T42 and modems

[JimL]

I've been looking at buying a T42 (up from a 770E) and find something that
I don't understand. A few eBay descriptions say something about having Bluetooth _instead_ of a modem?

I don't know that much about Bluetooth, but I've searched here for Bluetooth w/ T42 and, so far, find nothing relating it to modems. From what I've found it seems to me to be something you might add to a laptop with a modem. What am I missing?

Being on a tight budget I may or may not be able to move up from dial-up. Are T42's often used with cable? (My 770E has always been on dial-up.) This whole Bluetooth subject is unclear to me, but seems more suited to things other than internet access. ??

[carbon_unit]

Bluetooth is a short range wireless for connecting headsets, cell phones, PDA's, etc without using wires. It is not generally used for internet access as much as internal B/G wireless is. Most T42's have this too. Modems for the t42 come either as a modem or a modem/bluetooth combo. You can use your dial up connection with either one as much as you want.

[JimL]

Bluetooth is a short range wireless for connecting headsets, cell phones, PDA's, etc without using wires. It is not generally used for internet access as much as internal B/G wireless is. Most T42's have this too. Modems for the t42 come either as a modem or a modem/bluetooth combo. You can use your dial up connection with either one as much as you want.

Thanks. I thought the either/or bit sounded odd. May I assume that to use dial-up with Bluetooth I'd need to buy a Bluetooth to RJ11 adapter?

[christopher_wolf]

There is no need for a Bluetooth adapter, the modem will handle that just fine. It is simply that, on the models that have Bluetooth, the hardware is actually a Bluetooth/Modem CDC (BMDC-2) card in one where, on a non-bluetooth model, you would only have the modem card (MDC-2). The additional hardware is internal and consists of a white antenna lead, the BMDC-2 card, and a slightly different LCD-side faceplate that has a trasparent cutout for the Bluetooth activity LED; as well, there as some extra drivers and functionality within AC and the Fn+F5 combo should you choose to use them.


You can, however, use bluetooth to connect to a mobile device, or the newer BT enabled portals, to either get a modem dial up through the device, as is the case with most Bluetooth enabled mobile phones, or a direct connection to a network that has a portal to the internet. In the case of a cell phone, you can then essentially use it to dial up anywhere, provided that the carrier's network supports it on their end. The "adapter" in this case would be, for example, a BT-enabled cellphone which the Thinkpad could connect to and dial-up through.