VPN Question

[Birdman]

Short Question: Is the VPN software included in the OS sufficient to connect to most firm's networks or is third party VPN software required?

Long Question: I currently use my cel phone and a serial cable to connect my ipaq to my firm's RAS using dial-up. I have heard rumours that one of the Cdn GSM carriers may be rolling out the PPCPE soon. Unfortunately, this GSM carrier only allows GPRS for data. Question: if I am going to be connecting over GPRS, and not dial-up I assume I need to use some type of VPN. Is the "built-in" VPN in the PocketPCPE OS sufficient to connect or will I need some third party application? I have read posts about Movian VPN (?) and how some people cannot get their PPCPE to access their firm networks without this product.
Is this a non-issue? Are there questions I need to ask my firm's IS department before I drop $$$ (if it ever gets released in Canada) to determine whether I will be able to have the desired functionality.

TIA

[Monty Gibson]

Short Question: Is the VPN software included in the OS sufficient to connect to most firm's networks or is third party VPN software required?

Long Question: I currently use my cel phone and a serial cable to connect my ipaq to my firm's RAS using dial-up. I have heard rumours that one of the Cdn GSM carriers may be rolling out the PPCPE soon. Unfortunately, this GSM carrier only allows GPRS for data. Question: if I am going to be connecting over GPRS, and not dial-up I assume I need to use some type of VPN. Is the "built-in" VPN in the PocketPCPE OS sufficient to connect or will I need some third party application? I have read posts about Movian VPN (?) and how some people cannot get their PPCPE to access their firm networks without this product.
Is this a non-issue? Are there questions I need to ask my firm's IS department before I drop $$$ (if it ever gets released in Canada) to determine whether I will be able to have the desired functionality.

TIA

There was a big discussion with excellent input already started here. Go here and read what was said to see if it answers some of your questions and good luck:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7183

[Birdman]

Thanx. I have confirmed with my IS department that our VPN server recognizes both PPTP and IPSEC. As the PPC OS supports PPTP, it should work.

[szeldov]

I have been using SX56 in Toronto since October and have very good experience with VPN on Rogers AT&T netwrok. PPTP VPN is great and very convinient when it works. Unfortunetly most of the time I am not able to establish a connection or if established it drops as soon as any load is being put on. Mornings and evenings were the best times but lately it hardly works at all. I found that Rogers has no clue why it is happening. They blame it on Microsoft and other nonsence. No means to trace it or troubleshoot. To be honest I found it very frustrating dealing with their tech support. Practically nobody knows what PPTP is and how to configure it or use it. So I use movianVPN which works very well except it is not as straight forward to use as PPTP. I also find that if I do not logout properly from moivanVPN before turning my SX56 off, I am not able to get back on the Internet unless I login back to movian and logout. I think it has to do something with DNS being left pointing to my company's server.

[Birdman]

I know 2 other people that have the XDA in Toronto, one on Fido and one on Rogers. The guy on Rogers is having lots of problems connecting. The guy on Fido says he has virtually no problems and the connections are flawless. $50 a month all you can eat data and the SIM card was $25.

[szeldov]

I finaly got Rogers looking into it, after I've sent them a document from O2, which states that pre-installed Microsoft PPTP client is what they strongly recommend to use. Before that Rogers was telling me not to use PPTP since it was not designed to work on the wireless network, but here is what O2 says on that matter:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the extremely mobile nature of Pocket PC devices, the device can often move in and out of coverage.
In an IPSec base solution, the VPN sees the loss of the connection as a threat to the secure session, and it
reacts by closing down the VPN session completely. A PPTP based connection will not ‘close down’ the
whole VPN session, it will resume it when the Pocket PC device moves back into coverage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is exactly what I have experienced when I was able to use PPTP.

Stan.

[Birdman]

Now that you have Rogers "looking into it", are they doing something about it? Otherwise, Fido may be the better choice (but I understand that north of Barrie, they have nothing). What rate plan are you on?

[szeldov]

Tech specialist finaly got his hands on the SX56 and will be comming to my office in a week so I can help him to set it up ( unbelievable ? ). I am working for a large company and we are trying to roll it out to our executives, so they are listening even though they still need to overcome their "street consumer" like attitute when dealing with a corporate customer. To be honest Bell, Telus are not any better. As far as the coverage goes, I find Rogers is the best, it does work north of Orilia. I have tested 1X offerings from the other two and they had bigger holes.

[topps]

Tech specialist finaly got his hands on the SX56 and will be comming to my office in a week so I can help him to set it up ( unbelievable ? ). I am working for a large company and we are trying to roll it out to our executives, so they are listening even though they still need to overcome their "street consumer" like attitute when dealing with a corporate customer. To be honest Bell, Telus are not any better. As far as the coverage goes, I find Rogers is the best, it does work north of Orilia. I have tested 1X offerings from the other two and they had bigger holes.

Unless they've solved it recently, I believe that Bell and Telus have not been able to resolve the issue of dynamic IP addressing. I think that VPN depends on a static IP address...or has that now been fixed?

Fido was mentioned but their data speeds are not that likely to be very good because they only free up 2 GPRS channels compared to Rogers 6. With 1xRTT, I think you have dedicated channels so speeds tend to be more consistent.