Sunday, June 26, 2005
TREO 650 BLUETOOTH DIAL-UP NETWORKING NOW OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED
With the release of the Treo 650 Updater 1.12, dial-up networking over Bluetooth is now officially supported by Sprint. No longer must you install a hack; the DUN option is now available in the Treo's Bluetooth preferences panel by default. All you have to do is turn it on! There is even a special icon that indicates when DUN is enabled. Thanks goes to Sprint for keeping their promises.
As a result, the portions of this document describing how to install Shadowmite's hack are obsolete. You should ignore them and install the 1.12 update instead.
Internet on Air
Step-by-step instructions for dial-up networking
with the Sprint Treo 650, Bluetooth, and Mac OS X
Background
In November 2004, Sprint became the first wireless carrier to offer the Treo 650, a smartphone that some consider to be the best on the market. The 650 offers some tantalizing features: 320x320 color screen, a 312 MHz processor, built-in keyboard and camera, Bluetooth connectivity, wireless Internet access, and the Palm OS operating system, compatible with thousands of third-party applications.
The Sprint Treo 650 is also notable for what it does not include: dial-up networking (or DUN) over Bluetooth. This feature can link a computer to the 650’s wireless Internet connection, combining the go-anywhere Internet access of a smartphone with the convenience of a personal computer. You could, for example, bring your laptop on a trip and connect it to the Internet just like you would at home, even if your hotel provides no Internet service. And with the help of Bluetooth, you can do all of this wirelessly: Just place the smartphone within range of your laptop and click a button to connect.
Unfortunately, Sprint chose to disable DUN-over-Bluetooth on the Treo 650. The company was probably worried that users would take unfair advantage of PCS Vision, their add-on service that gives smartphones unlimited Internet access for a flat monthly fee. The assumption, presumably, is that customers would ditch their existing landline Internet access and rely exclusively on PCS Vision both at home and on the road. The pricing structure for PCS Vision was not designed for this.
A hack for DUN-over-Bluetooth
Although the plausibility of this scenario is a matter of debate, one thing is clear: Sprint does not make DUN-over-Bluetooth readily available to its customers. The Treo 650’s Bluetooth preferences screen, for example, provides no option whatsoever for dial-up networking.
Fortunately, a skilled Treo 650 user (known only as shadowmite) spent several hours tracing code and discovered that Sprint had not removed DUN; they had merely hidden it. A two-byte change in the Treo's Bluetooth management code reveals the hidden setting.
With DUN turned on, your Bluetooth-enabled laptop can now get on the Internet anywhere that your 650 can. When Shadowmite posted word of this discovery on the TreoCentral website, the news quickly became a popular thread of discussion.
Eventually, however, users began to report problems after enabling DUN: strange system error messages, conflicts with existing Bluetooth devices (such as headsets), fifteen-second powerup delays, and so on. In light of these issues, abuse of the PCS Vision service was evidently not Sprint's only reason to disable DUN. Obviously, it still has a few bugs.
Nevertheless, Bluetooth-over-DUN on the Treo 650 does indeed work, as long as you can successfully install the patch, enable it, and connect to it from your laptop. These steps are a bit tricky, however, so I've written a tutorial on how to do it, complete with pretty pictures. Just follow the steps below, and you'll be websurfing on the beach in no time.
Prerequisites
This guide assumes that you have the following:
- Sprint Treo 650 (or the Cingular Treo 650 if you follow these instructions)
- Apple PowerBook or iBook with Bluetooth support
- Secure Digital (SD) memory card installed on the 650
- FileZ (a free Palm OS file manager; install it on your Treo before continuing)
- The latest software updates, available by selecting "Software Updates" from the Apple menu. (Danny McPherson reports that DUN will not work with anything less than the Macintosh Bluetooth software version 1.5.)
Although these instructions are biased toward Mac OS X, you may find them useful even if you are a Windows user. Also note that an SD card might not be necessary; some have reported success installing the hack without it. Despite my best efforts, however, I have been unable to successfully install the hack without one. Besides, an SD card is a good thing to have: If you run into trouble, you can always delete the hack and easily restore it from the card later on.
