Can Somebody Please Explain CSD to Me?

live in San Jose (San Francisco Bay Area) and have Cingular GSM
service with a Nokia 6620 phone. I'm told that with CSD I can use my
phone as a modem for my laptop and place a point-to-point data call to
my ISP. Is that right? Does my ISP need any special equipment to
receive this call, or does any regular dial up line suffice for the
destination (i.e. can I call any old ISP)?

What do I tell the Cingular sales people on the phone that I want to
buy? They've never heard of CSD and want to sell me either Laptop
Connect or Media Net. Media net is certainly not what I want, and
Laptop Connect is a) expensive and b) doesn't seem to work with my VPN.


I know CSD is only 9600bps and not as fast as EDGE, but I can live with
that to save money.

Is this going to work when I travel around the US, or is this setup
unique to each little Cingular area?

Thanks in advance for the help. I won't have any trouble setting up a
dialup connection on my PC, but I'm afraid I don't know very much about
cell phone technology. Sadly, all the Cingular sales people seem to
know even less about it than I do!

Bob Armstrong

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› See More: Can Somebody Please Explain CSD to Me?

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> live in San Jose (San Francisco Bay Area) and have Cingular GSM
> service with a Nokia 6620 phone. I'm told that with CSD I can use my
> phone as a modem for my laptop and place a point-to-point data call to
> my ISP. Is that right? Does my ISP need any special equipment to
> receive this call, or does any regular dial up line suffice for the
> destination (i.e. can I call any old ISP)?
>
The special equipment is at the carrier's end - nothing special needed
at the ISP. Your phone has to support CSD. Your normal dialup ISP will
work fine. I use my DSL accounts dialup number.

> What do I tell the Cingular sales people on the phone that I want to
> buy? They've never heard of CSD and want to sell me either Laptop
> Connect or Media Net. Media net is certainly not what I want, and
> Laptop Connect is a) expensive and b) doesn't seem to work with my VPN.
>
CSD was included with GSM accounts at one time - you may already have it
- TRY. I don't have ANY data option. Others have reported it's still
available but few CS reps know about it. Keep trying?
>
> I know CSD is only 9600bps and not as fast as EDGE, but I can live with
> that to save money.

It's okay for email not for browsing. Anything else really needs GPRS at
least if not EDGE. Remember CSD comes out of minutes.

> Is this going to work when I travel around the US, or is this setup
> unique to each little Cingular area?
>

Should work on any Cingular GSM area - it's never worked for me roaming.

--
Jud
Dallas TX USA

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
SNIP

> What do I tell the Cingular sales people on the phone that I want to
> buy? They've never heard of CSD and want to sell me either Laptop
> Connect or Media Net. Media net is certainly not what I want, and
> Laptop Connect is a) expensive and b) doesn't seem to work with my VPN.
>
>

Call Cingular Customer Support and tell them you want your account
provisioned for CSD. I can't recall for sure, but I thought you had to have
at least the minimum data plan in order to get the account provisioned for
CSD.

TC