John commented to say he’s been using his 650 for DUN over bluetooth for a long time now, and that all it takes is the latest firmware. So I go looking and find Treo 650 Updater 1.04 from October 2005 and I have to wonder “what firmware does my phone have?” Here’s how to check:
Open the Phone application, press ‘menu’, navigate to ‘Options’, then ‘Phone Info’
Of course nothing is simple, and a TreoAddicts story notes trouble with the update, and the installation instructions are daunting (really, look at ’em). And even if either plan did deliver Bluetooth DUN without frying my phone (a risk I’m happy to take), it’s still only 1xRTT (and if you’ve forgotten what it was like to surf on a 56K modem, 1xRTT is like the good old days all over again). (Did I just say “and” four times in two sentences?)
So, just for kicks I took another look at shadowmite’s DUN hack (hey, the shadowmite wiki works better than the forums) and see a two step install that’s not nearly as scary or risky sounding as the official update. That sounds like the plan, but again, it’s only 1xRTT.
Frustrated, I go looking for other options and find the very exciting looking Merlin XU870 3G HSDPA 7.2 ExpressCard (deets) from Novatel. It delivered 1Mbps download speeds in the test and is supposedly going to be available from Cingular some time soon, but they’ve got nothing to offer in the Expresscard form factor now.
Still frustrated, I wonder about phone-based access solutions. T-Mobile will happily sell me their SDA phone, which supports EDGE (with average data speeds of about 100-130Kbps, far slower than Verizon’s EV-DO), Bluetooth, and WiFi. Interesting, but still slow.