Don't you have a Bluetooth PAN because you don't have a Bluetooth unit in your PDA at all or you "only" have the Microsoft Bluetooth stack? Would you still want to create local, wireless networks between Pocket PC's? Wi-Fi ad-hoc (peer-to-peer) networking to the rescue!
Local, wireless networks between Pocket PC's are really useful. They excel at running multiplayer games (please read this roundup of multiplayer games for more information; for this tutorial, I've successfully tested the following multiplayer games with Wi-Fi P2P: OmniGSoft titles (3D Mini-Jetfight 1.2 and Dogfight 1.5), ZIO Space Tactics 1.0, Handmark Battleship 1.06, Quartz 2 1.2, RocketElite 2.1, Warfare Incorporated 1.2, CanTris and The Travel Collection 1.6), running (also) LAN-based, excellent communication applications like Microsoft Portrait or help in Internet connection sharing between your PDA's.
Bluetooth (BT) Personal Area Network (PAN) is one means of achieving this kind of connectivity. (Please see the Recommended links section for the links of the tutorial explaining how BT PAN can be set up and used between Pocket PC's.) Unfortunately, support for BT PAN is painfully missing from all Pocket PC's that have the Microsoft BT stack on them, as opposed to the Widcom/Broadcomm stacks. Examples of Pocket PC's like this are all the HTC Phone Edition devices, the Dell Axim x51(v) etc.
Before publishing this tutorial, it seemed to be impossible to create computer-to-computer connections on Pocket PC's via Wi-Fi – or, at least, I have never seen any tutorials or even threads on this. It would seem to the causal user none of the available Pocket PC Wi-Fi clients (including the built-in Microsoft one) allow for explicitly starting a P2P connection – this is why most people would think it's not possible to host P2P connections at all on Pocket PC's. This is, fortunately, not true.
Setting up a Wi-Fi Peer-to-peer (P2P for short) or ad-hoc (non-infrastructure) connection between two (or, for that matter, several) Pocket PC's is really easy.
You can host the P2P connection on any Pocket PC that has Wi-Fi support – even on older (non-WM5) ones. In this tutorial, I show doing this on the HTC Wizard; the way of doing this is exactly the same on any other Pocket PC's.
I use the built-in Microsoft client for this. The latter can be found in WM2003 at Settings/Connections/ Connections /Advanced/ Network Card/Wireless and in (most) WM2003SE/WM5 devices at Settings/Connections/ Network Cards/Wireless.
Please note that you will need to explictly start the Wi-Fi unit before going there; otherwise, the Wireless tab won't be seen. Also note that WM2003/WM2003SE devices can be cradled during this, unlike WM5 devices because of the completely new networking model of WM5 (I've elaborated on the latter here). That is, you must not only start the Wi-Fi unit, but also disconnect your WM5 Pocket PC's in order to be able to have access to this tab.
Start the built-in Wi-Fi unit as can be seen in this screenshot. On other Pocket PC's, you'll have a different menu to do this; for example, on the Pocket Loox 720, you will need to click the globe icon on the Today screen and choose "Turn Wireless ON" and, on the Dell Axim x51v, you will need to click the
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
icon and click the Turn On button.
Then, you will need to go straight to Settings/Connections/ Network Cards/Wireless. You can do this, as has already been pointed out, via the Start menu – on most Pocket PC's. On the Wizard, it's also available through the above-shown connection dialog (go to Settings/Wi-Fi Settings and, inside, Menu/Network Cards). It's only on the Dell Axim x51(v) that it's not directly accessible – more on this later.
Now follows the initial creation of the Wi-Fi P2P network. It's very easy and must be done in exactly the same way on all Pocket PC's. This example shows a HTC Wizard.
Click Add New...; enter the name of the new p2p network; here, I've chosen to call it HTCWizardP2PwiFi.
Click for screenshot
Make sure you also enable the "This is a device-to-device (ad-hoc) connection" checkbox:
Click for screenshot
In the Network Key tab, it's worth change the default "WEP" to "Disabled" in the Data Encryption drop-down list so that you and your clients don't end up having to enter a WEP key. After all, noone can do any harm to self-standing Pocket PC's via Wi-Fi because they have simply nothing to access (as opposed to desktop PC's) - not even their local file system.
Click for screenshot
Then, just click OK; the PDA will start to listen to clients; this is why it says "Connecting":
Click for screenshot
Now, the P2P network is given a name and you can start configuring your Pocket PC clients to connect to it. I show this on two Pocket PC's; the PL720 and the Dell Axim x51v.
On the latter (x51v), turn on Wi-Fi. Click the (large) Settings button so that you get into the Wireless tab of Network Cards (note that, as has already been pointed out, Network Cards is not accessible in the traditional Settings/Connections on x51's! It is only accessible inside Dell's own Wi-Fi applet!) Here, it's the best to choose "Only computer-to-computer" from the "Network to access:" drop-down list so that the Pocket PC will only try to connect/will only list p2p "servers":
Click for screenshot
In the list above, you'll already see the "server" Pocket PC without explicitly entering its name into the client Pocket PC's:
Click for screenshot
Tap-and-hold it and choose 'Connect' from the context menu:
Click for screenshot
On the next screen, just click OK:
Click for screenshot
Then, the Pocket PC will attempt connecting and will, eventually, connect:
Click for screenshot
On all the other Pocket PC clients, you need to do the same. On the PL720 (or any other Wi-Fi enabled device that has the Network Cards applet in Settings/Connections), for example, you need to go to Settings/Connections/ Network Cards/Wireless, tap-and-hold the new P2P network from the list and choose Connect:
Click for screenshot
Then, the device will connect to the P2P network as can be seen in here.
