Mac EVDO |
| Tuesday, 12 July 2005 | |
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This page is currently in the process of being updated!
If you have any Mac-EVDO related questions, contact the Mac EVDO Experts at 866-3Gstore
MacBook Pro and EVDO Page - has the latest info for getting the latest Mac working with EVDO. Mistake #1 You go into your local Verizon Store so you can purchase an EVDO device for your Mac. Mistake #2 You ask the sales rep, if the EVDO devices they sell work with your Mac. The sales rep, says no, they do not. Mistake #3 You assume the sales rep is right. Mistake #4 The Verizon Sales Rep, tells you to come to EVDOinfo.com and we can make any EVDO device work with your Mac. While that is true - you might want to read this page first to determine if you purchase the right EVDO device. Most Verizon stores only sell 1 or 2 EVDO devices (and will say anything to make the sale). We sell all shipping EVDO devices. Please read this page to get many many answers. If you already purchased a PC5740 (that is the only one many Verizon Stores sell), and discovered it DOESN'T WORK in your PowerBook, please read our PC5740 Mac page, on what you should do. Lie #1 Some of the Verizon Store Reps will say or do anything for a quick sale. Some clever ones are selling whatever cards they have in stock and then telling customers to come to EVDOinfo.com for support and help to get things working with PowerBooks. Yes, we do have a lot of information up on EVDOinfo.com (and even EVDOforums.com), but we will NOT support you on the phone and hand hold and get things working if you purchased from a Verizon store or Verizon's web site. We can only help those on the phone that have purchased from our sister site. Do not make the same mistakes, learn from your fellow PowerBook owners. EVDO + PowerBook DOES WORK. We have been using EVDO with a 15 inch PowerBook since July 2004. NEW FOR MAC USERS!  Get a live iChat Video demonstration of EVDO without leaving your Mac. We are available on iChat to answer your questions about EVDO, as well as give live demos. We will point our iSight at our PowerBook, we will show you that Airport is off and no Ethernet cables are plugged and a BroadbandAccess card is inserted. Next, we will ask you for the URLs that you would like to see and how fast it is. You do NOT need an iSight, we can do a one way video chat. All that is needed is an account on iChat (You can get one from .mac or get a free screen name that you can use with iChat at AIM. Ready? Give us a yell on iChat! Some of the information below needs to be updated, new software is available for Mac OS X 10.3.5 - 10.4.2 that allows the Kyocera KPC650 to be fully functional on a PowerBook. September 2, 2005 Update There have been some many changes to the information below, and we wanted to let you know about them now. There is now software available for the Kyocera KPC650 that allows FULL support under PowerBook. Many people at Verizon Stores, Verizon Customer Support and even Verizon Tech Support DO NOT KNOW THIS. But we have it and it is available (read more about it). Also, we are sad to report that the latest firmware for the PC5220 currently breaks functionality with Mac OS X (read more about it). So, for Mac users, the only choice is the Kyocera KPC650. NOW, this is actually good news, since the KPC650 is the best EVDO card available today. We will be updating the information below, to update for the KPC650. MUCH of the information is still accurate, so enjoy reading. September 9, 2005 Update The PC5220 is officially gone. We have received our last shipment and they are no longer available. Goods news, that Kyocera KPC650 is a much better card for PowerBook users. We NOW offer the same services for Sprint's High Speed Wireless and PowerBook users. We will be posting more information shortly, but for now, you can read about it on our Sprint Mac EVDO thread on EVDOforums.com. Frequently Asked Questions Does Verizon support Mac OS X? Most sales reps are very knowledgeable on phones, and may have never actually used a EVDO card. Verizon Tech Support has limited support for the PC5220, they do NOT support any other EVDO cards. If you call with and state you have a PowerBook, they may tell you that they do not support Apple. We have spoke with Verizon Tech Support and they tell people to come to our site for PowerBook / Mac OS X information. If you find someone knowledgeable at a Verizon Store (or the Verizon Stores within Circuit City), they will give you two links to help get the aircards working on PowerBooks. Here are the 2 links that they give out: http://homepage.mac.com/jrc/contrib/mobile_office/ http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/~snoeren/aircard.html If you take a look at those links, they have NOTHING to do with getting current AirCards working with PowerBooks. The first is getting a phone working as a modem - which is super slow - slower than dial up (and they tell you to buy a Mobile Data Kit - which you do not need for a BroadbandAccess card). The 2nd link, is to a site that gets the AirCard 555 working on OS X. These directions will NOT work for the current cards that Verizon sells. Can I get Mac OS X Support Here? Yes, all the information at our web site is FREE, enjoy. We are an Authorized Verizon Agent, which means, you can also purchase your EVDO cards and service from us (for