Working! Blackberry 8800 GPS Internationally in India

Great news to report on my recent trip to India in terms of the GPS working internationally on my Blackberry 8800 (Other models include the 8820, & 8830). If you recall from my trip back in July, I tried several times -- but could never get an accurate GPS signal in either Germany or India. After the success I had in Cancun, Mexico -- I decided it was worth another try in India to get some sort of GPS signal reception.

This time, after some fiddling with -- I was able to get the GPS to work. However, it was not easy...the good news is that once I finally located the GPS signal, it worked consistently.

When I walked off the plane, I immediately had phone service in Germany (Vodafone) and India (Air-Tel) along with data service. But GPS did not work immediately in either location.

How did I get it to work?

Well, the famous Blackberry 3-finger salute. A reset of the entire device by simultaneously holding down ALT+CAP+DEL seemed to resolve the issue. After approximately one minute for the device to reset, it started to pick up the necessary GPS signals from the satellite and I was live in India!

I ended up using the GPS device with Google Maps for the majority of the trip in Bangalore. While I was not driving, it gave me a much better perspective of where I was in the city of Bangalore. For how chaotic the city was -- the Google maps were very detailed, even down to many of the side or unlabled roads. This makes it easy to understand where you are in the city. An added benefit of the mapping in Bangalore, India is that it includes a number of notable sites as icons on the maps such as temples, parks and other places of note. Great, especially if you are out sight-seeing.

In some of the more remote areas of the country such as Coimbatore, the maps are no where near as developed. Some of the main routes into and out of the cities are included, but not a lot of the streets around town.

Still, it was a great relief to get ths Blackberry 8800's GPS working in India. It only took me two trips. If you are running into any problems with your GPS internationally, I would recommend the ALT+CAP+DEL 3-finger salute a try before you get too frustrated!

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Blackberry 8800 – Modem for Laptop via Bluetooth – Step-by-Step Guide

Wow, my quest is finally complete; I can finally use my Blackberry device as a broadband modem for my laptop computer! I was sick of paying airport and hotel charges in order to get a high-speed connection – and now I never have to again, thanks to Cingular’s GPRS / EDGE connectivity!

Fortunately, it did not last that long for my Blackberry 8800, but it has plagued me for my last couple of Blackberry devices. Neither my 7780 nor my 8700c had the capability to work as a modem – or at least I never was able to get it to work.

So, this morning I was completing a post on my new Blackberry 8800 and I did some quick blogsphere checking to see what else was out there. Unexpectedly, I came across Derek Perez’s Hidden Manuscripts Blog where he reports success connecting his 8800 to Cingular’s network. I tried out his instructions, but they did not quite work for me. After toying around with the settings and searching through some posts at the BlackberryForums, I was finally able to get it to work.

To simplify this for everyone else who wants to ditch their wireless air card to use their blackberry as a cell modem, I decided to put together this how-to tutorial. This way you can get it work easily, basically tethering your Blackberry 8800 series phone to your computer via Bluetooth for high-speed broadband connectivity. Plus, I have included pictures of the configuration process.

In addition, this guide assumes that you already have your Microsoft Bluetooth Devices setup with your Blackberry 8800 – which sets up the Bluetooth modem. If you have not set this up, I have published a guide here.

Here is the step-by-step guide on how to configure your computer. Of course, you may incur charges with Cingular, depending on your plan. Does this guide work for you? If so, let me know with a comment below!

If you are interested, these are two additional posts in regards to using the Blackberry as a Laptop Wireless / Broadband modem:
1. Cingular EDGE Blackberry 8800 Speed Test
2. Cingular EDGE Use of IPSEC and VPN connectivity, does it work?

1. First, you need to configure you modem for your ISP or cell phone provider specific information. Go Start --> Control Panel --> Phone and Modem Options. Click on Standard Modem over Bluetooth link (COM8 on my machine) and then click on the “Properties.” This guide covers Cingular (AT&T) specifically.



2. Click on the “Advanced” tab and in the “Extra initialization commands:” enter “+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”wap.cingular” and click on the “Ok” button.



3. Next start the New Connection Wizard to setup your Internet connection. Click on the “Next” button.



4. Click on the “Set up my connection manually” radio button and click on the “Next” button.



5. Click on the “Connect using a dial-up modem” radio button and click on the “Next” button.



6. Select the “Modem – Standard Modem over Bluetooth link” and click on the “Next” button.



7. Name your connection. I named mine “Blackberry EDGE” – but the name does not matter. Click on the “Next” button.




8. Enter the phone number to dial. For Cingular the phone number is *99#, enter that exactly and click on the “Next” button.




9. Select the restrictions for your dial-up connection. Click on the “Next” button.



10. For username enter “ISPDA@CINGULARGPRS.COM” and for the password use “CINGULAR1” all caps. Click on the “Next” button.



11. Click on the “Finish” button to complete the wizard.



12. Now for the important part, my connection would not work until I entered the specific DNS information for the connection. Otherwise I got the dreaded 718 error. Start up your newly created Dial-up networking connection and click on the “Properties” button.



13. Go to the “Networking” tab, select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click on the “Properties” button. (You can also increase the speed of your connection from the “General” tab and clicking on the “Configure” button for your Modem. I increased mine to 921600)



14. Enter your specific DNS information. For Cingular, 66.209.10.201 & 66.209.10.202 are the DNS entries you need. Click on the “Ok” button. Click on the “Ok” button again.




15. Connect to the Cingular Edge network and you are connected via broadband!

Guide, Manual, Installation, Install, Tutorial, Step-by-Step, How to, Instructions, Do-It-Yourself, DIY



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