P2P Wi-Fi connections are really flexible!
Note that it's only at the first occasion that client Pocket PC's need to explicitly connect to a "server". After this, whenever you enable the Wi-Fi unit on any of your Pocket PC's that have previously participated in a P2P connection, the P2P connection will be restarted. You won't even need to use the Pocket PC (in this example, the HTC Wizard) that, at first, hosted the connection, any more to participate in the P2P connection either. That is, the P2P connection will be automatically recreated when the Pocket PC's that have connected to each other see (at least some of) the other parties again.
Looking up a device's own IP address
In most cases, you'll also need to know the IP address some (or, in very few cases, all) of the Pocket PC's participating in a Wi-Fi P2P network. For example, when you use a P2P network to share an Internet connection on one of your PDA's with your other PDA's / desktop computers, you'll need to know the IP of the given PDA so that you can enter it on the other PDA's/computers in order for them to be able to find the server. It's only in very rare cases (for example, with the multiplayer game Warfare Incorporated, which uses broadcasting to find local clients on the local network and, therefore, requires no direct IP entering if used through LAN) that you won't need to do this.
Fortunately, as with the BT PAN networking scenario on the Pocket PC, once your device (automatically – don't let the fact mislead you that the operating system doesn't have a DHCP server!) gets an IP address in a P2P network, it will never change. That is, if a Pocket PC is assigned the (local) IP address, say, 169.254.212.228, it will stay the same in the same P2P networks that will be later recreated/restarted. That is, you won't ever need to look up your IP again or, for example, change the server IP in clients when you start the network again.
You can look up your IP's really easily. First, you can use the excellent and, what is more, free tool vxUtil for this. Just go to Functions/Info and jot down the IP address at the top. Examples of three Pocket PC's:
Pocket Loox 720
x51v
HTC Wizard
Alternatively, if you don't want to use third-party tools for that, go to the Network Adapters tab of the well-known Settings/Connections/ Network Cards applet, click the entry that corresponds to your Wi-Fi unit (unfortunately, its name can be pretty cryptic some time – for example, in the HTC Wizard, it's referred to as SDIO WLAN Adapter. Of course SDIO is pretty misleading here because the Wi-Fi unit isn't located on a SDIO card in the HTC Wizard) and jot down the contents of the, by default, not editable text field at the top:
PL720: screenshot-1 screenshot-2
X51v: screenshot-1 screenshot-2
Wizard: screenshot-1 screenshot-2
After this, you can test your P2P network with any client-server application like a multiplayer game. With, say, the excellent multiplayer game Warfare Incorporated, you'll see P2P networking indeed works with any number of participating Wi-Fi Pocket PC's (here, three). (Note that Warfare Incorporated uses auto-discovery over Wi-Fi (and BT); therefore, you won't need to enter the server IP address into the clients.)
Connected networks – Bluetooth PAN and Wi-Fi P2P working together?
You may ask the question "is it possible to utilize both Bluetooth PAN and Wi-Fi Peer-to-peer at the same time to connect both Wi-Fi and BT PAN clients to a server"? That is, is the following configuration possible:
Click for screenshot
In this configuration, the Pocket PC that has both Wi-Fi and BT PAN support (with also support for them being able to co-exist – that is, it should be a BT 1.2 device or the still BT 1.1 ASUS A730(w), which also allows for parallel use of the two wireless radios) hosts a server (let it be a Microsoft Portrait client, a multiplayer game server or anything) that clients would like to connect to to.
As can be seen in both the above schema and in this screenshot, the server PDA (in this case, the Pocket Loox 720) has two, entirely different IP addresses for the two local networks it participates in.
The answer to the original question is, unfortunately, no. Much as you can start host individual networks on your PDA capable of this (that is, a Widcomm BT 1.2 Pocket PC like the Pocket Loox 720), you can not host servers that would be accessible from both the Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth network on the same PDA. The sole reason for this is that server applications only listen to client requests on one IP address, which is generally the Wi-Fi P2P address. If you directly enter the BT PAN server IP address (in this case, 169.254.72.110) to the BT PAN client(s), the latter won't find the server application. You can't enter the "other", the Wi-Fi P2P server IP address (169.254.212.228) to the BT PAN client(s) either because it's a non-existing IP address in their own local network. That is, the BT PAN clients won't ever be able to connect to the server application – only Wi-Fi P2P-connected clients will be able to do this.
That is, any kind of multiple network interconnection is impossible.
I've tested this scenario with several applications to be absolutely sure this infrastructure won't work: MS Portrait, the multiplayer games from OmniGSoft (3D Mini-Jetfight 1.2 and Dogfight 1.5), the multiplayer game Quartz 2 1.2 and Warfare Incorporated 1.2. These games all have TCP/IP-based, LAN multiplayer capabilities and allow for more than two players at the same time. (There would be no point in using a networking architecture like this with multiplayer games that only support two players. Then, only one connection/networking type – BT PAN or Wi-Fi P2P – that is supported by both PDA's should be used.)
