How to Connect Your Computer to the Internet Using Your Cell Phone as a Wireless Internet Connection or Tethered Modem   - 460,509 Views, 61 Comments

Summary: Using your cell phone as a modem is perhaps the most overlooked of all Internet connection options. But a mobile phone Internet connection, whether as a tethered modem or, using bluetooth, a wireless cell phone Internet connection, is easy to set up, and with a laptop and cellphone you can check email and surf the web from anywhere, any time!
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Using your cell phone as a modem is perhaps the most overlooked of all Internet connection options. But a mobile phone Internet connection, whether as a tethered modem or, using bluetooth, a wireless cell phone Internet connection, is easy to set up, and with a laptop and cellphone you can check email and surf the web from anywhere, any time, with the Internet in your pocket!

Here are the basic instructions for creating a mobile phone Internet connection. The instructions are for a cell phone with bluetooth (which most cell phones these days have), but if your cell phone doesn’t have bluetooth you can buy a cable to connect your laptop to your phone from any cell phone accessory provider. Conversely, if your cell phone has bluetooth but your laptop does not, you can buy a small USB device which will enable bluetooth on your computer.

[By the way, Amazon has an incredible sale on the very phone that we use. Right now they pay you $99.00 (yes, really, after rebate) to get the phone! Check it out here.]

Ok, ready?

The first thing you need to do is to go to Ross Barkman’s excellent GPRS Info Page and make a note of the “username” and “password” for your cell provider and service. Even though they are called “usernames” and “passwords”, you aren’t getting information from someone else’s account - this is the information which your cell phone provider uses to make a connection between your cell phone and their data network.

After making sure that your computer is all set, you should check and see whether your cell phone service provider offers a high speed wireless (GPRS) access option - if so you will want to sign up for it, and be sure to sign up for the “unlimited” option. My carrier, for example, is Cingular, and they offer their high speed “MediaNet” access in an unlimited package for $24.95 per month. The Verizon cell phone Internet connection runs on their 10x network, which I’m told is blazing fast. Alternatively, if your carrier doesn’t offer a GPRS high speed Internet access package, or if you just don’t want to take advantage of it, then sign up for whatever data transfer plan your carrier offers. Just be sure to sign up for the unlimited option, or you will have to monitor the time you are uploading and downloading email and otherwise connected to the Internet very closely.

Ok, now that you are all ready and capable, here’s how to connect your laptop to the Internet any time, any where, using your cell phone. These directions are based on the settings for a Mac laptop, but Windows laptops will have similar settings.

If you haven’t yet paired your bluetooth cell phone with your computer, now is the time to do so. First, make sure to set your phone to “discoverable”. Then, go into system preferences, and to the bluetooth section. Check “support non-conforming phones”, and turn bluetooth on for your computer if it isn’t already turned on.

Next run your bluetooth device set-up (on the Mac it’s called “Bluetooth Setup Assistant”), and follow it through to the end, adding your cell phone as a paired device. If your cell phone is already paired, and after you go through the set-up steps you can’t connect your computer to the Internet with your phone, try unpairing and re-pairing your phone using these directions.

Next, go back to your computer’s system set-up (on the Mac it is “System Preferences”), and go to the Network panel. Select “Bluetooth” from the “Show” drop-down menu.

Click on “TCP/IP” and make sure that the “Configure IPv4″ drop-down is set to “Using PPP”.

Now click over to the “PPP” tab, and fill in the “Service Provider” blank with the name of your service provider. Some of this information may already be filled in for you from when you did the Bluetooth Setup Assistant.

Then add in the account name, password, and telephone number required by your provider. The “username” which you got from Ross’ site goes in the “Account Name” field, and the “password” goes in the “Password” field.

For telephone numbers try the following:

For Cingular/AT&T it will usually be either *99***2# or *99# (try both).
For Verizon, try #777
Sprint is also #777
For T-Mobile, I’m told that the same settings at for Cingular will work.

If these phone numbers don’t work, try doing a Google search for “(name/model of your cellphone) bluetooth modem settings” and you should turn up plenty of leads.

In my case, with my provider being Cingular, and my Sony Walkman phone, my settings look like this:

Service Provider: Cingular Wireless
Account Name: WAP at CINGULARGPRS dot COM
Password: CINGULAR1
Telephone Number: *99#

(When I used my old Sony t616, the telephone number *99***2# worked.)

Now, while you are there, take a look at the options under “PPP Options”. You will probably want to leave the advanced options alone, although some recommend unchecking “Send PPP echo packets” and “Use TCP header compression”. Play with it if you like.

But under Session Options, which is the top half of that window, I like to check “Connect automatically when needed”. What this does is it causes your computer to automatically reconnect if you lose the signal while connected through your cellphone.

