molotov
February 2nd, 2006, 02:31
Ok, first some preliminaries. This article has been tested with OS X 10.4.3 and 10.4.4. I have gotten two phones to work with this method, a Nokia 6310i and a Nokia 6620. OS X makes this very simple and easy, its just a matter of putting a few values in boxes that don’t make sense (:
Some really general definitions:
Bluetooth – This is the wireless protocol that we are going to use to connect the laptop to the phone. While using the 6620, I got speeds from the laptop to the phone of around 24k/sec, so not great but not horrible either.
GPRS – General Packet Radio Service. This was (to my limited knowledge) the first widely available internet via cell phone. Its speeds average that of dial up, I was able to get around 4k a second with the limited connectivity in my dorm room
EDGE – This is basically GPRS plus, supposedly has higher speeds. T-Mobile, my service provider has in theory rolled out EDGE (or at least they were supposed to) over 80% of their network by the end of September, however living in backwoods Ohio does not provide the best testing environment for new things.
First, some notes on Cell Phone providers and plans. Until I looked into upgrading my existing plan I didn’t realize how nicely I had it. Apparently I signed up for T-Mobiles GPRS plan when it was new, and I pay $20 for unlimited GPRS. Recently, when I was looking to change to Cingular (which I’m told has better coverage) or upgrade my existing T-Mobile plan, I found the plans there significantly more expensive. Apparently I’m grandfathered into this plan, which is kind of cool. When looking for a plan you are looking for unrestricted GPRS access, EDGE access (As far as I know the only EV-DO phones are available for Version and Sprint, and I have not tested any of those)
The largest difference between the two phones (for the point of this article) I tested was EDGE. The 6620 is EDGE equipped while the 6310i is only GPRS. I also read that the signal reception on the 6620 was slightly better than the 6310i. If my assumption regarding the lack of EDGE in my room is correct, then this signal difference would account for the 1k/sec difference I noticed between the two phones (The 6620 got 4k/sec while the 6310i got 3k/sec).
A note about getting these phones: You can get them fairly cheaply off ebay. There are some worries with this method however. The first phone I got (the 6310i) was dinged a bit, just cosmetic when I got it, nothing major. However, the 6620 required opening up, removing the rubber contact pad and cleaning underneath it to get all the keys working. Given that I am not as comfortable with electronics as I am with software, this was fairly nerve wracking. When looking on ebay you are looking for an unlocked phone (most will be unlocked). Unlocked phones will work with either T-Mobile or Cingular, CDMA phones will work with Verison, and sprint is iDEN. I have no knowledge of buying Sprint/Verison phones off ebay, it may work it may not. Once you have the phone, just pop in the SIM card and you should be good to go. Enough about phones however, time to start getting OS X and the phones talking.
Now we need to start setting up the computer. Really the only things youll need can be found at:
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/
The exact file is at:
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/files/NokiaGPRS2004-05.sit
These are an excellent set of modem scripts by Ross Barkman. Once you unsit them, just copy everything but the read-me and the folders into:
/Library/Modem Scripts
A note a the website says the latest version does not work so well with the 6310i, so if you’re using that phone, copy the scripts from the Old Scripts folder to the same location. With these scripts in place, you should be ready to go.
First, kind of obvious but you’ll need to enable Bluetooth on both the phone and the computer. I would put Bluetooth in the status bar, and under the Bluetooth menu there should be an option, “Set up Bluetooth Device”. Select that and this handy wizard will help us with the rest.
Step by step, first obviously you’ll select “mobile phone” from the list of available Bluetooth options. It should start scanning and a list of found Bluetooth devices should show up. Select your phone from the list and click continue. It will gather a bit more info then finish, just click continue again.
Next, the computer will display a pass code that your phone will prompt you for. This is to make sure other people aren’t doing bad things. It will then ask if you want to connect (on your phone), obviously we do. It will gather even –more- data then let you continue.
