April 23, 2003

Getting OS X to work with Siemens S55 Mobile

I was going to countryside during Easter and needed to get my Powerbook to work with my newly acquired Siemens S55 GPRS phone. I saw a couple of sites talking about Apple's GPRS support for Ericsson phones but to my dismay, when I look at the list of IRDA modems in the list of recognised modems under System Preferences, Network, IRDA modems, there was no Siemens S55 or ANY Siemens phone for that matter. I fired up Google and went from link to link. Below, I will detail how I eventually got it working on my Siemens S55 connected to Australia's Telstra GPRS network. It should work too with other providers as well as equivalent GPRS mobile phones. First go to Ross Barkman's fabulous Mobile Phone site here that made it all happen and download the GENERIC GPRS Scripts. IMPORTANT: For some strange reason, the Siemens GPRS scripts DO NOT WORK so do not download that
  1. Drop the modem scripts under Library->Modem Scripts
  2. Open Network Preferences and select the PPP tab
  3. Create a new location - call it "GPRS" or whatever
  4. Select "Show: 'IrDA Modem Port'" (or a USB or Bluetooth serial port if you are using those)
  5. Enter your ISP name in "Service Provider".
  6. Enter in "Telephone Number" the APN provided by your network in my case "telstra.internet", or NONE if it has no APN.
  7. Enter the Account name & Password (any junk will do usually coz this is just to allow the connect button to be enabled later, most providers do not use the account name and password as far as I know especially Telstra)
  8. Press the "PPP Options..." button
  9. Make sure that 'Send PPP echo packets' is not selected
  10. Select the IrDA Modem (or the equivalent USB port name) tab in Network Preferences
  11. Set 'Modem: "Generic GPRS CID1"' or whatever if other provider (test one at a time)
  12. Follow procedure in phone's manual to turn on phone's Infrared port
  13. Line up phone IR port facing IR port on PowerBook
  14. Open Internet Connect
  15. Select 'IrDA Modem Port' (or the equivalent USB port name)
  16. Click 'Connect'
  17. No dial/modem sounds are heard during connection process
I've also followed Ross advice and made sure Show IRDA status in menu bar and show modem status in menu bar is ticked. With this configuration its really cool. Since the SIemens phone is at GPRS Level 10 or something, I can get top speed as if its connected via the modem through a landline. Since Telstra have a 1 month free GPRS access, I've planned to make full use of this. I think it would probably be more cool with a bluetooth connection but I've only tried so far with infrared. Have fun! Posted by zoo at April 23, 2003 01:57 PM
Comments

For Greek Cosmote gprs users:
6. Telephon Number = internet
11. Modem = Generic GPRS CID 1

Posted by: freemac on May 22, 2003 02:58 AM

I try to connect via my S55 to GPRS network, it is do not work. May be you have some extra instruction

Posted by: Dima on June 8, 2003 12:32 AM

I've tested with success the Siemens S55 modem scripts from Ross Barkman pages , works fine with orange france network and my new S55 sent to me this week .
Hope it helps you

Posted by: dargmon on July 17, 2003 09:16 PM

hi,
i am planning to buy a new mobile phone and want maximum compatibility/synergy with my g4 powerbook and os x. sony/ericson t68i sounds like a safe bet, especially because of the clicker app, but i like the handling of siemens phones better. so the question is, what are your experiences with your siemens phone and your powerbook? what can you do with this combination? are there any major bugs/annoyances?

thnx,
folkert.

Posted by: folkert on July 18, 2003 04:12 PM

Hi folkert,

So far the S55 Siemens works wonders with the Powerbook though I wish I had the bluetooth usb adapter coz my Powerbook G4 does not have bluetooth capabilities. Some of the annoyances would be the transfer of the photos i took with the phone can only be transfered to the Mac OS X via Virtual PC (with winxp) and the com port simulated to connect via the infra red port of the powerbook. But now i see that if you have bluetooth then iSync does work with it already as far as I recall though i never tested it.

Hope that helps.

Regards
Zoo

Posted by: zoo on August 5, 2003 03:08 PM

Bluetooth works wonders. It was easy to set up in OS X. You have to try it. When someone calls me, my address book opens and I can answer the call on my Powerbook. This thing rocks!

Posted by: ramziggy on August 16, 2003 11:32 AM

S55 and Powerbook G4 17" successfully configured with Spanish vodafone provider, thru bluetooth.
Telephone nbr=airtelnet.es
USE "TCP header compression" and DON'T USE "Send PPP echo packets"

Great !! And the service provides keeps saying MAC is incompatible with S55 ...

Posted by: Esteban on August 21, 2003 06:07 AM

My Siemens S55 and my Powerbook G4/867 work fine with the Italian ISP Wind. I used Ross Barkman's Generic GPRS CID1 script, header compression on, dialtone detect off and Echo PPP packets off. In addition, the S55 works fine with iSync too. It's exactly what I was expecting it to be,

Posted by: Pellicus on August 29, 2003 10:16 PM

Bought a noname bluetooth-usb adapter for 29.9€ and works fine for me to sync contacts and icals. Regrettably the software for transferring pictures, tones etc. doesn't work on mac.

