OK this is less an immediate problem and more wanting to expand upon my existing setup.
I've managed to get a Sprint CF2031 3G Cellular Modem card to work (yes it's wireless) in RHEL 3WS however I've been searching if there's anyway for me to receive feedback about the signal strength (much in the same way we can get signal strength data from the iwconfig output for 802.11 cards)
The Windows drivers naturally have a way to query the card to pull back a % ratio of the cellular signal but I can't find anything about a similar ability in Linux.
If anyone has an idea I'd be all ears.
If anyone is also interested in getting this card to work:
http://www.vraxx.com/linux.html has a writeup and links to the original author of the (JamesPtak) writeup to get the card working with pppd