FirstServed Tech Blog - FirstServed and the Art of Server Tuning

Due to the raising support questions about mobile internet settings, we felt that to provide better service to our customers we should take a deeper look into these systems and try to at least help people out.

Of course these systems aren’t ours, but since we sell dedicated servers, hosting and mail services we will get in contact with every device present on the internet. And at the moment the amount of cell phones connected to the internet is rising.
This is partly due to the iPhone, but also due to the raising numbers of smart phones available.
We will get into details (as far as we can) about phone or operating system specific settings later.
(Please know that we do not have every phone available so most of these settings were mainly gathered by our own support calls, research on the internet etc.)

On top of that we will only look at GPRS (EDGE) settings. This is because we think GSM-data (WAP) is now obsolete (like 56K modems are) and 3G is not widely adopted enough.

First of all, where is GRPS situated on the GSM network?

When we talk about cell phone technologies we talk about generations, most of these generations have nice names so they are more easy to remember, there’s a small list:

• 1G (first generation): mainly analogues, but wireless phones
• 2G: GSM as we know it on the 850, 900, 1800, 1900 frequencies (includes WAP)
  • 2.5G: GPRS
  • 2.75G: EDGE (EGPRS)
• 3G: UMTS
  • HSDPA
  • HSUPA
  • LTE
• 4G: WiMAX(?) – future

As you can see, GPRS is a step between 2G and 3G, to provide better data transport. Edge was an upgrade to GPRS, it gave us better access and didn’t mean a serious adaption to the carrier network which would be needed for a switch to 3G UMTS.
GSM-data (WAP) fits under 2G, since this was just a data-call between you and the access server, just like our early 56K lines used our phone lines (non-adapted voice-spectrum, ADSL uses the same lines but with other frequencies etc but that’s a bit out of scope here).

Now we know what WAP, GPRS and EDGE means, so when you encounter EDGE settings in your freshly purchased iPhone, know that your are facing a variant of GPRS which you can try to configure. Knowing this can be particularly useful if the salesmen in the shop tell you to configure GPRS.

The second step is to configure your connection.
You can find services and data about the connection on the site of your provider (which is without doubt the most reliable source), but for your convenience we’ve compiled a small list for the 3 major Belgian operators (BASE, Mobistar & Proximus):

Base
APN: gprs.base.be
Username: base
Password: base
Provider URL: http://www.base.be/base/nl/home/private/mobile_internet/base_data/settings/manual_settings/page.aspx/4359

Mobistar
APN:
internet.be (private plan)
web.pro.be (professional plan)
Paswords and IP’s are not required.
If the connection fails: some sources report "mobistar" as username and password.
(unverified source: http://www.intermactivity.be/forum/showthread.php?t=97986)

Proximus
APN: internet.proximus.be
Username: none (leave empty)
Password: none (leave empty)
(Tested by FirstServed)

After entering these settings you should be able to connect to the internet and browse to http://www.firstserved.net or http://www.google.be .
If these 2 sites don’t work, but you can view http://74.125.39.147 (which should show you the Google homepage), then there is something wrong with the DNS settings of your phone. DNS translates names into numbers for example www.google.be becomes 74.125.39.147.
In this case you can try using the OpenDNS systems by manually entering these servers:
Primary DNS: 208.67.222.222
Secondary DNS: 208.67.220.220
With these settings you won’t be using the DNS systems of your provider, but you’ll be using free, publicly available servers.

If you really want to manually set the DNS of your provider, you can use these (unverified) settings:

BASE
Primary DNS: unkown
Secondary DNS: unknown

Mobistar
Primary DNS: 212.65.63.10
Secondary DNS: 212.65.63.145

Proximus
Primary DNS: 195.238.2.21
Secondary DNS: 195.238.2.22

A table of GPRS settings from networks all over the world can be found here: www.taniwha.org.uk/gprs.html .
(Please keep in mind that your provider is still the best place to get these settings, if you want them, contact their support services.)

If you can browse the internet correctly, you are ready to setup your e-mail account on your cell phone.

Greets,

Koen