The hardest software/hardware I’ve ever tried to find.!

And it was for an old laptop! In fact, it is for an old Panasonic Laptop, more specifically, a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 (I love Toughbooks! But their optional extras can be a pain!). Mine is fitted with an additional item called a GPRS modem, or General Packet Radio Service or 2G (Or EDGE which is 2.5G if you like, but my Toughbook called it 2.75G!) I have 2 newer toughbooks and 2 newer laptops (a HP Elitebook 2730P and an Elitebook 2760P which is a US import) which have 3G modems installed in them (which is faster than EDGE and GPRS – you may of heard 4G and even 5G, these are just faster data standards). GPRS for my use as long as its not Youtube I found to be quite quick, if I could get it to work to begin with. Now these laptops have a Siemens MC75 USB modem in them, the drivers of which are dead easy to find.

The software not so, for a start, you have 3 options:

1. Create whats called a Dial-Up Networking profile (DUN) which is hard as I found out with Vodafone as the customer service agent couldn’t work out what I was trying to achieve, well the laptop is 12 years old at the time of writing.
2. Use Panasonic checknet sofware (Available from here: ) but you need to still do the above. (From: http://business.panasonic.com/support-computerstablets-downloads-wirelesscarrier – and a right mission to get working in Windows Vista and Windows 7)
3. Find the BVRP software, hard to find, trust me, the original software I used was Norwegian of which I know someone who would understand and know it, but they’ve decided to ditch me (in 2006) for better things which is the story of my life – I’ve changed since then a lot. I eventually found the software on this site: http://www.helpjet.net/Fs-75078872-19927365-95508474-extract.html

A couple of observations, it works VERY well. But, it can be temperamental, for a start, you have to use the driver that came with the program or it won’t work, secondly, you may need to (as I use it in Windows 7 for which it was not designed for!) run it as an Administrator on Windows Vista or Windows 7. Other than that, it works. Just make sure your phone operator supports it, I know I had trouble with Three or otherwise known as H3G.