Recommended links (in addition to the already-linked articles)
Fundamental ActiveSync networking differences between WM5 and previous WM versions
Setting up a BT PAN and looking up the local IP address of the host (alternatives: iPAQ HQ, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox or BrightHand).
Very useful info indeed... 8)
my question.. if you are using a device with low speed processor ( like the wizard or prophet ) will enabling the wifi - and creating such a connection- impact performance of the game or the application it self??
duke911 said:
Very useful info indeed... 8)
my question.. if you are using a device with low speed processor ( like the wizard or prophet ) will enabling the wifi - and creating such a connection- impact performance of the game or the application it self??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. Most MP games worked well on the non-overclocked HTC Wizard over Wi-Fi p2p.
a comprehensive well documented well structured article, well done.
i have a wireless AP at home, and all works well, i get internet direct as does my notebook. i can run TSC over the network to take control of the XP Pro laptop.
but i cannot for the life of me get it to connect to a shared folder.
it stopped working when we installed Norton (dumb idea), but after uninstalling the internet security module, I still cannot connect, any suggestions. i have created the share etc but it simply wont connect to it.
Still works? Will see...
Now that there already are some AKU3 devices (mostly MS Smartphones) on the market (for example, the HTC Dash (see for example this excellent Smartphone Thoughts review), and I, as I know quite much about Bluetooth, network sharing (I’m the author of the one and only POST-capable, free HTTP network sharing proxy for the Pocket PC) and connectivity issues of Windows Mobile devices, have been receiving a LOT of related questions (see for example this), I have decided to update my well-known Use your Pocket PC Phone Edition as a modem for your other Pocket PC's” tutorial so that it contains AKU3-related information and to also explain why dial-up connections in the latest, AKU3 version of WM5 behave completely different from earlier operating system versions.
This article will be of extreme interest to anyone using their Microsoft-based phones (let them be either full Pocket PC’s or “just” MS Smartphones) as cellular (GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA etc.) modems because it explains everything about this subject, including the changes over the old model.
1. The most important changes, connectivity-wise
There are major changes in the connectivity model of AKU3 when it comes to serving clients that would like to use a Windows Mobile phone as a modem via either Bluetooth or infrared. In the following two subsections, I elaborate on both connection forms.
1.1 Bluetooth: No BT DUN profile any more
In AKU 3+, the Bluetooth DUN (Dial-up Networking) profile is no longer supported at all, only the PAN (Personal Area Network). Now, it’s via BT PAN’s that cellular-only network connections are shared and you have no access to DUN functionality any more.
This means clients discovering AKU3-based Windows Mobile phones will NOT see as modems, unlike with operating system versions prior to AKU3. This means that instead of seeing this (Microsoft BT stack) and this (Widcomm BT stack), you will see this (with the MS BT stack as clients) and this , this and this (three Widcomm-based clients (iPAQ 2210, hx4700 and the Pocket Loox 720)).
The latter screenshots, in essence, show you won’t be able to use Windows Mobile phones with Microsoft BT stack-based clients as the latter have no BT PAN support at all – along with a lot of other types of devices. That is, not so many “client” operating systems (“client” refers to devices that would like to use Windows Mobile phones to access the Net) support the (quite advanced) BT PAN profile as the “traditional” BT DUN dial-up method.
In the following subsections, I elaborate on the PAN compatibility issues both desktop and handheld OS’es. After that, I elaborate on other, related issues like port forwarding and convenience issues.
1.1.1 Desktop OS’es and BT PAN compatibility
On Microsoft Windows desktop PC’s, there is no difference: even the MS BT stack supports joining already-existing BT PAN networks as has been explained, say, here.
On Linux and Mac OS, however, the situation is vastly different: in some cases, only DUN is implemented in some Linux distributions; so is the case with the different Mac OS versions as far as I know as is also pointed out here.
1.1.2. Handheld OS’es and BT PAN compatibility
As far as Pocket PC’s are concerned, the situation here is far worse than that of the desktop Windows case. Here, it’s only the Widcomm/Broadcom BT stack that has always supported BT PAN. The Pocket PC-based Microsoft BT stack doesn’t have any kind of BT PAN client support as can also be seen in this screenshot. This shows PPC MS BT stack clients don’t see any profiles that would make it possible to access the net via AKU3 Phone Edition (or MS Smartphone) devices. Opposed to this is the pre-AKU3 case where DUN was still visible as can be seen in this screenshot (from the already-linked pre-AKU3 article “Use your Pocket PC Phone Edition as a modem for your other Pocket PC's! - a full tutorial”)).
Non-common Bluetooth stacks (like the ones that come with old BT cards – for example, see the original drivers that come with the Belkin F8T020 card – see this for more info) don’t support PAN either (they only support DUN).
Other (non-Windows Mobile) clients that can only use the DUN profile include Palm OS devices (the Palm OS’ BT PAN capabilities are really bad – Lan Access is, theoretically, supported via BT, but not in practice), some (not all! For example, the Sharp Zaurus has BT PAN support) Linux devices (for example, the Nokia 770), some mobile devices with proprietary operating systems (for example, some Garmin GPS units/computers) etc.
1.2. What do you need to know about infrared support?
It, unfortunately, no longer exists in the new Internet Sharing program, as opposed to the old Modem Link.
