I recently upgraded my 7290 to a brand new BlackBerry 8700, keeping Cingular as my wireless carrier. I was thrilled when I got EDGE instead of GRPS: getting emails, browsing web sites, everything is much faster on the EDGE network. Then it got me thinking; what if I could connect my 8700 to my laptop and benefit from the fast Internet connection wherever I am? No need to pay $10 to $20 a day to get Internet access when I stay in a Hotel? Only a few airports provide free hotspots, wouldn’t it be great if I could stay connected for free? After all, I am always traveling with both my laptop and my BlackBerry and I am already paying for unlimited data connection.

Well, the good news: it can be done. The bad news? It took me a few days, many hours on the phone, tweaking settings to get it to finally work. Hopefully the steps below will save you a lot of time.

So how do you start? The first thing is to get your device connected to your laptop using the USB cable. Your phone came with a cable and a CD from RIM. Start by installing the “Desktop Manager” software if you haven’t done so yet. Once installed, not only your BlackBerry is recognized by your laptop but a new modem has been installed under Windows. You need to verify this modem has been correctly installed and is working properly:

- Open the Control Panel
- Click on “Phone and Modem Options”
- Then select the “Modem” tab
- In the list, you should see an entry named “Standard Modem – COM6”. This is the internal modem of your BlackBerry. So far, so good!

- Select this modem and click on “Properties” then “Diagnostics” tab.
- Click on “Query Modem” to verify it works properly.

You should get something like:

ATQ0V1E0 - OK
AT GMM - BlackBerry IPmodem
AT FCLASS=? - OK
AT#CLS=? - OK
AT GCI? - OK
AT GCI=? - OK
ATI1 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI2 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI3 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI4 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI5 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI6 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
ATI7 - Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem

Now, we need to add a special command to configure this modem. In the same Window, click on the “Advanced” tab and add cgdcont=1,”IP”,”ISP.CINGULAR” in the command field.

You can now close all the windows from the modem configuration; we are done with this part. Our next step is to create a new Internet Connection on your Laptop.

Again, open your Control Panel and select “Network Connections”. Then click on “Create new connection”. Windows will take you thru a wizard to help you create the connection. Follow the screenshots below:

- For the phone number, enter *99#
- The username is: ISPDA@CINGULARGPRS.COM
- Password is: CINGULAR1

Click finish!

Getting tired? Don’t worry, we are almost there…

The last step is to make sure to disable IP Header Compression.

1. Start Menu->Network Connections->”BlackBerry Modem”
2. Click Properties Button
3. Click Networking Tab
4. Select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)”
5. Click Properties Button
6. Click Advanced Button
7. Disable “Use IP header compression” checkbox

At this point, you should be ready to surf the Internet!

Open your new network connection and you should be all set. Please note that these settings only work when using Cingular. The settings will be different for other carriers unfortunately.

## This Article Was Originally Published by AllBlackBerry.com on April 17, 2006