less $$ then verizon stores OR verizon's web site). For those that purchase from us, we will support you via email, phone, iChat for free. For those that made the mistakes above AND need technical support, you can purchase support from us. I just purchased a BroadbandAccess card from a Verizon Store, and they told me to come here for help and support, can you help me? If you want real Mac support from a company that not only understands EVDO and Mac, but using EVDO with Mac, you found us here. Just like a Verizon store, we are an authorized Verizon Agent (same monthly bill comes from Verizon, same rebates, our prices are slightly less, WE provide Mac support). If you are within your 15 day trial period, we suggest that you return it and purchase from us. You can usually get your EVDO card shipped today and delivered tomorrow. Most importantly, you are helping support us and then we can in turn support you (via phone, email, iChat). Even though, your Verizon Store Sales Rep, tells you that we support Macs here for free, that is not true. We do provide LOTS of free information on our web sites, but we do not provide phone/email/iChat support to those that purchased directly at Verizon stores or Verizon's web site (you can purchase support if you didn't purchase from us) Which PowerBook do I need? Any PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.3.4 - 10.4.2 with a PC Slot (PowerBook 12 inch and iBook do not have PC Slots - so they will currently NOT work. However, there is a way to have another PowerBook with a slot share the EVDO connection over Airport , so that the PB12 or iBook can use EVDO (just not directly). Which EVDO card should I get? Currently, there are 5 different EVDO cards available. They are the PC5220, Sierra AirCard 580, Novatel V620, Kyocera KPC650 and the Audiovox PC5740. Starting with Mac OS X 10.3.5, Apple included support for the PC5220 directly into the Mac OS X. There is NOTHING to install, just pop in the card and you are online (we will include the steps to follow in the email after you purchase). With the PC5220 card, you will see the following in your menu bar which allows you to see how strong the signal indicator is, if you are in a 1XRTT (50K-100K download) or EVDO (400K-700K download) area.  We have created steps (very technical: Novatel V620, KPC650, AC580) to follow to get the other EVDO cards working, BUT you will not see the above in your menu bar, the cards will connect, but you will NOT know if how strong the signal is, if you are in a EVDO or non-EVDO area, and you will not be able to update the PRL of the card (needed to see new EVDO towers). If you are only going to be using your EVDO card in a few areas and you happen to KNOW that there is great EVDO coverage, seeing the above in your menu bar, may not be too important. If you are going to be traveling around to different areas, it can be VERY important having this feedback. Also, we now have available a SIMPLE Mac OS X installer for the Novatel V620 card. Just run the installer and a Novatel V620 driver will be installed for you. You DO NOT get the menu bar indicator (as shown above), but it does work and it is simple to get to work. We do offer technical tips to get the KPC650 and AirCard 580 to work with the PowerBook (Verizon or Sprint), BUT we are not able to provide phone support for this, UNLESS you purchase the cards from us. We do offer paid phone support, if you didn't buy the card from us. The Verizon Store Sales Reps, tell me the PC5220 isn't available and no longer works on their network? See Mistake #3 at the top of the page :) Some "sales people" say or do anything to make a sale. If I purchase an EVDO card here, will it still work on the Verizon Network? Yes, we are an Authorized Verizon Agent, we are selling you a Verizon EVDO card and Verizon service. The contract you sign is with Verizon. You have all the same perks that you do at Verizon stores, like $100 rebates, same 15 day trial to try out and cancel contract if not happy, and of course the same network. The monthly pricing is identical too, $79.99 for unlimited BroadbandAccess/NationalAccess OR $59.99 for NationalAccess only. The pricing is different on the data cards, we are actually less. Do I really need a booster antenna for my EVDO card? If you are in a 100% coverage area, or you are 1 block away from the EVDO tower, having a booster antenna will be a waste of money - you cannot boost/help in this situation. If you are traveling around to different areas, it can help considerable, especially, if you get great coverage right outside your home/office/hotel/etc, but inside coverage is spotty or weaker - the booster antenna does a great job in this situation. Feel free to read the reviews at Booster-Antenna.com or research what others have to say on EVDOforums.com. Also, if you are going to order an EVDO card and booster antenna, order the EVDO card first and you will get a coupon code for $10 off the antenna. When ordering, why do I need an Area Code for my EVDO Card? Each EVDO card is assigned a unique phone number. For EVDO Cards, this is used for billing purposes from Verizon, more like your account number. Just because you card has an area code and phone does NOT mean someone can call you OR you can call someone. However, there is ONE use for an area code. Some of the EVDO cards support text messaging (SMS), just like phones do. Someone can send a text message to your EVDO card and it appears on your screen while you are connected. A few important points:
