Cradlepoint Escape Spécifications télécharger pdf (Page 44)

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42 | august 2008 www.linuxjournal.com

Cruising for hotspots on a Linux

Laptop can be a royal pain. It’s not

that we don’t have good Wi-Fi sup-

port—we do—it’s more that a lot of

places offer free Wi-Fi with strings

and dongles. My favorite coffee shop

for working in, for example, offers

free Wi-Fi to customers, and they

control access by means of PCMCIA

cards with the router set to allow

only those MAC addresses. Leaving

aside the fact that I have no way to

install their Windows-only drivers, my

laptop sports only an ExpressCard

slot, so I’m pretty much screwed

no matter what.

Of course, if I could

find a way to get my

paws on a device that

gives me Wi-Fi wherever

I go, this wouldn’t be a

problem. Imagine writing a

shipwreck story on the

beach where it takes place

while still having access to all

the glorious resources of the

Internet to help make sure you

have the details of tall ship rig-

ging, local wildlife life cycles and

edible plants at your fingertips. Or, if

you’re not a half-mad fiction writer,

you still could use such a device to

blog about a movie you’re watching

from the back row of the theater or

about a protest from a park bench

nearby and get the drop on other

bloggers who will have to wait in line

for a table at Starbucks.

I recently discovered, much to my

delight, that such a device does exist.

The Cradlepoint PHS300—PHS stand-

ing for Personal HotSpot—is a com-

pact little router that, once turned on,

establishes a solid wireless cloud suit-

able for use by anyone with a properly

equipped laptop or other Wi-Fi-enabled

device (www.cradlepoint.com/phs300/

phs300.php).

Inside the Box

Technically speaking, the PHS is a wire-

less router/firewall designed to work

with 3G phones and EVDO devices. You

plug said device in to the PHS’s USB

port and turn them both on, and (after

a bit of tinkering) you have a wireless

access point to the Internet.

Opening up the box, you’ll find only

the router itself, a small pamphlet, a

battery and a power adapter. The pack-

age doesn’t contain the extras that

usually come

with USB devices or

computer parts. There isn’t, for exam-

ple, a driver disc or a manual, nor is

there a USB cable for connecting the

PHS to your 3G phone. In both cases,

you’re on your own.

Don’t worry though; the small pam-

phlet actually contains all the information

you’re going to need. It’s not terribly well

organized (for example, you don’t find

out what the default router password is

until several steps after you’re told you

need it), but it gives you the leg up

you’re looking for.

The router itself is small and light—

not much bigger or heavier than a

double-thick checkbook. It has three

indicator lights: one tracks battery sta-

tus, one lights up when a Wi-Fi cloud is

established, and the final one indicates

connectivity with the phone and/or

EVDO modem when plugged in to the

single USB port.

Setting It Up

From there, the rest of the setup falls

like a string of dominoes. Once the unit

is powered up, use Wi-Fi Radar or

GNOME Network to grab an IP address

and log in to 192.168.0.1 to configure

the router. Configuration is quite self-

explanatory—about the only difference

between this and setting up a normal

SOHO router is the screen for configuring

be necessary. All the current encryption

standards, from WEP through WPA2,

are supported.

What They Did Right

The PHS300 is advertised as a universally

compatible, secure, simple solution

for emergency response, vacation

broadband and mobile business. Both

the box and the promotional materi-

als give the impression that it’s a

product that “just works”.

I’m pleased to say that it

performs as advertised.

It’s not easy to imagine

what they could have done

better. The PHS300 is

battery-powered, with

about a two-hour battery

life, and it recharges either

over USB or via the power

adapter. Because it operates like any

other router appliance, it’s not just useful

for connecting to the Internet on the go.

It also works well for setting up a proper

network between your laptop and your

colleague’s, a little feature I’ve found

useful recently while out on a film shoot.

It handily supports full 802.11g speeds

behind the Net gateway, and it has easy-

to-administer traffic management to

keep your cellular bandwidth usage well

within the limits of your service plan.

I have only three gripes with this little

marvel box, and two of them are pretty

minor. The lack of an included USB cable

is irritating—mostly because including

such things is de rigueur in the current

Hot and Bothered

at Starbucks

Reviewing the Cradlepoint PHS300 DAN SAWYER

REVIEWS

hardware

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