Sunday 15 August 2010

Connecting to BSNL GPRS on Arch linux

Popular Indian ISP BSNL is notorious for bad customer care. This makes the use of less popular technologies quite an experiment. Cutting out the elaboration of my experiments, let us look at the procedure for connecting to the internet using BSNL GRS. I used wvdial for the purpose and find it quite flexible. Internet access requires the cell phone to be connected in "PC Suite" mode. I shall describe the procedure for two phones:
1. Nokia XpressMusic 5130
2. Samsung Corby

Lets start with Nokia XpressMusic. To connect it from Windows, use Nokia's PcSuite; and add the following configurations manually:
1. access point name: bsnlnet
2. dialing number: *99#


Now let us look into connecting Nokia XpressMusic using linux. Firstly, get wvdial and its dependencies installed on your system. Connect the phone and check dmesg output to get the name of the modem device. Run wvdialconf to set the baud in /etc/wvdial.conf. Then edit /etc/wvdial.conf as follows:

Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","bsnlnet"
Password = <your phone number>
Check Def Route = 1
Phone = *99***1#
New PPPD = 1
Modem Type = USB Modem
Stupid Mode = 1
# let wvdialconf set this for you
Baud = 460800
Auto DNS = 1
# This command is essential.
Dial Command = ATD
#  put your modem name here
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Username = <your phone number>


The same configuration shall work for the Samsung Corby. Finally, to connect Samsung Corby using the PcSuite, use the following configuration.
1. access point: bsnlnet
2. dialing number: *99***1#

1 comment:

Amar said...

Thnx!!. worked for me.