Accessing the Internet using Bluetooth and my GPRS Mobile Phone
I recently received a fantastic Nokia 6682 mobile phone for use on the Cingular wireless network. Our plan includes unlimited Internet usage for the first month, so I figured I'd experiment with as many features possible while the service is free.
I love the idea of being able to access the Internet on my Apple PowerBook laptop using a mobile phone. Mac OS X supports using a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone as a modem. I figured that configuring the phone and computer might be difficult, but it was pretty much self-guiding.
First, I paired the phone and computer by invoking the "Setup a New Device" wizard from the Bluetooth preferences in OS X. I indicated that I was adding a mobile phone, and that it should be used for connecting to the Internet using GPRS.
Then, I configured the Bluetooth PPP settings for the Cingular network. Here's what the settings look like (derived from a Cingular support page):
Then, I configured the Bluetooth modem for the Nokia 6682 mobile phone. I chose "Nokia Infrared", which seemed to work alright:
The last thing for me to do was click 'Connect' for the Bluetooth modem on the Mac. Everything just worked perfectly from that point forward. The transfer-rate wasn't anything to get excited about - it was reminiscent of the days of dial-up Internet access. Now, I can get my geek on from any place with mobile network coverage!