Step 1 of 6: Get a PCS Vision password
Although some users claim that DUN works fine with no password, it would not work for me until I could enter my correct PCS Vision username and password when dialing over Bluetooth. Although you can easily find your username (just type Menu+I while inside the Treo's phone application), the password is a mystery. According to Sprint PCS Vision tech support, the factory-installed password is hidden and cannot be retrieved, not even by Sprint. However, you can change it yourself online. (Thanks to Mathew Lu for reporting this tip.) Here are the steps:
- Sign on to My PCS
- Click "My Personal Information"
- Click "PCS Vision Password"
- Follow the instructions to change the password.
The changes may take effect in as little as five minutes, although Sprint says it could take up to two hours. If you have trouble with this, Sprint can reset the password for you and give you a new one over the phone. Here's how to do so:
- Call Sprint (dial 611 on your Treo)
- Follow the prompts until you reach PCS Vision technical support
- Ask them to reset your Vision password and give you a new one. They will read you the new one over the phone. Write it down carefully!
- Sprint claims that the new password will take effect within two hours. In my experience, it required about twelve.
Once you have your new password and have waited for it to take effect, verify that it works before continuing. First, on the Treo, go to the Prefs application, then choose Network.
Click Modify and tell the Treo that it is okay for you to change the settings, then click Password. Enter the new Vision password that Sprint gave you.
The new password should now be assigned. Click Connect.
If you see "Signing on", followed by "Established", then everything is working fine.
If you see Error 67, then your password doesn't match the Sprint database. You'll need to wait until the new password takes effect, or check that the password you entered is correct.
Step 3 of 6: Install the hack
Next, you need to install the Bluetooth hack on your Treo. Many users have reported success in emailing the file to themselves as an attachment and then retrieving it with VersaMail. This technique never worked for me, however. Instead, I was able to install the file via Blazer. Here's how: On the Treo, start Blazer (a.k.a. "Web") and go to this address: http://vocaro.com/trevor/treo-dun/BtManager.prc
Save the file to your SD card.
Launch FileZ and look for the file PALM/Launcher/BtManager.prc.
Copy it to your Treo's internal memory.
Go to the Prefs application and select Bluetooth, or just click the Bluetooth icon at the top of the Treo's main menu. You should now see the Dial-up Networking option. Turn it on.
Your Treo will inform you that enabling DUN will disable Internet access on the Treo itself. It may also cause other conflicts (such as not being able to send files over Bluetooth) until you turn it back off again.
Step 4 of 6: Pair your laptop with your Treo
First, make sure your Treo is on. Then go to the Bluetooth section of your Mac's System Preferences.
Click the Set Up New Device button and choose Mobile Phone.
Your Mac will generate an encryption key and attempt to pair with the Treo. Your Treo should then pop up a dialog box asking you to enter the passkey. Enter the same number that you see on your Mac's screen.
If pairing is successful, you should then see optional services that you can use with the Treo. If all of them are grayed out, then you did not install the hack correctly. Try resetting the Treo and installing it again, and make sure that DUN is enabled on the Treo's Bluetooth preferences before pairing with it. If you see only the Access the Internet option but not the GPRS option, deleting the pairing with your Treo and re-pairing it should fix the problem.
Step 5 of 6: Connect to the Internet
If you have completed all of the steps above successfully, you are now ready to connect your Mac laptop to the Internet through your Treo, no wires necessary! First, launch Internet Connect on your Mac.
Switch to the Bluetooth tab and verify that the settings are correct, then hit Connect.
TreoCentral reader Zeshan Usman reports that in addition to the user name, the Sprint PCS domain name must also be specified. For example, "tharmon72@sprintpcs.com" instead of just "tharmon72". In my tests, however, this was not necessary.
At this point, you might get an error about failing to connect to the Treo. I am not sure of the cause, but it may have something to do with the Treo going to sleep after a certain amount of inactivity, an event likely to occur as you are fooling around with the connection settings on your Mac for the first time. You should be able to fix this, however, by resetting the Treo, re-enabling DUN on the Treo, and then deleting and re-pairing the connection between your Mac and the Treo. Make sure the Treo doesn't fall asleep during these steps. You may wish to increase the Auto Power-off delay in the Power section of the Treo Prefs.