However, what it also does is it tries to connect you through your phone automatically whenever you open your laptop. I personally find this less of a hassle and worth not having to manually reconnect if my connection gets dropped during a session.

Finally, go to the “Bluetooth Modem” section, and select whichever modem seems closest to your phone. When I was using my Sony Ericsson t616, it was the Ericsson Infrared modem script, despite the fact that I was actually using bluetooth. And in fact for my new Nokia 6620, I use the Nokia Infrared script. If you get no results from any of them, check out Ross Barkman’s Modem Scripts and see what he has for you. I’ve never had a problem with the phones I’ve tried and the modem scripts provided by Apple.

Also uncheck “Enable error correction and compression in modem”, and “Wait for dial tone before dialing”.

One last thing which you may want to do is to go to the “Show” drop-down, and select “Network Port Configurations”. This is where you tell your computer which Internet access method to try first, second, and third, and so on. I have mine set to try my built-in wifi first, then my bluetooth connection.

That’s it! You’re all done with the set up - be sure to check “Apply now” or “Save” before closing system preferences!

Now, it could well be that at this point your set-up will just work), so go ahead and try it. It could also be that you will need to add a few settings on your phone. In the case of my t616, I had to add the same settings from the PPP preferences pane (username, password, etc.) into the data connection information on my phone. With my Nokia, it just worked without my putting anything in the phone.

Once you have this up and working, just carry your laptop with you (you do that already, don’t you?) and enjoy accessing the Internet from anywhere, with the Internet in your pocket.

(And don’t forget that if you are looking for a great phone for this, Amazon has that incredible sale on the very phone we use. They pay you $99.00 to take the phone (yes, really!). Check it out here.

So, where is the most interesting place you’ve been while being connected and using the Internet?

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61 Comments »

  1. When using this method, will the internet charges be allocated in the phone bill, and if so, how much does this method cost? - Is it expensive compare to other internet-connection options?

    Comment by Matthew — 6/15/2007 @ 8:48 am

  2. When using this method, will the internet charges be allocated in the phone bill, and if so, how much does this method cost? - Is it expensive compared to other internet-connection options?

    Comment by Matthew — 6/15/2007 @ 8:48 am

  3. how much you’ll be charged if you sacceessed the connection ?

    Comment by saddik — 6/25/2007 @ 1:00 am

  4. I live off grid. Thus my PC has never been connected to the net. I bought a Blackjack from Cingular & got the “unlimited PDA Connect plan - $29.99 per month.
    I found the necessary info to use my cell phone as a modem on Cingular User Forums, & got my desktop PC online on the 1st try!
    Upon careful review of the TOS I found that “unlimited” does not really mean UNLIMITED!
    Soo… Being a law abiding citizen, I upgraded my data plan to “unlimited tethering” - $69. a month.
    The connection speed is 230kbps in my area (EDGE network)

    Comment by KonaGold13 — 6/25/2007 @ 1:35 pm

  5. Is it possible to do the reverse? Connecting your cell phone to the computer to use the computer’s internet access, so you don’t have to pay for cingular’s web service?

    Comment by Oscar — 7/12/2007 @ 3:21 pm

  6. What speed will the connection be like? Could I play any games that require high speed internet?

    Comment by Dreco — 10/13/2007 @ 1:46 pm

  7. Internet Data Connect - use your cell phone as a wireless modem for internet connection s70 maximus phone

    Comment by dr — 10/23/2007 @ 11:19 pm

  8. I cannot find any info on connecting to the internet using a Palm Centro and Sprint. I tried downloading the software from Sprint but it will not connect. Can anyone help me out? Thank you.

    Comment by Mary — 12/5/2007 @ 10:56 pm

  9. to know how to do it

    Comment by ariyo — 1/31/2008 @ 8:44 am

  10. It’s worth understanding that the 2 in “*99***2#” is selecting the 2nd data account in the phone. I have a Sony Ericsson with up to 9 data accounts, and it’s essential to select an Internet account rather than a WAP account, or you cannot do anything after connection other than DNS calls. As the Internet data account in my case had an external id of 3, I had o use *99***3#

    Comment by George — 2/2/2008 @ 3:06 pm

  11. – –

    You can try “gnubox”. Not sure if your model supports that. Try this URL - http://gnubox.dnsalias.org/gnubox/
    If not working, try google’s cache of the same.

    Comment by dinesh — 2/11/2008 @ 9:45 am

  12. i want to activate blue tooth on my mobile

    Comment by saurav — 5/2/2008 @ 6:27 am

  13. how much you’ll be charged if you sacceessed the connection ?

    Comment by ivy — 5/14/2008 @ 7:33 pm

  14. Any suggestions on where to find the “telephone numbers” for my T-Mobile BlackBerry modem to dial when I’m overseas? Looking for France right now, but other countries as well.

