[Kris Kumar]

Originally Posted by Rzanology

Hey guys I have a very important question. Im with cingular now….will they charge for using the connection with the laptop? I was told by two different reps that they charge extra for connecting and using the internet connection with any other device than the 220 itself. BUT! How the hell will they know? Is this true or are they just trying to scare me? I know when I was with t-mobile I use to do this almost everyday. I’d love to be able to use my phone as a modem again.

Good point. I believe the carriers can find out that you are using your Smartphone as a modem. And therefore can charge you extra.

Regarding Cingular, not familiar with their data plans. And don't know whether or not they will charge extra.

[Kris Kumar]

Originally Posted by Rzanology

Hey guys I have a very important question. Im with cingular now….will they charge for using the connection with the laptop? I was told by two different reps that they charge extra for connecting and using the internet connection with any other device than the 220 itself. BUT! How the hell will they know? Is this true or are they just trying to scare me? I know when I was with t-mobile I use to do this almost everyday. I’d love to be able to use my phone as a modem again.

Good point. I believe the carriers can find out that you are using your Smartphone as a modem. And therefore can charge you extra.

Regarding Cingular, not familiar with their data plans. And don't know whether or not they will charge extra.

[Kris Kumar]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

If you look at the bottom of Kris' article, I've created an MHTML version of the file that you can download and open in IE offline. Enjoy!

Thanks for the suggestion Infarct. And thanks Jason for making it happen. :-)

[lurch]

Originally Posted by Kris Kumar

If you are with Cingular or with a carrier that requires username and password for the Internet connection, then try putting them in Figure 28 or Figure 30.

Thanks Kris,

I had tried putting in the username/pwd in those boxes (although maybe I just had it wrong?) but again, it was to no avail. I think I might call Cingular about it, because I also would like to verify that it won't cost me extra. I'd better call at least 3 times though, because I've consistently gotten different answers from different reps (on other issues)!

But by all means, if someone knows how to connect from a Cingular phone, let me know!

[Kris Kumar]

Do let us know the info you find out from Cingular rep(s). ;-)

And click here for the Cingular settings: the username, password, APN etc. Thanks to encece for posting the info.

I noticed that the APN, username and password are all in uppercase, could that be an issue. :?

[Mike Temporale]

Also check this post. There is a rather extensive list of providers and their settigns. From this list it does look like CASE matters for Cingular.

[lurch]

Well, I only talked with one rep from Cingular today, but he confirmed that they have separate data plans for using your phone as a modem, and they start at $20 for 5MB or so, up to $80 for unlimited. That was enough to convince me that my issue was because I was purposely being blocked, and I don't really want to incurr extra charges.

Oh well, I dreamed it was possible once... now I have to figure out what else I'll use my BT dongle for my laptop for.

[rzanology]

this is really sucking it up for me. When i was with t-mobile they didn't have any of these stupid charges. I guess this is what i get for switching!!!!

[revolution.cx]

I have used my Smartphone as a modem via usb for over a year now with T-Mobile's $9.95 Internet Pro or whatever they call it. Not the $19.95 plan.

It's usually a week here and a week there when I travel but during those times I've spent hours connected and transferred many many megabytes of data.

Never charged anything extra.

[abarry]

I signed up with AT&T (SMT5600) last October, just weeks before Cingular bought them.

Last month, I got the SX66, and was able to switch over to Cingular without problem. I also bought their unlimited MEdiaWorks for $20/month. When I used KK's recipe yesterday, I was able to connect to the net using the BT on SX66. However, I was not sure whether I would have to pay for 'data' since I only had MEdiaWorks. So I downloaded the Cingular's Connection Manager and was able to use that to connect to the Net via BT (using MEdiaWorks settings) several times in a couple of hours.

When I tried to connect later last evening, I would get a "No Connect" sign on the SX66 (an X next to the antenna instead of bars). Tech Support told me that the Connection Manager does not support the SX66, even though the SX66 has the ability to be used as a tethering modem! I guess they found out from my cellphone number that I was 'cheating' and blocked it.

So I returned the phone, and was able to get back to AT&T with my old plan that includes $25 unlimited mMode on my SMT5600, because I had the SX66 for less than 30 days. Again, I am able to connect to the net dialing *99#, and no username or password. I have these three questions:

1. By dialing this way (*99#) am I going through mMode or using data minutes that I will be charged for?

2. Is there a way to set up the connection so I connect my laptop to the net via SMT5600 using mMode if the *99# does not go through mMode?

3. I tried to connect to my ISP (BellSouth) putting their phone number, my username and password, but I get the message: Connection Failed. Any thoughts on what am I doing wrong?

Thank you.

[lurch]

Originally Posted by abarry

1. By dialing this way (*99#) am I going through mMode or using data minutes that I will be charged for?

2. Is there a way to set up the connection so I connect my laptop to the net via SMT5600 using mMode if the *99# does not go through mMode?

3. I tried to connect to my ISP (BellSouth) putting their phone number, my username and password, but I get the message: Connection Failed. Any thoughts on what am I doing wrong?

I'm not a previous AT&T customer, so I'm not sure about mMode, but here goes anyway:

1. Typically any kind of data connection that you buy to use via GPRS is completely independant from your "talking" minutes. That's why many plans are available for 5MB a month, unlimited, etc. Because they don't have any correlation to your monthly minutes.

2. If dialing *99# doesn't go through mMode (which I would bet a large sum of $$ that it does), you could conceivably connect via your ISP as you mentioned in question 3, but in that case it would be using your phone's minutes as if you were talking (since it's acting as a traditional modem)

3. I've never connected via ISP like this, so I've got no advice to add! If you are planning on using your ISP though, I'd cancel the $$/month you pay for the data connection... you're losing money there!

Hopefully this helps, and hopefully it's accurate! Someone else can freely correct me.