Right now, on some pre-AKU3 devices like the Wizard (but unlike, say, the Universal, which also has Wireless Modem (WModem)) Modem Link is the only way to use a PPC PE device as a modem over infrared (IrDA). Unlike “traditional”, “dumb” GSM phones, while these devices are also seen as “modems” for other IR devices when Modem Link isn’t active (I’ve elaborated on this, say, here), they can not be used as modems for actual dial-ups without explicitly starting the Windows Mobile phone in infrared modem mode.
The new Internet Sharing only works via USB / BT PAN as can be seen for example in this screenshot of Internet Sharing – the IrCOMM in the drop-down menu is gone, as opposed to that of Modem Link.
By completely abandoning Modem Link, this only way to connect to the outside world via infrared will also be gone. This means you will no longer be able to use AKU3 devices as infrared modems that don’t have additional programs (for example, Wireless Modem) to be used as infrared modems.
Note that some other PPC PE devices (for example, the HTC Universal) have the IrDA-capable WModem, which, currently, is almost the same as Modem Link (except for some fancy receive / send “LEDs”) and, again, still in pre-AKU3 times, seems to be quite redundant (“why double the functionality?”). This redundancy won’t, however, be the case after moving to Internet Sharing (if and when the Universal receives an official AKU3 upgrade) any more, when it’ll be the only phone app with IrDA capabilities.
What’s the point in sticking with IrDA, you may ask? Why not USB or BT instead? The answer is simple: many, for example, Microsoft BT stack-based Pocket PC devices only have IrDA to communicate, even high-end devices like the Dell Axim x51v (if the latter may not use BT DUN any more because of the lack of the BT DUN support in the modem). The same stands for pocket-sized computing platforms like many Palm OS, Linux and Symbian devices – if they contain BT at all, they are unlikely to support PAN.
With the switch to AKU3, none of these non-BT PAN / non-USB-capable clients will be able to access the Net via a PPC PE / MS Smartphone modem any more via infrared either on devices that only have Internet Sharing and not additional connectivity apps like Wmodem.
1.3 Port forwarding issues, running server-side / like apps
With a decent mobile operator (about 20-30% of them are like so; for example, in the UK – see this), which doesn’t use a proxied (“hidden”) networking approach but assigns the connecting client device a “real”, unique, connectable-from-the-outside-world Internet address, you can use so-called “server-side” applications. Don’t be afraid of this, this isn’t geeky stuff: these include absolutely common programs; for example, FTP clients (with non-passive FTP transfers), IRC applications (DCC send from a device only works with server-like devices), RealOne stream playing, incoming remote controller (Pocket Controller, VNC etc) connections etc. Using (or at least trying to use) these are all very common with non-geeks too.
(Please also see this and this for more info on these questions. I also recommend this for a list of what I mean by “server-like” applications on Pocket PC’s – there are quite a few of them which are REALLY useful even on PPC’s, let alone PC’s.)
This means eliminating server-like functionality support on a PC (or even a Pocket PC) connected to the Net via a PPC PE device certainly isn’t welcome. Therefore, it’s a very important question whether a connected Windows Mobile phone forwards all the incoming requests to the connected client, as was the case in pre-AKU3 times.
While Internet Sharing (that is, the new program that makes it possible to share mobile connections with BT PAN clients) doesn’t offer any kind of configurable port forwarding capabilities, unlike the built-in Windows XP Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) I’ve elaborated on several of my ICS-related articles, Microsoft – very wisely! – has paid special attention to properly implement this functionality.
When an AKU3 device shares its Internet connection (over USB, BT PAN and infrared if the given phone has the Wireless Modem / WModem applet), it puts the client to a DMZ (“DeMilitarized Zone”). Then, all incoming requests will be forwarded to the client. I’ve tested this with both playing RealOne streams over GPRS (on a client Pocket PC) and sending DCC files on IRC from client Pocket PC’s and desktop XP’s (to test the USB connection with the latter).
Note that when internet sharing is active, you won’t have server functionality on the phone itself, “only” on the connected client. This is much smaller a problem than the complete lack of using a DMZ (if Microsoft hadn’t implemented port forwarding via using DMZ); with the lack of DMZ’s, no server functionality would be accessible on the client at all. Of course, when you disconnect the client from internet sharing, on the phone, you will be able to use server-side functionality (listening to RealOne streams etc) again. It’s only when Internet Sharing is actively sharing the connection that all incoming connections are auto-forwarded to the client that uses the phone as a modem.
I’ve also tested the DMZ in “leaked” (XDA-Developers) ROM versions (for the Himalaya, Wizard and Universal – click the links for more info). DMZ works with them too via both USB and BT PAN.
1.4 Convenience issues because of the changes in the Bluetooth networking approach
In addition to the above-explained difference in using Windows Mobile-based phones as modems to access the Net, there are some new convenience issues you must be aware of when using AKU3 via Bluetooth (but not via infrared / USB ). These can be pretty annoying if you’ve always liked the “you don’t need to touch the modem at all when you want to dial in to the Internet” in operating system versions prior to AKU3.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though. In some respects, the new, AKU3 connection model is far easier to use through USB. I’ll elaborate on this in the last subsection.
1.4.1 BT convenience issue one: Firing up Network Sharing on the phone
First, let’s have a look at how the old model (prior to AKU3) supported dialing in the Internet via Bluetooth.