Step 6 of 6: Disconnecting
When you're done with the connection, just hit the Disconnect button on your Mac.
On the Treo side, reader xenophite points out that you can simply hold down the red Power Off button until the phone powers down. You can then immediately power up the phone again by holding down the Power Off button once more. This process automatically disables DUN-over-Bluetooth, and you shouldn't have to reset your Treo.
A note for Cingular users
If you have the Cingular Treo 650 instead of the Sprint Treo 650, the steps above should work if you combine them with the following modifications, which were provided to me by a Cingular customer who prefers to remain anonymous.
First, be sure to use the GSM version of Shadowmite's hack, not the one for CDMA (Sprint).
You don't need a private name and password as with Sprint PCS Vision. Instead, there is a generic log-in for Cingular. In the Apple Bluetooth Mobile Phone Setup, the settings are:
| Username | WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM |
| Password | CINGULAR1 |
| GPRS CID String | **99***1# |
Make sure that the username and password have all capital letters.
You then need a modem script, such as that produced by the GPRS Script Generator from Macron Software. (If you use it, don't forget to register!) The key thing with the modem script (any modem script) is that the Access Point Name, or APN, needs to be set to "wap.cingular" (all lower case).
Next, you need a network setting, either a new one called "Treo BT DUN" for example, or an old one that you modify. Either way, it needs the following Bluetooth configuration:
| Telephone number | *99***1# |
| Account name | WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM |
| Password | CINGULAR1 |
You should then be able to get online with your Cingular Treo 650.
If that doesn't work, TreoCentral users gregory17 and Hugh_Hector offer these suggestions.
Also, some users have reported that the telephone number **99***1# works, as well. Note that the "1" in the telephone number is the context ID, or CID, and may differ between carriers.
Kyle Hart notes that if the phone is off (e.g., after a reset), and you attempt to switch DUN on, you may see an error: "TransLibOpen err 0x740F." If you first turn the phone on before switching on DUN, you should not get this error.
If you consistently experience soft resets whenever you click Setup Devices on the Treo's Bluetooth preferences screen, Josh Rafofsky says that simply installing the patch a second time clears up the problem.
Turning off VersaMail's Autosync feature is recommended.
Reader PWC Realtor recommends making sure that PCS Vision is disconnected on the Treo before attempting to enable DUN.
When DUN is enabled, trying to turn your Treo on will result in a delay of about fifteen seconds before it responds. This seems to be harmless, but you can fix it by turning DUN off.
If you HotSync over Bluetooth, you may need to disable HotSync before enabling DUN.
If you see the message, "The application cannot be launched because it is missing localization information," you might have installed the wrong hack. The one I have provided here works with CDMA (Sprint) only; there is another one for GSM (T-Mobile) available at Shadowmite's site.
Reader TreoAsh reports that if you have problems reconnecting to the Internet after disconnecting, you can turn Bluetooth off on your Macintosh and then turn it back on again. Reconnecting should then work without a hitch.
If all else fails, you can always restore the original functionality of your Treo. Just launch the FileZ application and use it to delete the BtManager file from the Treo's internal memory.
An anonymous user writes: "For what it's worth, after I disconnect, I tap the T650 to disable DUN, then tap to turn off BT, then turn BT back on. I have not had a major hang this way. However, if I have a problem connecting the first time, the Mac can kick out an error message about an unavailable port or device. I usually need to do a soft reset on the T650 to make this work again. YMMV."
Reader Marta reports that if you see an RFCOMM error like this:
Then restarting both the Treo and the computer (twice each!) might be the only way to get rid of the problem.
If all else fails, there is a commercial solution from NovaMedia that you might try. Called Mobile High Speed for Mac OS X, it is currently priced around €46, and it claims to provide a setup wizard for going online through your Treo 650 over Bluetooth. I have not tried it, however, so I cannot vouch for it.
If you have any additional tips, please contact me and I will add them to this document.
Hope you found this useful!
--Trevor
