume that running it in an emulated environment may be what is causing the issue.

 

[jesse]

Hey now, I offered decent advice too! I actually stayed away from the Mac vs. PC stuff this time!!

BTW, I am fairly certain that the answer lies in the activation of the card. If you have access to a straight PC, not an emulated one, you may be able to get it activated using the software through a PC, then take it to the Mac.

The software for activating the cards is usually pretty finnicky, so I'd assume that running it in an emulated environment may be what is causing the issue.

Read above. He already uses the card in his wife's PC. It's not an activation issue. The problem is Cingular did not design it with Mac OS X in mind. He may be able to work around this--he may not. Hard to say.

 

[SkyHog]

Read above. He already uses the card in his wife's PC. It's not an activation issue. The problem is Cingular did not design it with Mac OS X in mind. He may be able to work around this--he may not. Hard to say.

Weell...it appears you're right (although the OP doesn't actually say that, but I digress).

OSX apparantly will run linux stuff (or so I'm told). I'd actually check to see if someone has steps to running the card in linux, and see what they did. I can almost guarantee you that someone has gotten this card working in Linux.

Virtual PC, even if you got it working for this, would probably be immensely slower than you're gonna want.

 

[SafetyGuy]

I now have a Cingular broadband card running with their Communication Manager on my wife's PC.

I will type slowly, and then hope this thread self-destructs...

1 - See above. PC already running with broadband card from Cingular using their Windows-based Communications Manager.

2 - I have a Mac that contains Virtual PC, which is Windows environment running inside the Mac. I run AOPA's Flight Planner there, for example. It connects through the Mac to WIFI connections. Works fine.

3 - Thought someone would have a workaround to the fact that Cingular has NOT YET issued software to run their broadband cards in the Mac environment.

4 - It would be nice to get broadband through the Mac when not in a WIFI environment.

5 - Macs don't levitate, do laundry, or provide surrogate companionship. If you have these issues, you need a different forum.

I am done now. Flame away. I return you to your normal nonsense.

Paul

 

[jason]

One issue is that you're trying to use the Virtual PC to provide connectivity to the Mac.

In your other example (AOPA flight planner) you're using the Mac to provide connectivity to Virutal PC. That is the way that the software is meant to work.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

3 - Thought someone would have a workaround to the fact that Cingular has NOT YET issued software to run their broadband cards in the Mac environment.

4 - It would be nice to get broadband through the Mac when not in a WIFI environment.

As I said, I don't think you need to wait for Cingular, I'd bet the Mac will run the card anyway. I could be wrong. Any luck yet?

As for Virtual PC - Get it (the card) to run on the Mac side first, and Virtual PC *should* be smart enough to pick it up. I highly doubt you'll get a piece of third-party hardware to run through an emulation layer.

One issue is that you're trying to use the Virtual PC to provide connectivity to the Mac.

In your other example (AOPA flight planner) you're using the Mac to provide connectivity to Virutal PC. That is the way that the software is meant to work.

Bingo.

Much more of this, and I'll have to buy the card for myself just to mess with it.

 

[rpadula]

Paul,

In discussions with friends about VPC, its biggest weakness was always the ability to deal with hardware devices. Is getting the card working under VPC a must-have?

Which Cingular card do you have? And which Mac OS?

Some of these cards are relatively new, but I've heard support has been added for them in later releases of 10.4.

Sierra Wireless has some Mac drivers.

Here are some other comments on Mac support over at the Cingular forum.

-Rich

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Buy a Mac and it'll just work!!!

Sheesh, guys... Lots of stuff DOES "just work" on a Mac (for example, when I was visiting my sister and wanted to print out my flight plan... I obviously didn't have MY printer, an Epson, but when I went to print it just said "Your Epson blahty-blah could not be found. Would you like to use the HP 5550 you just plugged in instead?), but ya can't expect an aircard to automatically know what number to dial, username, password, etc.

When I hooked up my Cingular phone to the internet, I had to find the proper modem script (I'd bought a phone that had just come out), and put in the proper login information, and that was it. Not 100% plug-and-chug, but about as close as could reasonably be expected in that situation.

oh..crap...wait....uhh---buy an Iphone!

Actually, I've been wondering how the iPhone thing is really gonna work. When I hooked my phone up, I called up Cingular, and pressed the proper buttons to get to an "Internet technical specialist" and I just asked them for the number, the username, and password. They were like "Huh?" and even the supervisor had no clue. Sheesh, gimme a break! I ended up finding them via Google. If it's this difficult to get the iPhone connected, the Mac-heads will not be happy!

I've also been wondering whether Cingular will crack down on tethering, or raise their rates for data service, or what once the MacGeeks all go get an iPhone and clog up the data network. Or, maybe Apple will use their considerable might to make Cingular get a bit better. I sure hope so.

 

[SafetyGuy]

Rich's link to the Cingular forum specific to Macs did the trick. I could not get the Option software to work with their card. However, the launch2net software from Germany did the trick and I activated that.

Thanks for all the useful info.

Paul