T-Mobile GPRS on the FreeRunner with Qtopia

I have a GPRS connection over T-Mobile basically working on my FreeRunner using the Qtopia software. It isn't yet working for dialing over bluetooth though, to use the phone as a modem for my laptop. I hope to figure that part out soon.

Things are a little erratic — sometimes I have to try an extra time or two before it will connect to the network.

First, go to Main > Settings > Internet. From the menu icon, select New and then GPRS.

Then do the Account settings. Account name is whatever you want. The APN should be internet2.voicestream.com. I leave "Startup mode" on "When needed", but this does not yet seem to have the desired effect of connecting on demand when sending an e-mail or what not. Username and Password should be blank.

In Network Settings, I have "Timeout" unchecked, and "Auto name server" checked. Maybe I shouldn't have "Timeout" unchecked. I don't really know.

Under Advanced, I have "Auto Routing" checked, and Hardware checked under "Flow ctrl". "Wait time" is set to 15s.

Now, ssh into the device. A patch is needed to /opt/Qtopia/bin/ppp-network to get these settings right when going through the GUI, but until then, here's what I did. I removed /etc/ppp/resolv.conf and symlinked it to /var/run/ppp/resolv.conf, which is the file that actually seems to get updated on ppp connect.

A patch is also needed to do the right thing with the /etc/ppp/chap-secrets file. With the file the way it is by default, the device will attempt to authenticate even though the ppp options file tells it not to. This results in no connection. So, I added a line to tell it to stop trying. This is what my file now looks like:

# Secrets for authentication using CHAP                                        
# client        server        secret    IP addresses                     
*                *        ""                        * 

Other files of interest on the device include:

• /home/root/Applications/Network/chat: This is the chatscript created by the GUI. I imagine that fiddling with this might make starting the connection more reliable.
• Various /etc/ppp/peers/dialup* files are created by the GUI, and those contain the ppp settings.