Using a Vodafone 3G Connection as a Modem

Using Bluetooth

My wife recently changed her phone – it turns out to be cheaper to sign up for a new contract and get a new phone than it is to get a phone fixed when the battery starts having problems. The new phone has 3G capability so I thought I would try it instead of my GPRS phone as a modem. I was working on the expectation that a 3G connection should be faster than a GPRS connection.

I had already set up Bluetooth and PPP on the computer (for the P900) so all I had to do was add extras for the new phone.

Set up an RFCOMM device for the Bluetooth. I decided to use /dev/rfcomm3 as the device to connect to the phone as a modem. So I set up /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf to ensure /dev/rfcomm3 connects to Channel 3.
```
            rfcomm3 {
                bind yes ;
                device <Bluetooth-device-address> ;
                channel 3 ;
                comment "MTW-v600i Dial-up Networking Service -- for PPP" ;
            }
          
```
As ever, whenever you change a configuration file restart the sub-system, in this case ‘/etc/init.d/bluez-utils restart’.

Create a peer specification. This means creating a file in /etc/ppp/peers. I have called mine mtw-v600i-bluetooth-modem and gave it the contents:

            hide-password 
            noauth
            connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/mtw-v600i"
            debug
            /dev/rfcomm3
            460800
            defaultroute
            noipdefault 
            remotename mtw-v600i
            ipparam mtw-v600i
            usepeerdns
            lcp-echo-interval 0

Create the chat script mentioned in the peer specification, in my case /etc/chatscripts/mtw-v600i:

            # This chatfile was generated by pppconfig 2.3.10.
            # Please do not delete any of the comments.  Pppconfig needs them.
            # 
            # ispauth chat
            # abortstring
            ABORT BUSY ABORT 'NO CARRIER' ABORT VOICE ABORT 'NO DIALTONE' ABORT 'NO DIAL TONE' ABORT 'NO ANSWER' ABORT DELAYED
            # modeminit
            '' ATZ
            # ispnumber
            OK-AT-OK "ATDT*99***5#"
            # ispconnect
            CONNECT ''
            # prelogin
            
            # ispname
            #login: xxxxxx
            # isppassword
            #password: yyyyyy
            # postlogin
            '' \d\c
            # end of pppconfig stuff

I used the account numbered 5 here. The phone came with 4 pre-installed accounts but they were locked and I couldn't view the information. I therefore created a new account with all the login and password accounts I knew worked from my GPRS experiences with the p900.

Miraculously, it all worked! And, it was 3 times faster. So a 3G connection is faster than a GPRS connection. Excellent. Except...

Vodafone have no 3G coverage in Handsworth, Birmingham, UK.

I wonder why Birmingham is not a place Vodafone think 3G is worth putting. London, Manchester, Sheffield, etc. but no Birmingham. Bizarre.

Using a USB Cable

The Sony Ericsson V600i comes with a USB cable to connect phone to computer. So I thought, use this rather than Bluetooth. All that is required is to set up PPP.

Plug phone in to computer and note down the device used. Ubuntu already has all the needed infrastructure and monitoring /etc/log/syslog, I spotted that the v600i was attached to /dev/ttyACM0. So this meant making a PPP specification of:

            hide-password
            noauth
            connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/mtw-v600i"
            debug
            /dev/ttyACM0
            460800
            defaultroute
            noipdefault
            remotename mtw-v600i
            ipparam mtw-v600i
            usepeerdns
            lcp-echo-interval 0

The chat script is the same as for Bluetooth.