Thinkpads Forum

I just got a Verizonwireless PCMCIA BroadBand Card off ebay and want to use this as my Internet Service. I live in a area where I only can get DialUp. No Cable, No DSL, No BroadBand. I was looking to get this card for a year now but was too much at Verizon store $59.00 I got mine for only $10.00 The Verizon retailer said that this card you can get internet anywhere. Works with the CellPhones. I'm going to use this for my internet travel with my slim IBM ThinkPad 560X. At home I want to use this as my internet aswell and use on my desktop and other laptop IBM ThinkPad T40. I want to hook this up to my Belkin 4 Port Wireless Router. I was going to plug the PCMCIA Broadband card into my old IBM ThinkPad 380Z and make it as a modem for the internet and connect it to the Router for my home computers.

So basically you want to use the 380z as a boadband gateway. It should be doable. I haven't tried it but I bet it's been done. It may require you to run some type of intenet connection sharing software....not sure. Good luck.

I'm unable to do this anyway right now as I don't have the card activated and the ThinkPad 380Z Hard Drive is clicking and not reading and need to replace. But i would like to switch this out with dialup and use BroadBand and make this my internet service and don't have to worry about losing a connection and slow page loads as dialup kicks me off around a hour of being on. But Yes thats what I'm wanting to do. Plug the Verizon BroadBand Card into PCMCIA slot via 380Z, run a LAN cable from 380Z to my WiFi Router and can use my better laptop or desktop and PlayStation 2 over the internet or network and if I leave for somewhere just unplug from 380Z and plug into my 560X or X40. My main thing is will the 380Z work as a modem? the Router has 4 ports on it 5 if counting the Modem plugin.

The 560X-- The second laptop I ever owned and still a favorite.

My parents are in a rural location with no DSL or cable service so they are setup for internet using a Verizon card. I tried using a G41 to act as the gateway but had no luck. I ended up purchasing a KR-1 router. Basically you plug your Verizon PCMCIA card into the router and its supposed to provide both wired and wireless (802.11g) connections. Wired connections were fine, but turns out that the wireless signal interfered with the cellular. If you search the internet you'll find this problem posted in lots of places. I disabled the wireless on the KR1 and purchased a wireless access point and connected that to the wired connections. Has worked fine since. Simple solution, but incredibly frustrating.

This might be an alternative if you can't get your 380Z set up...

I have a Belkin Wireless Router already. And was going to keep it and use it. Spent $60 for it. But I'll mess around with the 380Z to see. everyone told me I'd never get Windows XP on a IBM ThinkPad 560 and I did witch the IBM ThinkPad 560 basic was my very first laptop, but sold due to no USB Ports and wouldn't read the PCMCIA WiFi or USB Cards and traded for a 560X since I liked the 560 series and know everything about it.

Well I never got around to getting a hard Drive for my ThinkPad 380Z yet So I looked into maybe just getting Internet Service from my Tv Service DirectTv. They said they do Internet over the satellite dish I have. So maybe faster Internet, But it beats DialUp eathier way. And I'll just use my LinkSys WiFi card on my 560X and hopefully find a hotspot with it while out.