Well, now that my mobile provider supports EDGE (whee!), I’ve been wondering whether I could put that to use for more than just my Treo. And, since my Treo 650 has Bluetooth, I went searching to see if I could use that to feed Internet access to other devices (like my PowerBook). Apparently, that's possible — Captn Swing figured out the steps to set up Bluetooth on a Treo and have OS X treat it as a Bluetooth modem.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the prerequisites are steep, but they’re not a shoo-in for everyone. Among other things, the author only tested the sequence on OSX Tiger (10.4) and it needs an unlocked Treo 650. Fortunately, I have both of those :). Basically, it’s a matter of installing scripts (on the Mac) for a generic GPRS modem), pairing the Treo with the Mac, and then configuring the network on the Mac. Of course, there’re a few sub-steps to each of those, but the article includes plenty of screenshots as well.
I have WiFi set up at my apartment, so I wouldn’t often need to use this, but this could be particularly useful for places like airports or coffee shops. Sure, there’s often WiFi there, but not the free kind ;). And, with my unlimited data plan, it doesn’t cost me anything extra to siphon some TCP/IP from my phone to my laptop.
All the same, if my speed tests from yesterday are any guide, I’m in for about 12 KB/sec with that kind of setup. On the bright side, that shouldn’t be straining the Bluetooth connection (which can apparently handle 721 kbit/sec or 90 KB/sec), but I’m not exactly going to be steaming XviD over that kind of connection either ;).