Motorola L-718 and Linux

I have a Motorola L-Series GSM phone purchased in Australia and delivered in a box labelled L-718. The phone appears identical to the L-7089 marketed elsewhere. It is very light, has an easy to read display, and long operational time between charges.

My experience so far leads me to have some reservations about its use with Linux for data transmission.

Documentation that comes with the phone contains virtually no information on the internal infra-red modem. About all it says is how to activate it (not even how to deactivate it if this is possible).
There are no such documents made available by Motorola on the web that I can find.
The help desk people in Australia cannot help on the modem
The modem appears equivalent to a three wire type. No control signals are available, so no hardware flow control. Hence no SLIP connections are possible.
The modem link seems unstable compared with other phones I have used. About 4 in 5 calls terminate with unrequested modem hang-ups.

In frustration I bought a serial cable hoping it would give better results. I have some reservations about it too.

It is expensive. Just a cable and a CD costs about AUS$180.
The cable comes with no written documentation.
The CD that accompanies it has no documentation readable with Linux. It is all MS Windows stuff.
The cable appears to be a three wire one. No modem signals.
The cable does not appear to work with Linux. I cannot get a response to "AT" with a variety of line settings.
The Windows software installed on an NT machine I have access to but could not locate the modem.

Cobbling together information

From various postings in the IrDA-Linux list, my own investigation of the modem responses, and comparison with documentation on other modems, I have cobbled together a list of AT commands.

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Maintained by Dave Davey daved@physiol.usyd.edu.au
Last modified 5 July 2005