RutSum

How To Get MTNL GPRS Running On Trump (Prepaid)

I really have no idea why I didn’t do this before, but I because I am spiraling slowly into the whole ‘web’ of online social networking, I felt the need to be connected to my online identity on the go.

I checked out MTNL Delhi’s website and found out that the GPRS activation charges for prepaid connections was Rs. 0 (unlike for postpaid, the charges are Rs. 50 for that). The data charges are Rs. 0.02 per KB, which is, well, reasonable. I decided to give it a shot. The minimum balance required for GPRS activation is Rs. 50.

For activation, you have to send ‘ACTGPRS’ as a text message from your phone to 444. I did that. Finding out how to activate GPRS was in itself a big pain in the ass. While the link to the tariff and features are listed on the Dolphin home page, the activation protocol is listed hidden as a question in the long list of FAQs.

After I sent the message, I got a message back from 444, saying that my request for GPRS activation had been received and I would get a confirmation SMS when it would be done. I got the confirmation message around 20 minutes later.

Now comes the hard part. Getting the settings correct. I first tried manually entering the settings listed on the Dolphin GPRS page. I have a Sony Ericsson K530i, and the different settings for ‘Data Accounts’ and ‘Internet Profiles’ was something that confused me. I tried a lot of permutations with the manual settings, none of which seemed to work. I always got a ‘connection failure’ error.

Next I tried fetching the settings automatically from MTNL’s OTA server by sending them an SMS which contained my handset make and model number to 58354. I received an SMS shortly after that which told me that my provisional PIN number was 1111. Soon after, I started receiving settings for loads of services such as HSDPA, WAP, 3G, MMS, and yes eventually GPRS. I decided to save all of these settings, cause I had no idea what was needed and what was useless.

But I still continued getting the ‘connection failure’ error.

I opened up the settings received from MTNL to edit them manually. I discovered some discrepancies in the settings that I had received and those that are listed on the Dolphin GPRS page. For example, the page says that the port to be used is 9201 while the settings I received had the port listed as 9401. Moreover the username and password fields had been left blank in the settings I received, while the page clearly mentions what username/password to use. I edited those settings accordingly, but no luck.

I got frustrated and deleted all the internet profiles and data accounts.

Then I suddenly realised what the problem could be. I resent the SMS to receive the settings from MTNL’s OTA server. This time around, I rejected all other settings, and accepted only those of TRUMP GPRS. I tried opening up my browser and accessing a webpage again, and voila, it worked. The only explanation I could think of was that one or more of the other settings were causing a conflict with the GPRS settings and therefore prevented it from working. I however still do not know one thing – how can the same GPRS network work correctly with two different set of settings, at two different ports, and without a username/password for authentication.

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