I replaced my Siemens C25 with a Nokia 8310 in Jan 2002, mainly because the battery of my C25 was dead, but also because I could see that the GPRS function of the 8310 could be useful in the near future. I wasn't too interested in WAP, but I got the GPRS starter for free in any case. Whatever the over hyped marketing tells you, WAP still does nothing. Nevertheless, a few train trips playing with various WAP sites provided some amusement.
I had a go to see if my Palm V would work with the Nokia 8310 but no joy, and a quick search on news pointed out that you need a GPRS1 or GPRS select account to make this work. "Subscribe to GPRS first" error messages was all I got.
Then I did suddenly have a need for GPRS to work with my Linux laptop. I upgraded to the GPRS1 account via vodafone's UK Internet site. GPRS1 should give me real PPP Internet connectivity. Whatever Vodafone may want you to believe, GPRS is no big deal (see below). You don't need their stinkin' software to make it work.
But then it just wouldn't work! I kept getting the "Subscribe to GPRS first" message and that was it. I called support but they wouldn't help me. Linux is not supported. They assured me everything was OK at their end. I dug around on the Nokia site, tried lots of different init strings. A posting by SJR suggests that you ask your provider which APNs your account is enabled for and repeat the question until you get an answer. I asked them "which APNs is my account enabled for?" but they said that was all in order or didn't understand the question.
AT+cgdcont=1,"ip","internet and ATDT*99#" (OK, I'm lying abit here, but see below) and the rest is LCP and PPP. That was _all_ there was to setting up PPP with my Nokia 8310. Different OS'es have slightly different ways to configure this but the essence is the same.
For example, because I am lazy I use wvdial (a truly basic dialup client). In /etc/wvdial.conf I have:
[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ircomm0
Baud = 9600
Init1 = AT+cgdcont=1,"IP","internet"
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = *99#
Username = web
Password = web
You need to have IR working on your machine of course. I have to do "irattach /dev/ttyS1 -s" for this. If you enable IR reception on your phone, you should be able to "see" your phone when you type "irdadump". For example:
21:25:32.751227 xid:cmd 95725b27 > ffffffff S=6 s=* localhost hint=0400 [
Computer ] (25)
21:25:32.751212 xid:rsp 95725b27 < 0dd50000 S=6 s=5 Nokia 8310 hint=b125 [
PnP Modem Fax Telephony IrCOMM IrOBEX ] (27)
"wvdial" will now bring up the link. I'll sort this out for the Redhat-esque "ifup ppp0" at some point.
Back to my rant. Then I bought an IPAQ 3630 in February 2002. Customer services now claimed that the Nokia 8310 phone I have doesn't support GPRS. Some education and a bit of on hold and suddenly my Nokia could! Again I was assured all was well with my account but the person on the phone suggested I go to the shop.
Why did my account not get upgraded to have the "internet" APN when I'm clearly paying for it? Why does the standard help desk procedure not include a check if the correct APN's are enabled? Why do the staff not know the difference between WAP and Internet? Why does Vodafone even refuse to check my account properly when I have a problem, even if it is an unsupported system? I really don't care about being compensated for a month of shit service, but I nearly went to a different provider because of cluelessness, a shit website and no specialised phone support for Internet. I'm happy now and I don't want to change providers, but I wouldn't recommend Vodafone to anyone wanting to use GPRS.