When the PPC PE device is used through the standard (pre-AKU3.0) DUN profile, you don’t need to do anything to the PPC. You only start dialing on the client device and it just connects to the Net. (Of course, if you use it via USB or infrared, you must explicitly enable these modes on the Pocket PC in either Modem Link or Wireless Modem, if the latter exists.)
With the new model and the new Internet Sharing, however, the situation is vastly different (again, only when using Bluetooth - with USB / infrared, the situation remained the same as has been before.) You must power on the PDA, fire up Internet Sharing and start the connection by clicking “Connect”. This means a LOT of additional, manual powering up / clicking you didn’t need to do in pre-AKU 3.0 times.
Unfortunately, you must repeat this (power on the phone, go to Internet Sharing and click Connect) every time you’d like to reconnect to the Net on your notebook or other (PAN-compatible) Bluetooth client devices. That is, the “Connected” state changes to an unconnected one as soon as you disconnect the client. In this respect (too), the new model is a bit more inconvenient to use than the old DUN-based one.
1.4.2 BT convenience issue two: Excess clicking needed on the client that uses an AKU3 Windows Mobile via Bluetooth
As BT PAN connections are not treated the same way as BT DUN connections, on clients that use BT PAN to connect to the Net, you
• generally need more clicks to establish the connection, let it be either the desktop Windows or Windows Mobile clients. (Under mobile/desktop Linux clients, in general, you don’t need more clicks.)
• can’t rely on the auto-connect features of the operating systems under desktop and mobile Windows client OS’es. (Unlike under mobile/desktop Linux.)
For example, on desktop Windows, instead of either relying on the auto-connection OR just putting a dial-up link on your desktop (one double-click to start it and, then, just a single click on Dial ), you must (with Widcomm-based clients) click the My Bluetooth Places icon, then, the Entire Bluetooth Neighborhood icon, then, the given device and, finally, the BT PAN icon for the BT PAN connection to be established. (All clicks must be double-clicks!)
(A quick tip: you can reduce the number of clicks needed to fire up the Net connection. To do this, start up Explorer, go to My Bluetooth Places / Entire Bluetooth Neighborhood / the given device and right-click the BT PAN icon; select “Create shortcut”. It will be created – not on the desktop but under My Bluetooth Places. Now, if you just double-click My Bluetooth Places on your desktop, you’ll be able to double-click the new shortcut icon in there as can be seen in here.)
On (Widcomm-based) Windows Mobile clients, you must click the Bluetooth icon on the Today screen, click Bluetooth Manager and double-click the BT PAN icon of the given modem. All this instead of, say, just relying on the auto-connect feature of “real” BT DUN connections. Pretty annoying, eh?
1.4.3 The good: USB is more convenient than before!
In pre-AKU3 operating systems, you must
install the USB modem driver for the phone (and hunt for it if you don’t have it – for your convenience, I’ve mirrored it, along with the HTC dialer app, here should you ever need it) upon the first connection. This is unlike with the pre-AKU3 case, where you must supply USBMDM.INF to it when it prompts for a “Generic Serial” device. In AKU3, upon the first connection, the “Windows Mobile-based Internet Sharing Device” USB driver will be automatically installed by Windows XP
Note that, for this to work, you'll need the latest, 4.5beta2 ActiveSync on your desktop. With earlier AS versions (I've tested this with version 4.1 - it prompted me for the driver for "PocketPC USB Sync"), the driver isn't included (and the Windows auto-update database doesn't contain it either).
the same stands for the HTC dialer (USBModem_Dialer.exe) – you won’t need it at all in AKU3, unlike in previous OS versions. Upon firing up Internet Sharing, starting the USB mode and connecting the USB cable, the client desktop PC will automatically notice the new network. No desktop-side clicking is necessary.
That is, the new, USB-based connectivity schema is far better and more covenient than the old one.
1.5 My wishes…
While the current model is compatible with the majority of desktop Windows-based clients, clients using other operating systems may encounter problems or full inability to access the Net via AKU3 devices because of the…
lack of infrared support in Internet Sharing (as opposed to Modem Link), if the given model doesn’t contain Wireless Modem (or something similar)
lack of USB support on the client side (the case with all non-desktop (mobile) clients (show me a Windows Mobile, Symbian or mobile Linux device with USB host that is also able to use Internet Sharing via USB!) and even Linux or other operating systems on the desktop)
lack of client-side BT PAN support
Therefore, my recommendation for Microsoft is bringing back the DUN profile in addition to keeping the new BT PAN profile. Both have their place under the sun. Use BT PAN with clients that do support it and use the “fallback” DUN with clients that don’t support it or need convenience (see the previous, 1.4 section on the convenience issues on both the client and the phone of the new, PAN-based model).
I also have some other remarks that would make the new approach far more flexible and usable with very little additional coding need. I really hope the excellent folks at Microsoft reimplement DUN in subsequent AKU upgrades and also consider extending the Network Sharing functionality as explained in the following two subsection so that it is able to share any kind of network connections, not only mobile phone-based ones and, at last, offers almost real BT PAN, not only for accessing the Net.
1.5.1 Let’s share any kind of connections, not just mobile phone-based ones!
Internet Sharing could be made MUCH more useful by letting for sharing any kind of connection, not just the ones present in the Connections. Right now, it’s not possible to share for example Wi-Fi connections (a lot of people are asking for Wi-Fi connection sharing all the time; I answer at least one every week). This is a really big problem and could be easily fixed by, for example, just eliminating (or making it optional: if the user only wants to share a given connection and not the current one) the drop-down “Network Connection” menu in the new Internet Sharing applet and just share the current Internet connection, independent of its type.