At this next screen it will ask you what you want to do with your phone. If you phone is supported by iSync (the 6620 is, the 6310i is not) then you can use iSync to move contact lists from address book and calendar events from your computer to your phone (a bit on this later). However, what we’re interested in is Accessing the Internet with our phones data connection using direct high speed connect to reach our ISP. After having selected this, again click continue.
Ok, here is the marginally tricky part.
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/gprs.html
Contains a large list of settings.
In the username, you’re going to put whatever that pages tells you to for your network (for me it was guest). Same is true for password. In the GPRS CID String you’re going to put the APN. This is NOT what the setup assistant tells you to do.
So for me, T-Mobile in the USA
Username: guest
Password:
GPRS CID String: internet2.voicestream.com
For the Modem Script I’ve had luck with the basic script, Nokia GPRS CID 1. If that doesn’t work, try CID 2, etc. Play with it until you find the one that best fits your needs. Finally, hit continue. A summary should pop up and we are almost done.
According to Ross Barkman, many GPRS ISP’s do not support TCP Header compression, thus you will need to disable this. Under System Preferences -> Network -> Bluetooth -> PPP -> PPP-Options unselect TCP Header Compression and you should be good to go.
To connect, simply go to the phone icon in the menu bar and hit connect. If nothing went wrong, you should be good to go! If you open up Internet Connect (the bottom of the modem menu), under the Bluetooth tab you can see the status of your connection.
A quick note about using iSync to send contacts to your phone: The name field will not import from the “nickname” field in address book, instead use “first name”, and it will import just fine.
Now, you have a mobile WAP, getting blazing 4k a second speeds wherever you want without breaking any laws or stealing any wireless!
On a side note, if you have a 6620, I found a convenient application for the phone that Id imagine everyone here is probably familiar with (:
http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/
This is putty for Symbian, the OS that runs on the 6620. This might be handly while away from computers, and you just need to input that one command… However, if you plan on using this I would highly suggest setting up some numerical aliases ahead of time (alias 2 ls for example…)
Anyways, that’s all, if you have any problems post away. If you get it working, let me know what kind of speeds you get.
Some really general definitions:
Bluetooth – This is the wireless protocol that we are going to use to connect the laptop to the phone. While using the 6620, I got speeds from the laptop to the phone of around 24k/sec, so not great but not horrible either.
GPRS – General Packet Radio Service. This was (to my limited knowledge) the first widely available internet via cell phone. Its speeds average that of dial up, I was able to get around 4k a second with the limited connectivity in my dorm room
EDGE – This is basically GPRS plus, supposedly has higher speeds. T-Mobile, my service provider has in theory rolled out EDGE (or at least they were supposed to) over 80% of their network by the end of September, however living in backwoods Ohio does not provide the best testing environment for new things.
First, some notes on Cell Phone providers and plans. Until I looked into upgrading my existing plan I didn’t realize how nicely I had it. Apparently I signed up for T-Mobiles GPRS plan when it was new, and I pay $20 for unlimited GPRS. Recently, when I was looking to change to Cingular (which I’m told has better coverage) or upgrade my existing T-Mobile plan, I found the plans there significantly more expensive. Apparently I’m grandfathered into this plan, which is kind of cool. When looking for a plan you are looking for unrestricted GPRS access, EDGE access (As far as I know the only EV-DO phones are available for Version and Sprint, and I have not tested any of those)
The largest difference between the two phones (for the point of this article) I tested was EDGE. The 6620 is EDGE equipped while the 6310i is only GPRS. I also read that the signal reception on the 6620 was slightly better than the 6310i. If my assumption regarding the lack of EDGE in my room is correct, then this signal difference would account for the 1k/sec difference I noticed between the two phones (The 6620 got 4k/sec while the 6310i got 3k/sec).
