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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Cost effective Portable Broadband Internet

Many friends frequently asks about a smart / cost effective way to access internet in their laptop. There are lot of portable Broadband Internet Service Providers world wide. Here in Kerala there are Reliance, Tata Tele-services and lots of mobile service providers have introduced such broad band internet services. But when and performance matters, there is very little options in Portable Broadband Internet Services. Very recently I was happened to know a comparatively-good option in Portable Internet. This particular internet connection is based on EDGE technology in mobile phones.

What is EDGE

EDGE stands for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. It is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM. It is also known as Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS). Basically EDGE is a superset to GPRS and can function on any network with GPRS deployed on it, provided the carrier implements the necessary upgrade.

TATA-DOCOMO's EDGE based internet plan

Yes. In Kerala, Docomos internet plans are so cheep. Rs. 48/- for 2 GB download per month. If you are using it with GNU/Linux operating system its performance is really great. A file can be downloaded 15-30 Kbps which means you have a bandwidth of 120-240 Kbps. And most amazing is, if you have a good signal strength, you will get a stable internet. Please do not compare the speed with leased lines and fixed DSL lines.

Instructions for TATA-DOCOMO internet using with Gnu/Linux
As the old times, what we did for dial up connections. We used wvdial. Yes! wvdial reloaded.

Use wvdialconf to set up the modem.

nano /etc/wvdial.conf and add the following things

Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET"
Phone = *99*# [ Phone = *99# for normal phones | *99***1# for Nokia phones]
Password = internet
Username = internet
Baud = 57600
stupid mode = 1
TATA-DOCOMO provide Linux support for GPRS!

Last time when I called TATA Docomo's call centre, they told me that they can support GPRS users in Gnu/Linux platform. However, there will be minimal issues you will face when you use such a connection through Gnu/Linux. Here is a list of the issues I faced

I am using a dual sim phone. There may be conflicts of default SIM.

The service provider has to send us a configuration sms which has to be installed in your handset. If the configuration file corrupted, you won't be able to connect the internet.

Here is a sample of /etc/wvdial.conf
[Dialer Defaults]

Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET"
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 57600
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *991#
Password = internet
Username = internet

3 comments:

Dual SIM Samsung B7722 user said...

Is there any way to connect to docomo without changing docomo sim to default in a dual sim phone. If any give the modified initialization command or any other steps. Without changing it to default Error 734 is shown PPP Link Control Protocol Terminated which happens due to wrong initialization command. But making it default works. Currently at+cgdcont=1,"ip","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET","",0,0 is my modem initialization command. Tried with at+cgdcont=1,"ip","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET" works when SIM is default.

Tom said...

I don't think there is no other way. Because wvdial searches for the default device only.
If you are using Samsung B7722, as far as I know, SIM 1 has EDGE Class 12 support. SIM 2 may be lower in speed and performance in packet data. So keep the SIM with GPRS in slot 1.
I have also done another post in this blog which has more details on the same subject. Here is the link:
http://hackingtom.blogspot.com/2011/06/in-one-of-my-previous-post-i-have.html
Before you use it, learn the device well and how it works exactly.

Dual SIM Samsung B7722 user said...

Thanks for the reply. As I have found out SIM 1 has 3G support as well as EDGE Class 12 and SIM 2 has a lower speed Class 10. As my SIM 1 is BSNL which provides 3G (1.2mbps here) so to get full advantage I wished not to make SIM 2 default which in my circle has EDGE only. (Docomo Internet is cheap so using it often). Also changing default SIM resets handset's default internet profiles. Anyways I will make Docomo default when connecting it to the PC.

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