Thinkpads Forum

Hello All:

I have a W500 (4062-27U) that did not ship with a WWAN card, but does have a slot in the back of the machine - behind the battery - to accept a SIM card for the GSM phone network.

I would like to purchase a wireless WAN card to enable me to use the SIM card from my Blackberry in this computer. My employer supplies me with the Blackberry, it comes with an unlimited data access plan. The carrier is Rogers (in Canada), they use the GSM standard. My plan is to simply remove the SIM card from the Blackberry and stuff it in the slot in the laptop on the (rare) occasions that I need WWAN internet access.

I am utterly confused about which of the various WWAN cards I should purchase. It appears that Lenovo is listing these cards as being associated with specific wireless providers (e.g. Verizon or AT&T), rather than being associated with specific wireless technologies (e.g. CDMA, TDMA, or GSM).

Looking at the page on the Lenovo website that lists WWAN cards for the USA market (http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... 5B4FAE5D95, I see three different cards listed. They are:

1) Verizon Wireless EV-DO Embedded Mobile Broadband Option - 43R1818
2) AT&T 3G BroadBand Option - 43R9152
3) Verizon Wireless UNDP BroadBand Option - 43R9151

Can any kind soul here in the forum advise me which (if any) of these cards would be the most appropriate to purchase for use with my Canadian GSM service provider? Or, are these cards somehow "locked" to the named service providers?

Unfortunately, there's no real way to do what you suggest.

The BIOS of the Thinkpad contains a whitelist of approved WWAN cards, and all others are rejected. This can be defeated with a modified firmware but as you suspected, the individual cards are locked to a particular network as well. If you were going to attempt this anyways, you would want to order the AT&T card as that has the hardware to operate on the Rogers network.

What's more, you cannot take a SIM card from a phone and put it into a WWAN card and have it use the wireless data plan. The SIM card has to be activated as a dedicated WWAN device or it will be rejected by the network.

I do know that a lot of the USB or ExpressCard WWAN adapters sold by the network operators contain Mini-PCI cards that can be extracted from the plastic casing. You can then use these in the WWAN adapter of a Thinkpad that's been loaded with the modified BIOS. You'd have to do a little research into finding a Rogers adapter that you can do this with, and the modified BIOS can be found in these same forums, but this is probably your best option if you want a completely internal solution.

Of course, you could just tether your laptop to your Blackbery via Bluetooth lol.

Hi Returnzer:

Thanks very much for your detailed and very informative answer. I never would have figured that out on my own.

I gotta confess, it doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense to me that Lenovo has restricted the computer so that the WWAN cards only work with certain wireless carriers. I can comprehend that perhaps Lenovo might only want to sell wireless cards that work with certain carriers (presumably they get some kind of commission from the wireless carrier), but to actually restrict the computer from using a 'generic' card - jeepers, I can't comprehend that. I live in Canada and travel extensively to Europe and Africa - I would like a wireless card that is generic and would work with any SIM I stuffed into the machine.

Thank you also for explaining the bit about the phone SIM card not working in the computer on a wireless data plan. I did not know that either.

When you state that "the modified BIOS can be found in these same forums", do you mean our forums here on thinkpads.com, or are you referring to other fora elsewhere?

Michael

I actually sold an AT&T WWAN card to someone in Australia a while back. The buyer reports that the card is not really locked, and he is able to use it with a GSM service provider in his country. I'd say that this same card would work with Rogers too, but don't quote me on that.

PanEuropean wrote:When you state that "the modified BIOS can be found in these same forums", do you mean our forums here on thinkpads.com, or are you referring to other fora elsewhere?

Please read carefully: T6x BIOS device whitelist (error 1802/1804) [solved] - Thanks to forum member Zender's patch, I have tried & tested several WWAN cards with success - (Sierra Wireless MC8775 & MC8780 - Generic & OEM types, Ericsson f3507g & Huawei EM770).

Avalon:

Thanks very much for your advice concerning the AT&T card, that is much appreciated. I will borrow an AT&T card from a local supplier and see if it works in my machine with the Rogers (Canadian) GSM network. If it works with Rogers, then it will probably work with Swisscom, Safaricom, and all the rest (Insha'Allah).

Peak2Peak:

Thanks for referring me to that thread that discusses the modified BIOS. For the life of me, I just cannot figure out why Lenovo chose to "block" all WWAN cards except the ones that they sell from working. That just doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all - maybe I am naive.

I don't think I will go down the path of attempting to use a modified BIOS, because I don't need WWAN connectivity on a daily basis. For my occasional needs, I can purchase a PCMCIA card (or whatever the contemporary equivalent of that is) from the local GSM operator and use that - I think.

Michael