Ricochet wireless modem

[Chris Cox]

I did extensive testing of the Ricochet modem (the external 128K one)
on behalf of Wireless Web Connect (www.wwc.com).

I tested the device under Linux using both serial and USB.
You definitely want to go USB.  It gets very good connects... you
will need a 2.2.18 or higher kernel (prior to that, there are
too many quirks with USB).

I probably averaged around 140K... got 150-170K often.  I used the
device from the 5th floor of an office building, out in a park,
from a restaurant and inside of a moving vehicle.  Everything did
well except for the vehicle test.  I do not recommend it as 
a solution for true mobile computing... however, I've been told
that even so, it performs better than anything else inside
of a car.

I used SuSE 6.3 with plenty of upgrades.... including 2.2.18.

I was impressed with the device and can recommend it heartily
for those who need a broadband alternative and are in a
Ricochet service area.  Warning: they don't keep their service
area up to date on the website.  My house wasn't even in
their planned expansion area, yet they have their little boxes
throughout my neighborhood (look for the little boxes with
antennas pointing down off of your street lights).

You'll need to configure USB in the kernel.. not sure how to
do that in 2.4.... but in 2.2.18 or higher, you just go to
the USB panel... you'll need UHCI I believe and ATM device
suppport.  Look at the docs in the usb section of the kernel
docs and it will tell you about the special device to create.
I followed the instructions and I believe it worked more
or less the way it was supposed to.  I had trouble using
kppp with the device (kppp doesn't handle devices that
talk back so fast), so I resorted to using xisp... worked
great!

If you need help, I can probably get into my laptop and
dig up more specifics.  I just did the review of the device,
I do not own one.

Regards,
Chris

> Charlie Bullen wrote:
> > Good Morning. I just recently got a wireless ricochet modem. It
> > connects at about 140k and as there is no other broadband available
> > where  live its much better than a 56k modem. I need it for a work
> > related project that requires me to use an other OS.
> >
> > I am running Suse 7.1 as my prefered OS but havent gotten in to work
> > yet. I can use either the usb port or the serial port. Before I put
> > a lot of time into this, does anyone know  if it is theoretically
> > possible to use this and if so how
>