Orange GPRS, Linux, and the Sony Ericsson T300

How to connect to Orange GPRS internet services from a Linux PC using a Sony Ericsson T300 ’phone

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In order to connect to Orange GPRS internet services from a PC using a mobile ’phone, you first need to establish basic communication between PC and ’phone, and then configure a number of settings at each end. Note that I connect using an IrDA dongle attached to a USB port, and a serial port is emulated at /dev/ircomm0; if you use a different method of connection, you will need to modify some of the following instructions suitably.

1. Establish communcation between PC and ’phone

First test that the PC can talk to the ’phone. Switch on the infrared port on the ’phone (on the quick menu, or ‘Connect/Infrared Port/On’); an icon will appear on the main screen.

Start up a terminal emulator program on the PC (I use ‘minicom’). If the port (I use /dev/ircomm0) and communication parameters (I use 9600 8N1, but faster speeds should also work) are set correctly, you should be able to type ‘ATI’ and have the ’phone reply ‘T300’.

The ’phone is behaving as a modem, and responds to ‘Hayes AT’ commands in much the same way as a fixed-line modem does.

2. Settings on the ’phone

The T300 can store configuration settings for a number of GPRS services. Each service is identified by its ‘CID’. Under ‘Connect/Data comm./Data accounts’ there is a list of services: go to the one you wish to use (which here will be either ‘Orange GPRS Internet’ or ‘PAYG GPRS Internet’). Do not select any of the Wap services. The third item on the menu that appears is the CID of the service: in my case it shows ‘CID=4’. Make a note of this number. You should not need to edit the settings for the service, but in case you do, here are the settings I use:

  APN: payginternet
  User id: <blank>
  Password: <blank>
  Password request: Off
  Allow calls: Automatic
  IP address: <blank>
  DNS address: <blank>
  Advanced settings/Authentication: None
  Advanced settings/Quality of serv.: all set to ‘Subscribed’

For non-pay-as-you-go (and possibly also for more recent pay-as-you-go) service, the APN is ‘orangeinternet’. You may need to set the DNS to ‘158.43.192.1’.

3. Settings on the PC

You can now configure a dialling program on the PC to dial up using GPRS via your ’phone. I use ‘wvdial’; if you use something else, you will have to change the following description to suit.

All the dialler needs to do is send the dialling request. There is no need to attempt to log on to a service once connected, and preventing wvdial from trying to do this is the hardest part of making it work. My wvdial.conf file includes the following stanza:

  [Dialer OrangeGPRS]
  Modem = /dev/ircomm0
  Baud = 115200
  Phone = *99***4#
  Username = A
  Password = B
  New PPPD = yes
  Stupid Mode = 1

The ‘4’ in the ‘Phone’ line is the CID of the service which you wish to use, of which you made a note earlier; change it if necessary. The username and password will be ignored, but it appears to be necessary to provide them.

4. Dialling up

You should now be able to establish an Internet connection by typing ‘wvdial OrangeGPRS’. If you have left the ’phone in a non-reset state after the minicom session above, it may not work the first time. Test the connection with a ping to a known working address (a ping doesn’t send too many bytes, which is important if you’re paying for every byte). I use

  ping -c1 212.23.3.100

The -c1 means it only pings once, and 212.23.3.100 is one of my ISP’s DNS servers. The round-trip time for the ping will be of the order of one second.

5. Sending e-mail

You may need to configure the e-mail program on your PC to use Orange’s SMTP server at

  smtp.orange.net

as another provider’s SMTP server may refuse to accept a connection that it sees as coming via Orange’s network.