1.5.2. What do you need to know about the new BT PAN? Can you use it was a REAL Bluetooth PAN network for, say, messaging and playing?
The answer is YES, which is very good news for all MS BT stack users that have long been longing for BT PAN support for its excellent messaging / playing capabilities. Please DO check out my BT PAN-related articles on all these questions; for example, on 4Talk (chat – see this), MS Portrait (chat, file sending) or BT PAN-compatible games (please see the Multiplayer Pocket Game Bible for some examples).
This all means the BT PAN network in AKU3 is a real network as it uses local IP’s (as opposed to DUN) in the network. This means all LAN-based, BT PAN-friendly applications / games work with it as can also be seen in the screenshot I’ve taken with the great multiplayer game Gold Rush (which worked just great over the AKU3 BT PAN – something not possible with pre-AKU3 devices). That is, the basics are already there: it’s just the interface that could be (slightly) modified by Microsoft, of which I’ll elaborate right now.
Unfortunately, the BT PAN support, while it, basically, works, is a bit more limited in AKU3 than in Widcomm-based Pocket PC’s:
You MUST connect to the internet in order to be able to create a BT PAN network between two devices. If you don’t have an Internet connection (or you, for example, supply a connection connecting to a bad APN name), BT PAN won’t work either.
Second, not as important as above, only one client can connect to an AKU3 device, unlike with the Widcomm BT stack, where the number of connecting clients isn’t restricted
AKU3 lacks the BT PAN client mode (so that a AKU3+ device can (also) join BT PAN’s, not (only) host them). This, along with the second bullet, aren’t very important though as can be very easily circumvented (and it’s in very rare cases that you would need a BT PAN network with more than two devices in it – some mass BT PAN multiplayer games like Gold Rush.)
All in all, while the BT PAN, in some respects, does what it’s supposed to (the internet connection sharing does work as expected, except for the convenience and compatibility issues I’ve already elaborated on), the BT PAN support itself could be made independent of “plain” connection sharing. First, making the BT PAN capabilities independent of connection sharing (that is, decouple PAN from Internet Sharing or, at least, make it available for “generic”, non-sharing purposes) would be very nice. The ability to have BT PAN between devices without an actual Internet connection would really enhance the functionality of the BT PAN as there are a LOT of tasks that can be done via local, internet connection-less networks and require no (in cases, non-existing or very expensive) Internet connection. Hope Microsoft also considers this for future AKU versions.
2. Comparison chart
The following chart (only for advanced users / geeks!) compares AKU 3+, pre-AKU3 and Widcomm / Broadcom-based Pocket PC’s (the latter may also have AKU3 – as Bluetooth is not that of Microsoft, with them, the exact AKU version isn’t important) in three areas:
in how they support all (not just plain Internet sharing) the capabilities of BT PAN: can you connect to a given BT PAN server with more than one clients at a time; can you use the given implementation as both a client and a server, is the given BT PAN a “real” PAN network and, finally, is any kind of Internet connection needed for the BT PAN network to work. Note that I’ve already elaborated on all these questions earlier.
dialup-related: how dial-up (accessing the Net from other devices) is done (via DUN or BT PAN); is it possible to use the device as an infrared modem, can you run server-like apps on the client and, finally, is any manual intervention needed for (re)connection (again, in pre-AKU3 times, nope via Bluetooth DUN – this was also a real strength of the DUN-based approach)
internet sharing-related: what protocols work over the sharing (at this, AKU3 really excels as it shares EVERYTHING, as opposed to third-party, non-OS-level solutions used before as is also explained in “Can I share the Internet connection on my Pocket PC through Bluetooth/Wi-Fi? That is, can I make my Internet-connected Pocket PC into some kind of a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Access Point?”) and the class of collections that can be shared (in this, AKU3’s solution is definitely inferior to “real” ICS, which can share any kind of connection including Wi-Fi, not only mobile phone-based ones.)
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
If you can’t see the above chart, the chart is here as HTML
3. Verdict
While the new model exhibits some serious compatibility (and, with Bluetooth connections, convenience) problems, I consider it a very good step in the right direction.
I do hope Microsoft reimplements Bluetooth DUN (which isn't at all complicated because it did exist in previous operating system versions - they will only need to insert back the code used in there) and, preferably, infrared connection in the new Internet Sharing program or, at least, forces Pocket PC manufacturers to supply the Wireless Modem program with all their AKU3 ROM upgrades (also on models that, traditionally, didn't have it - for example, the Wizard) / new models so that infrared dial-in still remains possible.
Also, I hope they go on extending the functionality of Bluetooth PAN so that the Microsoft BT stack, at least BT PAN-wise, becomes a decent alternative to the Widcomm BT stack.
4. Other, recommended links
Use your Pocket PC Phone Edition as a modem for your other Pocket PC's! - a full tutorial - (this explains the pre-AKU3 case)
Can I share the Internet connection on my Pocket PC through Bluetooth/Wi-Fi? That is, can I make my Internet-connected Pocket PC into some kind of a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Access Point? - this article explains how ICS must be done on pre-AKU3 devices.
