A Tussle With Bluetooth

I've had a Palm Lifedrive for a couple of years and used it extensively both at home and travelling.

One of the thinks I liked most about the Lifedrive was it's ability to use a variety of connections (WiFi or 3G via Bluetooth). This was great for e-mail and other dedicated Palm applications but the browser was rather limited and Opera Mini seemed to upset the Palm (slowly "clogging it up" until a reset was needed).

I quite fancied an i-pod touch but that doesn't have Bluetooth and an i-phone cost rather more than I wanted to spend.

So...

I bought a Nokia N810.

Getting WiFi to work at home took moments but Bluetooth to mobile phones took a little longer. If you have arrived here by a search engine I guess you are struggling too.

I have two mobile phones, a Nokia Navigator 6110 on Vodafone PAYG and a Sony Ericsson k530 on Three PAYG.

As Three have the best data deals, getting it to work on Three was my eventual target but I also wanted it to work with the Vodafone as well.

Vodafone do PAYG data for 50p a day for up to 25MB (and you can go a bit above this without paying more), Three have some free data with each top up, then want 50p a day, £2.50 a week or £5 a month for more than I could (in practice) use. Coverage with Three is less good than Vodafone so I wanted them both to work.

Pairing was easy. The N810 initiated pairing and they were both paired up by entry of the appropriate code quickly.

The N810 had a Vodafone setting (which may well be right for a contract phone) but I needed to change it to:-

Connection type: Packet data:

Access point name: pp.vodafone.co.uk
Dial up number : *99***1#
User name : web
Password : web

and then the Nokia 6110 Navigator on Vodafone PAYG worked.

The Sony Ericsson on Three was more difficult. This is a Packet Data connection as well. I entered the following:-

Access point name: three.co.uk
Username : guest
Password: guest

and it just wouldn't work.

In desperation I created another set of access point settings in the k530, the first two sets are locked by Three in my Three locked k530 (via settings > Connectivity > Internet profiles > New profile ) with the "connect using" "three.co.uk".

Then

Access point name: three.co.uk
Dial up number : *99***2#
Username : guest
Password: guest

Worked.

Thinking about it, there are three profiles listed in the k530

3mms Locked
3browse Locked

and my new one, which I called N810.

the 2 in *99***2# I believe selects the 2nd slot (profie ?), which may be 3browse.

Now it's working I'm not fiddling further but if you are Googling in desperation try the *99***2# first before creating your own profile.