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Using BlackBerry Bold as a Tethered Cellular Modem on Orange-Israel Network

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My new company got me a snazzy BlackBerry Bold to help me keep up to date with all the emails and tasks i need to do, since I am working the majority of the time from home. Since I live in Jerusalem and the new office is in Tel Aviv, on those days that i do commute, I have about 3 daily hours of train time to kill. Needless to say, the optimal way to utilize that time is to have an internet connection through the whole ride, but without the wireless modem, there is nothing to do but watch How I Met Your Mother 🙂

BlackBerry Bold has changed all that and one of the first things i did when i got it is to set out and find instructions how to tether its internet connection to my laptop. After a long search and a lot of dot connecting, I managed to find a solution:

1. Connect your Blackberry Bold through the USB and start the Desktop Manager app (came with your phone). Without the Desktop Manager running, you will not be able to connect to the internet.

2. Go to Control Panel -> Phone and Modem Options -> "Modems" tab.

3. You should be able to see a list of all the modems you ever installed on your computer. Blackberry modem should be marked as a Standard Modem on COM14 or COM16. Notice how all the other standard modems are Bluetooth modems. I am guessing that Blackberry can serve as a modem even over Bluetooth, but have not checked this.

   

4. Click Properties (if on Vista, now click on Change Settings in the new window) and go to Advanced tab. Note: If you are on Vista and did not click on the "Change Settings" button, you will not be able to perform the next step

5. Under the Extra Settings in the Advanced Tab, enter the following line:

   at+cgdcont=1,"IP","internet"

   Make sure that there are no spaces before and after. Click on OK to close the window

   

6. Now go to your Network Connections and create a new connection (Setup a New Connection on Vista). Choose Setup a Dialup Connection and pick the  Standard Modem (not the bluetooth one).

7. Next step you are going to be asked for a dialup phone number. Enter the following number:

   *99***1#

   No username or password are needed.

8. Go to the list of your network connections, right click the new connection you created and click on Properties. Go to Networking tab, pick the TCP/IP protocol (on Vista this is the TCP/IPv4 protocol) and click on Properties. Click on Advanced. Uncheck the "Use IP Header Compression" checkbox (marked in red in the below picture).

   

That is about it. Before connecting, make sure that you have 3G network enabled on your Blackberry. I personally disable 3G since it devours my battery within like 6 hours. The connection speed that I measured was something under 2Mbps download, which is not bad at all. I also managed to use my VPN client and have yet to find a significant difference between this connection and the regular WiFi connection.

I’m sure that not everyone will manage to connect smoothly with just following the above instructions, but I am hoping that at least some will get some benefit from them. in case you hit some bumps, let me know in the comments.

Posted in Blackberry, General