Tutorial on Nokia N95 3G connection sharing (Mac OS X and N800 Maemo)

I’ve recently had the pleasure of using a N95 8GM NAM (N95-4) that was provided to me by Nokia as part of the WOM World program. I actually have both the original N95 and an N95 8GB (N95-2) but both of them are euro 3G which meant that I was stuck at EDGE speeds on US AT&T network. I’ve had a couple of weeks to play with the device and the big differentiator was of course the blazing fast internet speeds (see the speed test results below). Uploading ZoneTag photos and seeing Zurfer images was so fast that I would just continue using the 3G network even when I had an available WiFi access point.

Since I have an unlimited data plan on my phone, I obviously had to see if I could share my 3G connection with my other devices, namely an N800 Internet Tablet and my MacBook Pro (Tiger). This however was not such a simple process – it appears that the 3G versions have made small changes to their connection protocols which have rendered my existing connection sharing steps useless. The even more annoying part was that the steps in setting up the connection would all work just fine but when you actually tried to use the connection it just wouldn’t work 🙁 I tried a bunch of internet searching and after considerable trial and error I was able to get connection sharing to work. So in order to spare the next poor fool the trouble I’m writing up this tutorial on how to share the 3G connection from an N95 8GB NAM with first an N800 Maemo and then with a MacBook Pro running Tiger. As always there are no warranties or guarantees – use at your own risk.

Connection sharing between a 3G Nokia phone and the N800 OS2008 Internet Tablet

The following steps should tell you how to share the 3G connection from your Nokia to your N800 Maemo tablet. They have been tested to work between my N95 8GB NAM (with US AT&T service) and my N800 OS2008 though they should theoretically work for different Nokia phones and various tablets including the N810

Pair the N800 with your Phone

1. Switch on the N800 and go to Menu -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Phone
2. You should now see a dropdown menu listing the “Selected Phone”. Click the “New” button.
3. The tablet will take a few seconds to do a bluetooth scan before listing all available devices. Select your phone from the list and click “Ok”
4. The pairing screen will display a code. Hit Ok and then enter that code into your phone when prompted to do so. Accept the connection request from the tablet.
5. The Tablet will now display the “Operator Setup” screen. Hit next to continue
6. Select USA as your country and hit next.
7. Select AT&T Internet as your mobile operator and hit next
8. Tap “Finish” to save your settings

Setting up the connection on the Tablet

1. You will now have gone back to the “Phone” window on the tablet with the name of your phone selected in the dropdown. Hit the “Ok” button to save your phone.
2. Open the “Connectivity” icon in the Control Panel and click the “Connections” button
3. Click the New button to open the “Connection Setup wizard” and click “Next” to continue.
4. Enter the connection name and set the connection type to “Packet Data”. Hit next to continue.
5. Change the Access Point Name to be “wap.cingular”. If you do not do this it WILL NOT work. If you are using a carrier other than AT & T you should set it to be the access point name you use on your phone. You can get it on the phone by going to Menue -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access points. Click on the access point you use on the phone and use the text you find under “Acess point name”. Do not use the connection name since that can be different from the access point name.
6. The dialup number is *99# while the username and password are blank. Hit “Next” to continue.
7. Tap “Finish” to save the settings

Using the Connection from your N800 tablet

1. To open the connection on your tablet click on the connection icon (between the volume and battery icons) in the top right of the screen
2. Click “Select Connection” to see a list of connections and available WiFi access points.
3. Select the connection you just created and click “Connect”
4. The phone will prompt you about accepting a connection from the tablet – hit “yes” and the tablet will connect to the phone and display a message saying “Connect to XXXXX”
5. You are now connected over 3G.
6. You can disconnect the connection at any time by clicking the connection icon and hitting “Disconnect”
7. You can avoid the connection prompt by going to Menu -> Tools -> Bluetooth page on your phone. Click right on the D-pad which will show a list of accepted connections. Find your N800 on the list, click on options and “Set as authorized”. This will allow connections without requiring your permission every time.

Connection sharing between a 3G Nokia phone and Mac OS X

The following steps should tell you how to share the 3G connection from your Nokia to your OS X machine. They have been tested to work between my N95 8GB (with US AT&T service) and my MacBook Pro running Tiger though they should theoretically work for different Nokia phones and various versions of OS X (requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 and higher for iSync) .

Install the iSync Plugin
You MUST go through this process first – I have found that without this the connection may not successfully complete.

1. The first step is to download the Nokia iSync plugin for the N95 which is available here. It is important to download the exact version needed for your phone – I have found that the N95 plugin does NOT work with the N95 8GB.
2. Once you have downloaded the dmg file double click it to open the image and then double click on the installation package.
3. Follow the steps in the wizard to install the package.

Pair Mac with Phone

1. Make sure bluetooth is turned on and set to discoverable (visibility shown to all) on your phone.
2. Go to “System Preferences” and click on “Bluetooth”.
3. Click the “Set Up New Device” button and then hit “continue” on the wizard that pops up.
4. Select the device type to be “Mobile Phone” and click continue.
5. The Mac will then take a minute or so to scan for any mobile phones within Bluetooth range and give you a list. Select your phone from the list and click “continue”
6. The next step is for the computer to gather information about your phone. This will take another minute or so, just wait till the process is complete and click “continue”
7. The mac will now display an eight digit numerical code and prompt you to enter it on your device. Your phone will be displaying a prompt to enter the passkey on the phone – enter it and hit ok (on the phone). The phone will then display a message asking if it should accept an incoming connection from your computer – click “yes”.
8. The next step is to setup the services you want you computer to access on your phone. For sharing your connection you need to check the box saying “Access the internet with your phone’s data connection” and set the radio button below it to be “Use a direct, higher speed connection…”. Now hit continue.
9. The next screen will setup connection strings for your phone. Leave the username and password blank and set the GPRS CID string to “*99#” (without quotes). Select “Nokia Infrared” as the Modem script and hit “Continue”.
10. Your mac and phone are now setup to share their connection – hit the “Quit” button.

Using the connection

1. Go to the “Network” tab in system preferences and set the Show dropdown to “Network Status”
2. Select the “Bluetooth” option and click the “Connect” button.
3. This will have opened “Internet Connect” with all the right configurations. Click the “Connect” button
4. Your phone will prompt you to accept a connection from your laptop – say “Yes”.
5. In a few seconds your connection status will say “Connected” and you will be free to surf the net at 3G speeds. In fact a good portion of this blog post was written on my Mac over 3G 🙂

Possible issues

1. It can get quite annoying to have your phone keep prompting you to allow the conection. You can get around this by going to Menu -> Tools -> Bluetooth page on your phone. Click right on the D-pad which will show a list of accepted connections. Find your computer on the list, click on options and “Set as authorized”. This will allow your laptop to make connections without requiring your permission every time.
2. Occasionally I have had issues disconnecting the 3G connection. Sometimes the status keeps saying “disconnecting” while other times it says its ready to connect but throws error messages to verify your connection settings. I’ve found that a reboot of the computer and the phone usually fixes it.