Connecting Via Wireless & VPN to a mobile computer

Hi there,

Is it possible to use GPRS (or equivalent) to connect to a mobile
computer and take control of it with VPN (or equivalent)?

The background is:

The company I work for works with hotels to track guest satisfaction.
One of the hotels we work with wants us to install computers in their
hotel for the guest to use to fill in surveys/ write comments etc.

We want to be able to update files on the computer and to be able to
take control of it via VPN in the event of it malfunctioning as the
hotels are in Egypt and we are in Ireland!

Any advice? or suggestions as to the best technology to use?

Thanks,

Kevin

> Is it possible to use GPRS (or equivalent) to connect to a mobile
> computer and take control of it with VPN (or equivalent)?

Yes

> We want to be able to update files on the computer and to be able to
> take control of it via VPN in the event of it malfunctioning as the
> hotels are in Egypt and we are in Ireland!
>
> Any advice? or suggestions as to the best technology to use?

Dialup? I don't see why you're aiming towards GPRS? Surely these
hotels can get broadband so why not use that? Or ISDN. GPRS is pretty
slow unless you start multilinking.

David.

We don't want to go through the hotels LAN or phone system, apparently
(I'm told from past experiments) it is very difficult to get the hotel
to play ball with their firewalls or being able to dial out easily. We
could rent a phone line and connect it into each PC but thats messy.
If we can use GPRS then the PCs can be moved around the hotel
reception.

Also with GPRS you pay per packet sent not per second online so the PC
can stay on-line all the time if we want.

I (think I) know how you go about connecting from a mobile computer
into a LAN, but how do you connect from the LAN into the mobile PC? Do
you set a port that the mobile listens to?

> If we can use GPRS then the PCs can be moved around the hotel
> reception.

Yep

> Also with GPRS you pay per packet sent not per second online so the PC
> can stay on-line all the time if we want.

Also true but slow.

> I (think I) know how you go about connecting from a mobile computer
> into a LAN, but how do you connect from the LAN into the mobile PC? Do
> you set a port that the mobile listens to?

Probably, i've never bothered doing it with a phone but most of them
support the Hayes command set so I'd expect them to just listen out
accordingly. Why not look at a GPRS modem instead of a phone?
Something like this?

Or install a phone line in a cupboard with an access point and just use
wireless to the device you want to manage. That's going to be easier I
would have thought and more versatile.

David.

I like the idea of the phone line in a cupboard but it depends on what
the hotel lets us do.

Thanks for the help.

Kevin

> I like the idea of the phone line in a cupboard but it depends on what
> the hotel lets us do.

If you can present the business case, it shouldn't be hard to convince
them, especially if you pay the install/rental.

David.