Posted by: Arisin on September 12, 2003 10:11 PM

Czech Republic: Siemens S55 works fine with USB Bluetooth adapter and OS X 10.2.6 in Cesky Mobil (Oskar) GSM network. Ross Barkman's SIEMENS and GENERIC scripts used with no problems.
APN: internet

Posted by: ushneek on September 19, 2003 09:49 PM

Could any one help setting up my Sony Erricson T610 with OSX 10.2.6.
I have downloaded the scripts and placed them into the modem folder, set up network pref., and internet connect but can't get the connect button to highlight and connect.
What could I be doing wrong.
My service provider is Optus Australia and my GPRS is working, IR sees the T610.
Thanks in advance.

Frank

Posted by: Frank on September 20, 2003 10:37 AM

Hi Frank,

Make sure that the accountname and password is filled up. Usually with JUNK coz whatever you type doesn't really matter. But you need to fill it up with something. Only then do the connect button comes up. I don't know if anyone else here have the same problem?

Dzul

Posted by: Dzulkiflee Taib on October 18, 2003 06:42 PM

Is there anyone that knows where i can downloads the siemens s55 modem?

Posted by: francesco on October 31, 2003 05:09 PM

I know this is an old post, but does anyone have any tips for using GPRS with your powerbook? Specifically what tricks you use to keep your bandwidth usage to a minimum.

Posted by: James Clarke on November 1, 2003 09:50 PM

I have a G4 PowerBook OSX 10.2.4. I wanted to dial into my ISP over S55, and I succeeded by selecting

I-O DATA USB-CFADP

as the IrDA modem type (although I'm certainly not using the external USB holes, but the Ir window).

Could some kind person tell me how you go about using GPRS instead of dial? How do you identify the ISP's GPRS point of access, and how do you tell OSX to use GPRS?

Posted by: Tim Cox on November 15, 2003 04:59 PM

The answers to my questions are: download a GPRS generic modem script from some friendly site like

http://www.xs4all.nl/~m10/gprs/index.html

expand the download and click on the ikon which gets the GPRS modem script installed in library/modem scripts.

Pick GPRS generic for the IrDA modem type. *Opt to show IrDA status in the screen. **You might like verbose logging too.

Put anything in the PPP username. Ask the GPRS network provider for the password and the APN which goes in the telehone number slot. Ask the GPRS network provider for the name of their SMTP server.

As you guys have been saying, don't send PPP echo packets. Turn GPRS and IrDA on in the phone.

*Click IrDA status in the screen. That allows you to turn the IrDA port on.

Connect. If you select Internet Connect from the phone ikon, then **verbose logging appears in its window.

Connect appears to pause for a few seconds in an intense sort of way. Then it announces you have been connected for several seconds

Posted by: Tim Cox on November 17, 2003 11:25 PM

Dear GC members just for once, just one single time, surprise ambien me and act as if you are on top pharmalogies of things. My father *did* tell celebrex me that it is not the GC whom propecia I should be looking at but rather soma the ministers

Posted by: vioxx on December 18, 2003 09:37 AM

Eckerd, CVS and more. The company also supplies satellite internet photo-personalized gifts to dot com and other online dish network resellers. They began their business a decade ago mengumalogy making mugs for a local distribution center, when directv he decided he was not re
ady to retire. The company loan has grown substantially over the past few years and satellite tv is a family owned and operated company. The family mortgage centric focus is passed on to every product the company online poker makes. The guy is a former marketing executive from online casino Laycos, where he was one of the prime movers in creating

Posted by: casino on January 19, 2004 05:31 AM

thanks busybee,
you are doing a great service to the neglected mac flock. thanks to your detailed instructions and ross's script i have got my siemens s55 working in india.
but the mac compatibility of s55 is very, very limited. while wondering how one might overcome that, i came across this interesting concept of a server that can be accessed by any device including cellphones. i was delighted to learn it is mac-exlusive too, for a change. haven't tried it out yet, but what do you think, busybee?

http://www.soybo.com/press/20030328_pr.shtml

Posted by: dv on February 17, 2004 09:33 PM

Hi, I\m interested in a clicker for my s55 and My 12" powerbook G4
Does anyone knows about one, because Sally Clicker does not support S55.

And also, can someone tell me how to share my PowerBook internet contection to my mobile phone via bluetooth???

I'm in Mexico, and as a developing country, gprs and those things are quite unusual :p
Best Regards....

Posted by: Risk on March 22, 2004 03:19 AM

Ross Barkman's page rules, check it out... vor BT connection is great. Just drag the script to modem scripts, and you are almost loged to yhour ISP via BT.

The thing is sharing your computer's internet via BT to your siemens S55 phone, I haven't got it yet. And also to install a cliker that works to control my PowerBook from the BlueTooth of my phone.

Best Regards... and great forum :D

Posted by: Risk on March 22, 2004 03:25 AM

nice site!!!

Posted by: penis enlargement on March 28, 2004 06:26 PM
Post a comment