A note about getting these phones: You can get them fairly cheaply off ebay. There are some worries with this method however. The first phone I got (the 6310i) was dinged a bit, just cosmetic when I got it, nothing major. However, the 6620 required opening up, removing the rubber contact pad and cleaning underneath it to get all the keys working. Given that I am not as comfortable with electronics as I am with software, this was fairly nerve wracking. When looking on ebay you are looking for an unlocked phone (most will be unlocked). Unlocked phones will work with either T-Mobile or Cingular, CDMA phones will work with Verison, and sprint is iDEN. I have no knowledge of buying Sprint/Verison phones off ebay, it may work it may not. Once you have the phone, just pop in the SIM card and you should be good to go. Enough about phones however, time to start getting OS X and the phones talking.
Now we need to start setting up the computer. Really the only things youll need can be found at:
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/
The exact file is at:
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/files/NokiaGPRS2004-05.sit
These are an excellent set of modem scripts by Ross Barkman. Once you unsit them, just copy everything but the read-me and the folders into:
/Library/Modem Scripts
A note a the website says the latest version does not work so well with the 6310i, so if you’re using that phone, copy the scripts from the Old Scripts folder to the same location. With these scripts in place, you should be ready to go.
First, kind of obvious but you’ll need to enable Bluetooth on both the phone and the computer. I would put Bluetooth in the status bar, and under the Bluetooth menu there should be an option, “Set up Bluetooth Device”. Select that and this handy wizard will help us with the rest.
Step by step, first obviously you’ll select “mobile phone” from the list of available Bluetooth options. It should start scanning and a list of found Bluetooth devices should show up. Select your phone from the list and click continue. It will gather a bit more info then finish, just click continue again.
Next, the computer will display a pass code that your phone will prompt you for. This is to make sure other people aren’t doing bad things. It will then ask if you want to connect (on your phone), obviously we do. It will gather even –more- data then let you continue.
At this next screen it will ask you what you want to do with your phone. If you phone is supported by iSync (the 6620 is, the 6310i is not) then you can use iSync to move contact lists from address book and calendar events from your computer to your phone (a bit on this later). However, what we’re interested in is Accessing the Internet with our phones data connection using direct high speed connect to reach our ISP. After having selected this, again click continue.
Ok, here is the marginally tricky part.
http://www.taniwha.org.uk/gprs.html
Contains a large list of settings.
In the username, you’re going to put whatever that pages tells you to for your network (for me it was guest). Same is true for password. In the GPRS CID String you’re going to put the APN. This is NOT what the setup assistant tells you to do.
So for me, T-Mobile in the USA
Username: guest
Password:
GPRS CID String: internet2.voicestream.com
For the Modem Script I’ve had luck with the basic script, Nokia GPRS CID 1. If that doesn’t work, try CID 2, etc. Play with it until you find the one that best fits your needs. Finally, hit continue. A summary should pop up and we are almost done.
According to Ross Barkman, many GPRS ISP’s do not support TCP Header compression, thus you will need to disable this. Under System Preferences -> Network -> Bluetooth -> PPP -> PPP-Options unselect TCP Header Compression and you should be good to go.
To connect, simply go to the phone icon in the menu bar and hit connect. If nothing went wrong, you should be good to go! If you open up Internet Connect (the bottom of the modem menu), under the Bluetooth tab you can see the status of your connection.
A quick note about using iSync to send contacts to your phone: The name field will not import from the “nickname” field in address book, instead use “first name”, and it will import just fine.
Now, you have a mobile WAP, getting blazing 4k a second speeds wherever you want without breaking any laws or stealing any wireless!
On a side note, if you have a 6620, I found a convenient application for the phone that Id imagine everyone here is probably familiar with (:
http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/
This is putty for Symbian, the OS that runs on the 6620. This might be handly while away from computers, and you just need to input that one command… However, if you plan on using this I would highly suggest setting up some numerical aliases ahead of time (alias 2 ls for example…)
Anyways, that’s all, if you have any problems post away. If you get it working, let me know what kind of speeds you get.