Can one do dial-up networking on an Android tablet?
 

On a windoze machine it is trivial to set this up, to dial (PPP) over RS232 using a Hayes modem; in my case a Thuraya satellite phone, to get internet access.

I wonder if the same can be done on e.g. this tablet. Or the Samsung Galaxy.

One dials up an ISP which has a dialup facility. For Thuraya it is simply 1722.

I guess it wouldn't do any harm to email Lenovo or Samsung and ask them if it is possible, since a quick skulk around the Android Market hasn't found anything that looks suitable..............

I use a Viewsonic Viewpad 10 with an HTC HD2 phone with a custom ROM as a wireless access point. If I'm doing anything more than a quick surf I reboot the Viewpad to Android, (It dual boots Win7 Home and Android), so it looks to my service provider that I'm using the phone because they don't like people "tethering" their laptop to the phone.

If you'd like details PM me..

Does Android have the concept of a serial port?

It probably does, if it supports traditional bluetooth GPS receivers. Under windoze, those are interfaced via a "COM" port.

I always thought that a "bluetooth COM port" on which you can set the baud rate etc is a piece of stupidity, because the baud rate cannot possibly mean anything. But the principle of an API function call which supports serial data transfer should still stand.

IO540,

To be honest, in this day and age, there are perhaps more suitable means to obtain internet access via satellite than dial-up via COM port.

Is there a reason why you need do use a COM port ? Other than the fact you may already own the hardware.

Other than that.... if you go down the COM port route, I can't offer much advice other than to offer you good luck (and happy travels !).

Can you give an example?

Fitted systems tend to start well into 5 digits.

This is for airborne use, not ground use.

The phone is RS232.

One could use one of the "RS232 over TCP/IP" boxes, and then any ethernet device could talk to it, in principle, but that is more hassle.

Will endeavour to get back to you with a few ideas over the weekend once I've completed some travels of my own.

I have it working just fine, but with a windoze XP tablet.

I got the tablet about 6 years ago and it has worked fine all that time. I had to mod it with an SSD, otherwise it would crash ~ FL135 :)

I am looking long term to replace that tablet with something lighter that runs less hot.

The Ipad is the obvious fashion statement but there seems to be no way to interface to any RS232 device, and the other satphones (Thuraya XT, or any of the newer Iridium phones) are all USB. The old Iridiums are RS232 but Iridium data tariffs are eye watering for the sporadic use I am talking about (basically just getting tafs/metars for multiple destinations, on very long flights).

A jailbroken Ipad (and finding a programmer who wants to write a PPP dialer) is one possibility, but the Samsung Galaxy 10" tablet is a very similar product which is not locked-down like the Ipad so I was hoping there might be a solution for it.

There are actually pretty good WinXP tablets out there, in specialised vertical markets (example - ignore the rubber corner pads) but that one costs £2000, and the battery life is 1/2 of the aforementioned tablets and it runs warmer which is a real problem in high altitude flights, if there is any sunshine on it. It does have an absolutely suberb sunlight readable LCD though...