Nothing To Lose

Just for the heck of a backup net connection I tried out connecting to the internet through my Sony W350i phone.
Here are the steps how I got connected and what stuff I used for the same.

• OS used Mandriva 2010 with Linux Kernel 2.6.31.
• WvDial 1.60
• Airtel GSM with GPRS Enabled

Connect you phone with the data cable provided to the computers USB.  The phone asks you to use Data Mode or Phone Mode, Select Phone mode.

Your device should get detected as ttyACM, just run the command dmesg after you have plugged in the phone. You should see some output like this

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 13
usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0fce, idProduct=d0d0
usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 1-1: Product: Sony Ericsson W350
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 3558650274248670
usb 1-1: configuration #2 chosen from 1 choice
cdc_acm 1-1:2.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
cdc_wdm: probe of 1-1:2.5 failed with error -22

If you have an existing wvdial.conf file it is ok else you should run the wvdialconf utility to which will create a wvdial.conf for you by probing the existing phone modem.

Stupid Mode = On
[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”airtelgprs.com”
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = *99#
ISDN = 0
Username = ”
Password = ”
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

Your wvdial should look similar to the one above except for the Init3 line missing or different.  Make sure it is there the “IP” and “airtelgprs.com” added this is need as the APN settings.

If you are using some other operator find out the APN and replace airtelgprs.com with the one they provide. (you can generally find this out in the phones internet connection settings)

The Phone number to dial is same for most of the GSM service providers, I doubt if you need to change it.

Your user name and password depends what ever your service provider gives you.

I left it blank, please keep single quotes without anything in it else wvdial complains that it could not find a user name and password.

next fire up the wvdial command and you should get connected to the net in few seconds.