One of the things I have had the dubious pleasure of messing with is tethering my Treo 750 to my MacBook Pro for internet access. I came across a wonderful program that makes this process so easy called USB Modem, which basically makes your device appear as a (you guessed it) USB Modem to your computer, no drivers necessary. Worked great in Windows and in Mac OS X.

My new Samsung SGH-i600 introduced a new feature to me called Bluetooth PAN. What this essentially does it turn it into a Bluetooth router hooked up to a HSDPA modem. Instead of having to mess with dial strings and serial ports you just pair the device to your computer, and connect to the Bluetooth PAN service.

Coincidentally Apple has recently release the 10.4.9 update to Mac OS X, which adds Bluetooth PAN to the Apple Bluetooth stack. This was the push I needed to risk my nice stable MBP to upgrade. Fortunately the upgrade went smoothly, and so far I haven’t had any issues with it.

With Bluetooth PAN is installed, I started the Internet Sharing application on my i600 and set it to Bluetooth.

Pair up the device with the Mac like usual, and a new item will appear in the Bluetooth menu allowing to join a Bluetooth network with the phone.

The connection will appear as another network connection.

Speed using this setup feels pretty good, although I get some rather abysmal results using DSLReports for download but an astonishing upload. Will have to try it in a better area. But the speeds are certainly passable, and won’t make you cry, and the connection seems to be very reliable. I haven’t had any issues getting it connected, just click the button and it’s working.

I also gave it a go in Windows XP using the Microsoft Bluetooth stack and it works just as easily.

Anyone else have a device they are tethering to their laptop using Bluetooth PAN? How do you find the speeds and ease of use? This post was made from my MBP tethered via BT PAN.

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