UPDATE (11/13/2006): in the meantime, I've scrutinized whether you can "hack" DUN support to the AKU3 MS BT stack with "simple" registry hacking.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be possible for the following reasons:
The subkeys under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Bluetooth\ Services] isn't actively used (and can even be deleted) when clients discover the services of a MS BT stack device.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Bluetooth\SYS\COD, which is a dword with the value 00120114 in AKU3 and 00100114 in pre-AKU3 only describe for clients what kind of a BT device is (is it a phone? A PDA? A desktop computer? A headset? Stereo headphones?), and not the services it offers. This means using the old 00100114 as its value in AKU3 won't help either.
It seems the list of the provided services are returned from the BT-related DLL files, which can't be hacked easily.
Feel free to chime in and to point out if you know a way of (re-)enabling the DUN profile under WM5 (without, preferably, getting rid of BT PAN!)
Discussions of this article: HowardForums
Any idea what has to be done to allow linux to use the AKU 3.3 rom's via usb? Theoretically PAND will work under linux but I could never get it to work.
Connecting Fedora Core 6 to the Internet using HTC P3600 Compressed Tutorial
Of course that it will work on any Linux ! Of course that with any WM5 AKU 3 device !
The stages are as simple as 1, 2, 3 !
1. Go (on the WM5 AKU 3.x device) to Internet Sharing, select your network, select BT-PAN profice and click Connect.
2. Open a console on Linux (root) and start writing:
root# pand -s -r PANU
root# pand -Q10
(optional, to test) root# pand -l
root# ifconfig bnep0 192.168.0.2
root# route add default gw 192.168.0.1
root# echo "nameserver 194.102.255.2" > /tmp/resolv.conf.bnep0
3. READY !
Notes upon the implied commands:
a) pand -s -r PANU // starts the PAN daemon (server) in the PANU mode and puts it to listening mode
b) pand -Q10 // performs a 10sec search for the HCI address of a PANU and connects to it
c) pand -l // view if you have connection : bnep0 00:17:83:01:38:6B PANU - in my case
d) ifconfig bnep0 192.168.0.2 // sets the IP of the virtual network interface. Please do veryfy on your PDA that the PAN interface has 192.168.0.1 already seted up. Of course that you can use other IPs, but stay in the same network !
e) route add default gw 192.168.0.1 // sets the WM5 device as the gateway for IP packets. Certainly that you can change the address for originality, but remember that it must be the IP of the PAN interface on the WM5 device !
f) echo "nameserver 194.102.255.2" > /tmp/resolv.conf.bnep0 // assigns a DNS server to be queried. Of course that you can use any DNS IP that you want.
g) REMEMBER: On Fedora, IP forward is already activated. On Debian it is not. Thus, before command number e, you must activate it by typing "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward" (without the quotes).
Cheers !
PAN on OS X
It now works in OS X as of 10.4.9! I tested on both my Dulie G5 and my MacBookPro.
Here are the steps I took to make it happen, pretty simple. But it took some playing around to get it.
-----------
Open the Bluetooth Preference Pane, Click Devices, select your device and click Configure.
It will scan your device; Click 'Continue'
It should then display the Conclusion screen that will contain "Use as personal area network"
Click Quit
Click Settings and be sure "Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar" is Checked.
On your WM5 device connect your network using the Internet Sharing application.
Back on your Mac go to the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar, click and select "Join Network on <devicename>"
Your on! Oddly on my Macbook it shows under the Network prefs as a Ethernet Adaptor, but on my G5 it shows as Bluetooth PDA.
Thanks for the update Apple!!
Great! Will post an update to everywhere!
moucha said:
Of course that it will work on any Linux ! Of course that with any WM5 AKU 3 device !
The stages are as simple as 1, 2, 3 !
1. Go (on the WM5 AKU 3.x device) to Internet Sharing, select your network, select BT-PAN profice and click Connect.
2. Open a console on Linux (root) and start writing:
root# pand -s -r PANU
root# pand -Q10
(optional, to test) root# pand -l
root# ifconfig bnep0 192.168.0.2
root# route add default gw 192.168.0.1
root# echo "nameserver 194.102.255.2" > /tmp/resolv.conf.bnep0
3. READY !
Notes upon the implied commands:
a) pand -s -r PANU // starts the PAN daemon (server) in the PANU mode and puts it to listening mode
b) pand -Q10 // performs a 10sec search for the HCI address of a PANU and connects to it
c) pand -l // view if you have connection : bnep0 00:17:83:01:38:6B PANU - in my case
d) ifconfig bnep0 192.168.0.2 // sets the IP of the virtual network interface. Please do veryfy on your PDA that the PAN interface has 192.168.0.1 already seted up. Of course that you can use other IPs, but stay in the same network !
e) route add default gw 192.168.0.1 // sets the WM5 device as the gateway for IP packets. Certainly that you can change the address for originality, but remember that it must be the IP of the PAN interface on the WM5 device !
f) echo "nameserver 194.102.255.2" > /tmp/resolv.conf.bnep0 // assigns a DNS server to be queried. Of course that you can use any DNS IP that you want.
g) REMEMBER: On Fedora, IP forward is already activated. On Debian it is not. Thus, before command number e, you must activate it by typing "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward" (without the quotes).
Cheers !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What has to be done different to use the direct usb connection under linux? I run suse and was able to get an ip address but could never get it to go to a website.
