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Adventures in the BigPond NextG
By Nick Hodge | August 3, 2007
Having an online job I really should have no excuses to be offline.
Wifi Ethernet, paid or unpaid, can be a little like finding a needle in a needle factory.
Solution: Popped into a Dick Smith and purchased a USB NextG Card.
Why BigPond? Microsoft's mobile phone/data supplier is Telstra, and Cathye convinced me to do it over lunch.
Symptoms: I could register the card and account; however the IP address that was created was always a 169.254.x.x. The card was successfully seen with the BigPond software 2.7.3
After a week of working with the supplied software, including a very friendly support guy at Telstra Bigpond, I've decided to search out for further info.
Whilst I ran out of time to hunt down the root cause of the issue; it seems that the Vista install at Microsoft has some serious group policy restrictions on networking: so it's workaround time.
In this process of looking for the solution, I turned off Vista's UAC. That is a pretty big switch. Sort of like leaving your security alarm off when you leave home. I didn't feel safe. UAC back on.
The card is distributed in Australia by a company called Maxon. They have a support forum. 20 minutes of reading, and there is a work-around. The card itself maps into Windows as a Port, and using the normal dial-up/PPP setting - you can just dial into the network and you are off.
(this post via BigPond NextG)
Topics: nextg, technology, telstra |





August 6th, 2007 at 5:09 am
So how are you finding the card/coverage...been toying with the idea for awhile but the plans are a bix exxy...
August 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Week with two or three "production" uses of NextG and I am happy. Exxy, yes. Not a replacement for "normal" broadband