In the previous article, which was written way back in about 2000 or 2001, technology has improved tremendously. Now, you don’t need line-of-sight to connect your Palm to your handphone anymore.

Now, you may be asking, why do I need to surf the web via Bluetooth, when my PalmTX already has wifi built-in? Simple. You’re not always going to be at a wifi hotspot, and, these pages will work for the older Palms too, like the T3, T5 etc which do NOT have wifi.

Step 1 – Activating Data Services

Like in the previous article, you will need to activate data services with Singtel, M1, Starhub, or whatever telephone company you use for your mobile phone. Also, since most phones today are 3G, or at worst, 2G, 99% should already come with some sort of GPRS capability.

As for why you need to activate “Data Services”, it’s because if you don’t, you will pay through your nose when you start using GPRS without a data plan. For example, with Singtel’s “lowest rates” no-plan prices, it’s 0.2 cents per kb. Each web page you surf can easily be about 500kb, so it would cost an average of $1.00 per webpage you view. Having a data plan gives you free “bundled data”, ie you play a fixed subscription of maybe $20 to $50, and you get between 5GB to 10GB free data traffic, before they start charging you $1 per web page. Trust me, 5GB monthly data traffic is more than enough for an average user. Even me, who is more geeky and therefore surfs more, uses no more than 3GB per month.

Nowadays, all 3 telco in Singapore provide some sort of GPRS broadband. Singtel calls it Broadband on Mobile, M1 calls it M1 Broadband, and Starhub calls it MaxMobile

Go grab one of them, and when they’re activated, come back here for Step 2.

Step 2 – Configure Your Bluetooth Devices

Simply activate the bluetooth on both the Palm and your phone. Then do the following on the Palm:

Bluetooth

1. Click on Setup Devices
2. Click Phone Setup
3. Follow the screen and remember to select your phone manufacturer
4. Name your new BT connection, eg “Phone BT”

Connection

1. Tap on “New”
2. Key in a name for your new Connection, eg “BT To My Phone”
3. Connect to -> Select ‘Phone’
4. Via -> Select ‘Bluetooth’
5. Device -> Select the named BT connection you established for your phone, ie “PhoneBT” in the example above
6. Model -> Univ. Phone Driver.

The Universal Phone Driver should work for most phones. I use a Sony Ericsson K810i, and it worked flawlessly. Nokia and other brands should work with this driver too.

Network

1. Tap on “New”
2. Service -> Name this new connection, eg “Mobile Internet”
3. User Name -> ID to connect to GPRS Internet. Check with your telco for this info
4. Password -> password for the above. Again, check with your telco for this.
5. Conection -> Select the named Connection you created above, ie “BT To My Phone” in the example above

That’s it, you’re all done! For your phone, all you need to do is follow your telco’s instructions to set it up for GPRS surfing.

To connect to the Internet via Bluetooth on the Palm, click on the Bluetooth Icon on the Palm bar, remember to select Network Service to your named Network Connection (“Mobile Internet” in the example). Once connected to your phone, you can surf on your Palm anywhere and you don’t even need a wifi hotspot! Heck, you don’t even need a wifi-enabled Palm!

If you have the right software on the Palm, you can even use it to read/write SMSes, download mail (the default VersaMail that comes with OS5 Garnet works well) and so on.