    Comment by Aaron Grunwald — 5/15/2008 @ 4:17 pm

  15. Does anyone know some ONE in Thailand that could help me??

    We have great Cell connection but the Internet is bad.

    Thanks. ;-)

    Comment by DOC - Daniel C. Docto — 5/17/2008 @ 5:09 pm

  16. i want to connect pc how will go about it.

    Comment by sabina — 6/10/2008 @ 1:24 pm

  17. can you connect more than one laptop at a time, like myself and a roommate, using the cellphone as the modem?

    Comment by Ken — 9/8/2008 @ 7:58 pm

  18. can you help me to do it because I try but it dirent work can you contact me

    Comment by brian — 10/29/2008 @ 2:19 pm

  19. i have N100 PDA China phone..and i want to use it as a modem in my computer..can u help me with this?..tnx…

    Comment by jayson — 11/13/2008 @ 6:37 am

  20. Depending on your plan, it might use minutes from what I have read.

    Comment by Greg Patrick — 11/24/2008 @ 4:48 am

  21. Thanks! I knew there was a way to get Internet access from my phone, but I wasn’t privy to the details. I live in LA and have Time-Warner, so this is a life-saver! My Internet has been out for three whole days! Gonna try it out tomorrow.

    Comment by Helena — 1/2/2009 @ 5:57 am

  22. Will any model cell phone that can access the internet work, I heard only certain phones work.

    Comment by Stephen — 6/10/2009 @ 7:35 pm

  23. Can somebody help me out in internet connection i want to connect my nokia 3110c which is connect with internet to enable me have access with inetrnet through my nokia 3110c phone to my desktop computer at home. will that be possible? If it is how will i do it.
    Thanks.

    Comment by segun — 6/17/2009 @ 1:21 am

  24. What would the username and password be for a MetroPCS phone?

    Comment by Illyria — 7/28/2009 @ 3:17 pm

  25. i just want you to help me with how to connect my mobile web to my desktop computer

    Comment by BABA KURA MUSTAPHA — 8/18/2009 @ 8:03 am

  26. I want to know if i am going to pay using internet via my cell phone and having an account on google?

    Comment by sipho — 10/1/2009 @ 5:22 am

  27. can you connect your bpl sim mobile phone to pc for the internet.
    i connect but page not open.
    plzgive me saggestion

    Comment by sidh — 10/7/2009 @ 11:34 pm

  28. i don’t know how this can be done but can help me how i can connect my pc with my cell phone and use free internect(dial up)?

    Comment by million — 10/21/2009 @ 4:40 am

  29. bravo men it works but the speed is too slow.why isn’t any way to slove the speed plz?
    tnx lol

    Comment by million — 10/21/2009 @ 9:05 pm

  30. any more details on how to connect your mobile to your laptop to use the internet

    Comment by CAMPBELL — 10/31/2009 @ 4:48 am

  31. i cant seem to get how to purchace the cingular network perovider

    Comment by akeju babatunde — 10/31/2009 @ 10:12 pm

  32. i want to know how to connect computer,phone and other devices to internet

    Comment by peace — 11/12/2009 @ 6:24 am

  33. i want to add to the info…
    nowadays inbuilt modem is very cheaper.. for ex. nokia 1680 which can connect to laptop net via bluetooth costs around INR 2400 as per 12.2009…

    costs may vary from place to place…

    42INR =1 $ (2009.12)

    Comment by Mickey from India — 11/27/2009 @ 6:50 am

  34. how am i supposed to get connected to the internet using my n96 mobile and i-phone?is there any system i have to install for me to get connected?i ask for configuration setting and gprs setting to the operator but still connection failed and some system is unsupported..please help me…make a responce in my email address..thank u and more power…u have a very wonderful column…

    sincerely yours,
    Leima of kuwait

    Comment by leima — 12/5/2009 @ 9:43 am

  35. Can somebody help me out in internet connection with my pc, i want to connect my nokia E71 which is connect with internet.

    Comment by bamusty — 1/19/2010 @ 12:30 pm

  36. I’m using pdanet and have a Mac.

    Getting the computer to get internet is straight forward using pdanet but sharing the connection with my router was an issue.

    I followed these setups for the Mac to share the connection:
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071223001432304

    I’m sharing the internet connection using my ethernet port to my router’s WAN port.

    In the router I picked “automatic configuration DHCP” for the WAN. Router IP I used 192.168.3.1.

    So now all my devices (ps3, bluray player, and etc) connect to the router via wireless (you could also use the LAN except for the mac sharing the ethernet port).

