[sprintgirl]

"Access Point Name settings
Choosing what you connect to
When you connect by dial-up, the number you dial controls what you are connecting to. Some numbers take you to a modem that will connect you to the internet, others only allow access to a limited network, perhaps inside a company's network, or perhaps to a WAP gateway that provides limited accesss.

With a GPRS connection, you are always connected through your mobile network's system, and you choose what you connect to by selecting an Access Point Name or IP address.

Different APNs for different uses
Most mobile networks offer two different APNs: one for full internet connection and another that is a more limited set, often used for WAP only. The WAP connections can be charged at a lower rates, partly because they use less internet bandwidth, but mostly because of the imponderables of marketing and pricing!

In many mobile phones, it is possible to set up different APN settings for different uses. For example, a Sony Ericsson T610 from Orange will be delivered with six lots of data connection settings:

WAP
MMS
GPRS WAP
GPRS Internet
PAYG GPRS WAP
PAYG GPRS Internet
Each of these will have either a dial-up number or APN name (or IP address) as well as a username and password and other settings. Most are also identified by a Connection Identifier (CID)

Connection Settings
To make this a little less confusing, we have tabulated the WAP connection settings, MMS Settings and GPRS internet connection settings to the best of our knowledge. If any of these settings are incorrect or incomplete, please let us know, and we'll do our best to put it right.

Selecting an APN
Once you have set up the relevant APN settings on your mobile phone, you need to persuade your notebook computer to connect through it. Some mobile phones can only store one set of APN settings at a time, but most can retain several. In general, they give each of these a Connection Identifier (CID) which appears to be allocated in the order that the APN settings were entered.

If your phone supports multiple APNs, you should use the phone's menus to find out which CID has been allocated to the APN you want to use. Once you know this, you can proceed to the next step.


Creating a DUN entry
On the computer or PDA, set up a Dial Up Networking (DUN - or sometimes called RAS) connection, and select your mobile phone as the "modem" to use. Instead of a phone number to dial enter *99***n# where n is the CID you identified (above). If your phone only supports one APN, use *99# - this uses the default APN, and if there is only one, you can't go wrong!"