The Mobile Internet Triumvirate

How do you bring about the bliss that is a mobile internet connection available nationwide using commonly available mobile gear? Joe Mullins shows you how!

Tungten T2 – Sony Ericsson T610 – T-mobile GSM

Bluetooth and GSM are our happy friends. By pairing a bluetooth enabled Palm with a bluetooth enabled phone, and having a data ready service provider, you too can bask in the warm, comforting glow of the internet almost anywhere. Let’s get to work.

The Phone: On your T610 or T616 click down on the center button and choose connectivity. Scroll down and click on “Data Comm.” Click on “Data Accounts” Find t-zones in the list and click on it. Write down the CID. It should probably be 1. Make sure your phone’s bluetooth is on and you’re set to discoverable. We’re done here.

The Palm: From your applications list, click on the “Phone Setup” click on Phone Connection click on next Choose Sony-E as the maufacturer Choose T610 (if it’s not in the list get new phone definitions) connect via bluetooth Select your phone name from the list. Usually T610 enter pass phrase (I use 000) your phone will ask if you want to add Palm OS to it’s devices list. Click yes and enter 000 when asked. Do you want this phone set as the default for phone applications. Click yes. Do you want to set this phone up for internet connectivity? Click No, we’re doing this another way. Back to our apps and click on prefs click on network name the service whatever. I named mine t-mobile no username or password. Leave them blank under connection, use the name of the phone that was set up earlier in the phone field, enter 99**1# (1 is our CID number, if yours was different, replace the 1) hit the connect button and we have joy.

Now, you should be able to check your e-mail with versamail once you have set up your accounts. But if you’re like me, WebPro will not work, and will just throw errors about DNS or checking your web host. With t-mobile, you can’t use this proxy setting, and in the web pro that ships with the T2, I couldn’t find a way to not use it. I had to download the new version from palm and uncheck “Use Proxy Server” option in the Preferences -> Advanced tab. If you can get this working on the built in version of web pro, let me know and I’ll amend it.

You now have mobile internet. Good for you. This method will give you e-mail and regular http access. No https from what I can tell. Also, from what I have gathered online, this method is free to t-mobile users. I can’t guarantee this though, so if you get a $3000 bill for internet access, don’t come running to me. When I check my plan it shows free wap access under my optional services. If you don’t have that listed, you probably can’t take advantage of this method as it uses WAP.

I used this combo the other day to do some comparison shopping at Fry’s and was glad to have it. being able to get product reviews in the store, or movie schedules on the fly, from standard websites is really really nice.