At 4Ginfo, we're on a mission to embed 4G wireless inside one of our Mac laptops. You may be asking yourself... why would we want to do this, considering there are USB modems that are compatible with the Mac? For mobile professionals it may be more convenient to have the wireless chip built-in to the laptop, as its one less thing you have to keep up with or forget to bring on your trip; additionally, some people do not like having a modem sticking out of their computer (adds to the bulk and increases the odds of something getting broken).
Plus, it just looks cooler and we're doing it for the geek factor!
Many Windows laptops already have embedded 4G WiMAX chips in them, but there aren't any Mac laptops that come standard with this option, so we're accepting the challenge to embed it ourselves! In order to do this, we have to find a 4G chip that meets certain requirements in order to be able to embed the chip on the MacBook motherboard. Since no one has ever published any information of whats actually inside 4G modems, we had to take it upon ourselves to crack open some modems and see what's in there. We have decided to share this valuable information with you on what we found inside each card - and how we managed to open each card without damaging the internal components.
The first 4G Wimax modem that we decided to open up is the CLEAR Motorola USBw 25100, AKA W100 (above). This device was very difficult to break open without damaging the circuit board! Our tester started by drilling several small holes one the back of the device, below the CLEAR logo. Once he had several holes drilled, he used a very thin knife to lift up the top half of the shell to take a look inside the shell to see what was inside, to ensure that he wasn't going to damage anything as he continued to pull apart the shell. To his surprise, there were two plastic rods melted to both sides of the shell that actually went through the mount holes on the circuit board near the USB connector. This meant that if he tried pulling the shell apart, it would break the circuit board inside! He estimated where he thought those two points were on the outside of the shell, and then drilled two holes through the plastic rods without damaging the circuit board. This was a very precarious process - as our tester explained, "I must admit that I wasn't sure that I would be able to drill out the plastic rods without drilling into the circuit board, but thankfully I was able to do so without damaging it!" Once he drilled out the rods, he was able to remove the bottom layer of the shell (pull slowly, as there is an adhesive holding the middle and bottom layers of the shell together).
Once the plastic shell was gone, this is all that you will find inside:
As you can see, the CLEAR USBw 25100 doesn't have a PCI Express Mini Card inside, so we won't be able to use this device to have "real Mac Embedded 4G". The chip only has a USB connector which is permanently soldered on the circuit board. While we could technically use this chip for embedded 4G inside our MacBook, we are going to continue opening up other 4G modems to see if other models offer a PCI Express Mini Card inside, or another more preferable way of embedding 4G inside of a Mac laptop.
One other interesting thing we discovered from our trip inside the CLEAR modem is that Foxconn actually makes the circuit board. Foxconn is an ATi certified manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards. It also looks like Quanta Computer makes the WiMAX 4G radio that is on the circuit board:
Next we will take a look at the Sprint U301 3G/4G modem - perhaps that device will have what we need for our 4G Mac! Check back to 4Ginfo.com/mac4G to continue following our journey!
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback related to this project. Join in on our discussion on the 4G Forums! If you have experience porting Linux drivers to OS X, we'd love to hear from you!