    The mac that is sharing the internet connection is connected to the router using the wireless to connect to the internet so the router is an extra security barrier ;)

    Comment by iam — 1/27/2010 @ 2:30 pm

  37. can some body help me out in internet connection i want to connect my spice s-940 which is connect with internet.so iwant to browse with my pc.if anybody have some solution pls send at my email id.if it is how ido it.thanks

    Comment by srikant — 2/6/2010 @ 4:51 am

  38. Can somebody help me out in internet connection i want to connect my spice s-940 which is connect with internet to enable me have access with inetrnet through my spice s-940 phone to my desktop computer at home. will that be possible? If it is how will i do it.pls send me a massege on my mail.
    Thanks.

    Comment by srikant — 2/6/2010 @ 6:35 am

  39. I want to use my rumor 2 to conect my pc to the internet. i purchased the usb cable and am awre of setting the phone to use as modem, the phone then promts me to make a dialup connection on the pc. i dont know how to do this. can you please help?

    Comment by brian — 2/14/2010 @ 5:49 pm

  40. i have a phone modem internet but its not free so can you help me to get free internet by the way i’m using nokia e66 and my server is UAE DU isp

    Comment by xgamer — 3/1/2010 @ 3:49 am

  41. my connection is too slow!! how can i make it fast

    Comment by abdul — 3/2/2010 @ 9:02 pm

  42. have htc g1 need to run internet on toshage device can toshiba laptop phone keeps teeling me to turn off storage device but it wont configue help

    Comment by kevin kersh — 3/2/2010 @ 9:24 pm

  43. i have samsong e1390, how can i connect internent from cell phone to computer.

    Comment by subodh — 3/29/2010 @ 12:55 am

  44. I’m really confused. I have unlimited AT&T data. I connected to internet using bluetooth. Would that cost extra?

    Comment by Emmanuel — 4/12/2010 @ 3:57 pm

  45. i use my mobile for internet.is mobile responsible for internet speed in pc.i hav nokia 7210.can i increase my internet speed by using other phone.plz mail me at wtsupman at gmail dot com

    Comment by shiv — 5/4/2010 @ 10:06 pm

  46. Will this work with the cheapest phone with Metro PCS?

    Comment by Brooklyn — 5/9/2010 @ 7:36 pm

  47. is it just me, or did a lot of this post feel like I was reading chinese!

    Comment by mick — 6/4/2010 @ 1:57 pm

  48. i live in topock,az. 86436 hepl? getting internet here I-40 at colorado river, AZ.Calif. hepl!!!

    Comment by bob — 6/10/2010 @ 3:28 am

  49. Please! Please!! Please!!!
    Th steps on how to connet internet on the computer to use the computer’s internet access, so you don’t have to pay for cingular’s web service

    Comment by agnes — 6/10/2010 @ 8:47 am

  50. I have US Cellular as a provider, Samsung U340 tri mode cell phone, No info on ross Barkman site. any help?

    Comment by Joe — 6/11/2010 @ 6:34 am

  51. A buddy has this for use with his cell it uses minutes and must have data package not internet pack like text and pic pack. Uses cell as modem so not fast but works so depending on phone will be speed. Datapilot is the product.

    Comment by Jim — 6/16/2010 @ 8:21 am

  52. Very useful site.

    Comment by Prabakaran.V — 6/25/2010 @ 11:15 pm

  53. Can I do this with a TracPhone (Straight Talk). They now have a unlimited plan for 45/month. Also, I want to connect my phone to my Kyocera portable router (KR-2db). So I can use multiple computers on the network.

    Comment by Kitty Carroll — 7/21/2010 @ 4:05 am

  54. How to connect sony ericsson T715 mobile to PC through blue tooth (Steps)

    Comment by Gayas — 8/4/2010 @ 5:39 am

  55. 54.How to get interntet from sony ericsson T715 mobile to PC through blue tooth (Steps)

    Comment by Gayas — 8/4/2010 @ 5:46 am

  56. Will this work with the cheapest phone with Metro PCS?
    Waint for the answer, thx very much!!!

    Comment by Ricardo J. Souza — 8/8/2010 @ 9:25 am

  57. What if you phone has unlimited internet will it still cost?

    Comment by Amber — 8/14/2010 @ 3:43 pm

  58. How i connet pc internet in my mobile samsung s3310

    Comment by Sarvesh — 8/15/2010 @ 5:50 am

  59. at first i was using operamini to browse for free using mtn service but now i can’t except i rechang my sim card.hermano from cameroon

    Comment by hermano — 8/21/2010 @ 4:02 am

  60. is the a posibility to used the vinternet for free

    Comment by kerewa — 8/31/2010 @ 3:38 am

  61. i want to use my mobile phone internet from my Pc , how do i connect?

    Comment by Japhta — 9/1/2010 @ 1:34 am

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 This article first appeared on 5/9/2007
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