So, when ordering, you are asked for your Desired Area Code. Please leave it at 858 (that is San Diego). Why? We can process your order within the hour. If you select a different area code, it has to go through the newer Verizon National activation (not many Verizon agents can even do this), and it can take an extra 24 - 48 hours to get processed. At some point if text messaging does become important to you (and you get a card that supports it AND software becomes available for Mac), we can help you do "EasyMove" to get you a new phone number later. So, when ordering, keep your area code at 858, you will get you card MUCH faster. Why do you have 3 web sites? We run 3 web sites: EVDOinfo.com, EVDOforums.com and Booster-Antenna.com. We setup the first two help educate people on what you can do (and what you cannot do) with EVDO. Booster-Antenna.com is the web site that sells stuff (booster antennas and Verizon EVDO products and service). You will find 99% useful tips, news, coverage and other EVDO stuff at the first 2 sites. The other 1% are banner ads that we point to our sales site. There are many sleazy EVDO web sites, that will say anything to try to get you to buy from them, yes, they even lie and say things that are completely false and inaccurate. These web sites are the main reason why we setup our web sites. Kind of like the consumer reports of EVDO - one stop for all your accurate and useful EVDO information. How long have you been using a Mac? Since January 1984, yep, we got the original Mac 128K and have been a happy mac user since then. Now, we use a PowerBook 15 inch for EVDO. We also have a PowerBook 12 inch and 12 inch iBook for testing new products. How long does it take to get an EVDO card? You can place your orders at https://Booster-Antenna.com/verizon/ and select overnight delivery and if it is not too late in the day, you can get your EVDO card tomorrow. Your order goes through Verizon Credit - there is some additional information on the form (SSN, etc) that is securely collected - so you need to fill out the form vs. doing it over the phone. Also, if you are ordering on a Friday, there will be an option for Saturday delivery. Do I need a Windows Laptop to activate my card? It depends on the card. The first time you insert a PC5220 into a PowerBook, the Mac will automatically activate it (software to do this in Mac OS X 10.3.5 - 10.4.x). If you decide to get a card OTHER than the PC5220. We have directions (pretty technical using Terminal App) to allow all EVDO cards to function, however, the card still needs to be activated on a Windows laptop first (nope this doesn't work with Virtual PC). Which is why, we offer Mac users, the option to pre-activate any card (not needed with PC5220) before being shipped to you - this saves you the hassle of finding a Windows laptop for first time activation (Nobody else understands this is a HASSLE for Mac users - we make it easy). What does Activating Card or Updating PRL mean? When your card gets activated (PC5220 = first time you insert it, or if other cards get activated on a PC first), something called a PRL (or Preferred Roaming List) is downloaded to your EVDO card. This is a list of cell sites that your EVDO card knows about. As Verizon adds new cell sites, they will update the PRL. Verizon usually updates the PRL every 3 - 4 months. If you fail to update your PRL, those new towers will be invisible to your EVDO card. So, when going to a new area, OR every few months, it is a good idea to update your PRL. If you purchased a card that is not currently supported by Mac OS X (all cards except PC5220), you will need to stick in your EVDO card in a Windows Laptop and run the Activation Wizard (this is what is on the Windows CD that comes with every EVDO Card). If I purchase my EVDO card from you, will you help if I have a question? YES and we will help those that purchased from us for free. If you didn't, you can use EVDOinfo.com and EVDOforums.com for free and we offer paid technical support. If you are within 15 days of purchasing your Verizon EVDO card, you can return it, get out of the contract, and cancel your order. Next, you can order an EVDO Card from us (we have access to all 5 cards, not just 1 or 2) and then you will get support for FREE. What about the new Audiovox PC5740, the guys at the Verizon store tell me it is just like the PC5220 and works with the Mac, AND is a lot faster, is that true? You are back to making mistake #3 :) The PC5740 is the latest version from Audiovox, BUT IT IS NOT 100% compatible with the PC5220. You do NOT get the signal indicator and network indicator that is pictured above - you only get that with the PC5220. This is the newest card, but it has some problems (no external antenna port, so you can never hook up an external antenna or signal amplifier - so if you are in a 'signal challenged' area, you will not have any options. We have directions to make it work with PowerBook (hopefully, that will get the point across - we know Mac EVDO and we support this stuff, better than anyone else). I bought my EVDO card somewhere else, I use Tiger and I cannot get my EVDO card to be recognized, help! The Apple drivers that Apple released in July 2004, are only needed for 10.3.4. If