Thankyou!
Just wanted to post a comment saying thankyou so much for this guide - it's amazing, so detailed and very, very useful!!!
Much appreciated!
I send that - I'm just about to go to AKU3 and use the USB connection method for modem use. Excellent stuff!
USB No worky
I'm having some really strange functionality with the internet sharing on AKU3.5 that I've built and installed on my Verizon XV6700.
I have everything working 100% from the phone side. Picture and video messaging. Internet browsing checking email you name it.
When I fire up Internet Sharing with the Bluetooth PAN option I can connect with my laptop and I'm actually posting this message over Internet Sharing via Bluetooth PAN. But when I use USB no worky.
I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate (so I have the latest and greatest Active Sync). When I plug in Windows DOES detect it as a network card. For the longest time it was only getting a 169.x.x.x IP so it was like it wasn't fining anyone home on the other end. After several iterations of setting my USB from Serial to RNDIS and back again and editing settings in the RNDIS adapter in connections I now have an IP getting correctly configured.
When I was not getting an IP Windows would say that I had "Limited Connectivity" on the network card. Now that there is a good set of IP's I get "Local Only" access. The phone says it has 192.168.1.1 my computer has 192.168.1.100 (its normal local address) but it does have 192.168.1.1 setup as its gateway. All seems correct in there. Essentially it seems like the phone is a firewall and someone forgot to put the MASQ rule in there. Its talking to the phone it just seems like the phone isn't routing the connections outside. Which seems REALLY odd being that BT PAN works so well.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Figures... Right after I post this I figure it out. I've been workin on this for about 2 days now...
When going to start -> settings -> connections -> wifi
then going to the network adapters tab.
I noticed that Bluetooth PAN was in there. It had a use specific IP setting in it to 192.168.0.1 NETMASK 255.255.255.0. My RNDIS adapter was configured to use auto assigned IP's. I just changed the RNDIS to use the same specific IP settings that the BT PAN adapter did and plug and chug.
Click bang whirr and we're up and running!
Speed tests seem to be a little faster with the USB cable. Wonder if the BT connection is a bottleneck with respect to the EVDO connection.
Anyway hope this helps someone....
Problem fixed; see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1400709
Menneisyys said:
Unfortunately, the BT PAN support, while it, basically, works, is a bit more limited in AKU3 than in Widcomm-based Pocket PC’s:
You MUST connect to the internet in order to be able to create a BT PAN network between two devices. If you don’t have an Internet connection (or you, for example, supply a connection connecting to a bad APN name), BT PAN won’t work either.
Second, not as important as above, only one client can connect to an AKU3 device, unlike with the Widcomm BT stack, where the number of connecting clients isn’t restricted
AKU3 lacks the BT PAN client mode (so that a AKU3+ device can (also) join BT PAN’s, not (only) host them). This, along with the second bullet, aren’t very important though as can be very easily circumvented (and it’s in very rare cases that you would need a BT PAN network with more than two devices in it – some mass BT PAN multiplayer games like Gold Rush.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry for the (probably dumb) question but could you elaborate a little bit on the possible workaround to connect an aku3 device as a BT PAN client to a BT PAN server on another aku3 device ?
Here is the scenario I am interested in : having a HTC Universal (no sim card) connected to the internet thanks to another aku3 device. This other device (probably a smaller device like a HTC Wizard) is connected to the internet through its wan connection and keeps its full internet functionalities.
Thanks !!!
pierro78 said:
sorry for the (probably dumb) question but could you elaborate a little bit on the possible workaround to connect an aku3 device as a BT PAN client to a BT PAN server on another aku3 device ?
Here is the scenario I am interested in : having a HTC Universal (no sim card) connected to the internet thanks to another aku3 device. This other device (probably a smaller device like a HTC Wizard) is connected to the internet through its wan connection and keeps its full internet functionalities.
Thanks !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I referred to installing the (hacked) Widcomm BT stack (see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1649&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 ), which is available for many (but not all!) MS BT stack-based models.
Thanks Menneisys for your answer.
So another (probably also dumb) question :
If I buy an Universal and just want to use it as a PDA connected to the internet through, say, my Wizard. Is there a reliable (& not too hard) way so my Wizard also has full internet features enabled at the same time ??
Thanks again !!!!
PS :
I could go for the N800 which has BT PAN client already integrated but I'd like a keyboard and MS Exchange access ...
pierro78 said:
Thanks Menneisys for your answer.
So another (probably also dumb) question :
If I buy an Universal and just want to use it as a PDA connected to the internet through, say, my Wizard. Is there a reliable (& not too hard) way so my Wizard also has full internet features enabled at the same time ??
Thanks again !!!!
PS :
I could go for the N800 which has BT PAN client already integrated but I'd like a keyboard and MS Exchange access ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, you need to use Internet Sharing on the Wizard, so that you can also access the Net on it? Then, install the Widcomm hack on the Universal. See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1115973
Menneisyys said:
Then, install the Widcomm hack on the Universal. See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1115973
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, I have missed this thread and didn't know the widcomm hack was so advanced on the Universal
Thanks a bunch !!!!
PS :
Now I just need to go on ebay and buy myself a cheap Universal ...
pierro78 said:
Awesome, I have missed this thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just make sure you follow all my articles - I've also advertised this thread in several of them