Hi everyone out there! Today let’s see how we can browse Internet from a PC through a GPRS enabled mobile phone.

The advantage of Internet through GPRS:

This is wireless internet. Yes no need to worry for an internet cable or landline wherever you go.

No need to call the customer care and fight daily for poor internet connection as we generally end up doing, when using broadband connection / datacards.

No bulk monthly charges or rentals. No deposits. Yes pay only when you use the service.

No need of external modem or one time setup costs. In fact your mobile phone acts as a modem in this case.

Limitations:

Yes you have said it! Speed. Well when I tested with Airtel’s Mobile Office I could access at an average speed of 5 kbps, which is fairly enough (at least for me) for browsing normal WebPages, checking mails, chatting , automatic updates and smaller downloads.

My Test Environment:

OS: Windows Vista

Mobile: Sony Ericsson W200i

Network: Airtel, Karnataka, India

GPRS Package: Mobile Office

Softwares: Sony Ericsson PC Suite 2.10.37 (www.sonyericsson.com), Winrar (www.winrar.com)

1. Activating GPRS

Contact your mobile network operator to activate GPRS at your number. Airtel provides Mobile Office package for 20 Rs/day unlimited internet usage. To subscribe for a day, sms “MO” without the quotes to 6123. You will receive a sms shortly to tell you that mobile office is active on your number till next day morning 10. If you are using it for the first time, you can send a sms to 222 for the settings or you can configure manually by going to Settings->Connectivity->Data comm->Data accounts->New Account in your mobile phone.

For mobile office, the settings are as follows:

· APN: airtelgprs.com
· Username/Password: NA
· Login Request: Off
· Allow Calls: Automatic
· IP Address: …
· DNS Address: …
· Authentication: PAP
· Data Compression: Off
· Header Compression: Off

2. Setting up your PC

a. Download the PC Suite by going to www.sonyericsson.com Choose your phone model and then go to downloads section. Download the latest PC Suite.exe file and save it to your computer.

b. Download Winrar (www.winrar.com) and install it on your PC if you don’t have.

c. Open the Sony Ericsson PC Suite 2.10.36.exe using Winrar, extract it to a local folder

d. Run PCSuite.exe from the extracts.

e. Optionally Run Drivers.exe for necessary drivers.

3. Configuring the PC Suite:

a. Launch the application and connect your mobile to PC through USB cable.

b. The drivers will get installed successfully. If not, follow instructions on “How to connect” from the PC Suite.

c. Select “use phone mode” on your mobile phone.

d. Select “Mobile networking wizard” from the PC Suite.

e. Select View->Full mode

f. Select File->New Connection

g. Select “Packet Switched Data” and click Next

h. Select “Sony Ericsson Device 125 USB WMC Data Modem” (use show all modems)

i. Next, give this connection a name and click Next

j. Check “Use settings from an existing entry in the mobile phone” and next

k. Select “Mobile Office” – This is from the data account settings created in step1

l. Leave username/password empty and Finish

m. Now select your connection on the panel and click “Connect”

Yes! Now you are connected to internet. You can see the upload / download count in bytes with time at the bottom of the panel.

While you want to quit, click on the connection, and “Disconnect”. Exit the PC Suite before disconnecting the cable.

Happy Browsing,
Samjosh