you are running 10.3.5 - 10.3.9, and run the Apple Verizon 1.0 drivers, you will only replace the drivers and everything works fine. IF you install the Apple Verizon 1.0 drivers on top of Tiger, you will need to re-install Tiger in order to get your EVDO card working - that is right, the Apple Verizon 1.0 drivers will completely break Tiger from recognizing your EVDO card. Many sites that do not understand Mac tell you to install the drivers, they are telling you something that will cause you to waste an hour or two while you re-install Tiger - so DO NOT install Apple Verizon 1.0 drivers on top of Tiger. I read that there is a place selling SuperCharged EVDO cards, are your cards SuperCharged for faster speed? You probably read that from a web site run by Robert Kim who sells this information for $200 - $300. You can perform these changes for free, just read our SuperCharged EVDO page. Can I just purchase a PC5220 card from you without activation, so I can go into my local Verizon store for activation? No, we only sell data cards and activation together. I hear that Sprint has EVDO too, does that work on Mac? Sprint just recently announced EVDO and they are in the process of rolling it out and should be deployed by 1st quarter 2006. Sprint has released coverage maps, but these are PROPOSED coverage areas, they are not coverage you can get today. Coverage is mostly at airports and a few downtown areas. This will be changing over the months and we will report on the rollouts at EVDOinfo.com and EVDOforums.com. In the EVDO Coverage race, Verizon has a HUGE headstart and they are winning the race. Next year, at this time, Sprint will have coverage, but then again, Verizon will have had another year to deploy EVDO too. It really only comes down to ONE question: Which carrier has EVDO Coverage where YOU need it. Also, to answer the question, we have directions to allow all the EVDO Sprint cards to work on the Mac (just like we do for Verizon). I am convinced, how do I order? Just stop by and place your order at Booster-Antenna.com. This is a great web site, but how do I know you are not like that other web site that just says anything? We also maintain a public EVDO forum, for all users to participate. We try our best to help users up there too. Stop by and you will see we are more than just talk (EVDOforums.com). Also, if you are a Mac user, be sure to sign out Mac EVDO thread, so others can see that IT WORKS! Quote From EVDOforums: I received the PC5220 today from Booster-Antenna.com, plugged it into my G4 Powerbook with OS X 10.4.2. and as Steve Jobs would say, "It just works." Thanks again for your help. Isn't this a web site just selling stuff? No! This web site is 98% useful, cool, and accurate information. This page does have more of a sales tone - BUT we want to present a solution for Mac users and let them know that Mac + EVDO does really work. NEWSFLASH August 10, 2005 The PC5220 Card is currently on backorder. Verizon has 7500 of them on order (we are told from sources within Verizon). We have been fulfilling and getting in inventory on a regular basis, but ran out of PC5220 and not sure when more will come in. For the latest updated information, see this thread on EVDO Forums. Verizon is about to release VZAccess for Mac OS X for Kyocera KPC650. That is right, PowerBook users will be able to download software this month that adds full functionality and support for Kyocera KPC650. We will be reviewing the software as soon as it is available. For anyone that wants to purchase a KPC650 now, you can do our Terminal Tweak to get the KPC650 working now and when the new software is available, you can revert the Terminal Tweak and then install the new software. If you are on a public IP Address, we can perform these steps for you remotely. We NOW have simplified directions (step by step), for those that thought our original directions were too complicated. We are selling this PDF (if you have purchased a Kyocera KPC650 or plan on it, these directions are free for customers). Update August 22, 2005: Mac Users now have another choice. The Kyocera KPC650 is now compatible with Mac OS X / PowerBooks. Read this for more info. We do have Novatel V620 Drivers for Mac OS X, many users are happily using their PowerBooks with these drivers as well. When ordering a Novatel V620, you can order pre-activated. Download the drivers and install, insert the pre-activated Novatel V620 and it works! There are rumors that Apple will be supporting additional EVDO cards in the Mac OS (just like the PC5220), in an upcoming Mac OS X update. We will keep this page updated. We support our customers. If you purchased your card and service from somewhere else, we offer paid consulting, we DO NOT provide free support (phone, email, iChat) if you purchased from somewhere else. See The Unofficial Apple WebLog Review of EVDO. If you have any questions before ordering, call us @ 866 3GSTORE (866-347-8673) or try us on iChat (boosterantenna or EVDOinfo) or drop us an email sales@3gstore.com. We actually answer emails (even during off hours - when we can) and during business hours we even answer our phones  Attention: Apple Stores and Mac User Groups Contact us if you would like us to do a demo at your user group meeting via iChat. See User Group Meetings we have had already. |
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Mac EVDO
