How to get 3G mobile Internet on Bali for your iPhone, Android, Windows or Blackberry (and any other) smartphone

simpatiI´m currently staying in the north of Bali and needed Internet for my smartphone. Roaming fees from my national provider are so high that it is impossible to use it. So I decided to buy a prepaid SIM card from indonesias leading telco Telekomsel. They have a good coverage throughout the island, though you may only have EDGE (and no 3G) in the inner parts of the country. Along the coast and in the whole south you´ll find 3G coverage everywhere.

You´ll need a mobile phone that has no lock, so that any sim card can be used. If you don´t want to miss calls from home on your “normal” number, you better bring 2 phones. An old one, which holds your national sim card and your smartphone for internet on Bali.

Take your smartphone with you and follow these steps to enjoy fast and reliable Internet on Bali.

1.) At first you need a SIMPATI prepaid card which is available in many small shops everywhere on the island. In the upper left corner your new mobile number and the expiration date is printed. The expiration date has to be in the future (and will prolong when you load the card with money). The sim card costs 2.000 Rup but you´ll probably pay a bit more, as the shop owner also wants to earn some money. I bought mine for 12.000 Rup, which is still very cheap. The 2.000 Rup will automatically be loaded to your card and at the moment (September 2013) you also get 60 minutes for domestic calls, 100 sms and 5 MB data for free.

2.) Before leaving the shop please ask the owner to do the registration for you. Every prepaid card has to be registered before you can use it. Be sure to note the date of birth the owner uses for registration. You´ll need this later. After the registration is completed insert the sim card in your smartphone. You´ll get some welcome SMS from Telekomsel which are all in indonesian language, so probably won´t understand much.

3.) Also ask the owner to load the card with 50.000 Rup (600 MB data) or 100.000 Rup (2x 600 MB data).  You give him the money and he´ll charge it for your. You´ll get a confirmation SMS again. Now dial *888# on your phone. You´ll see a screen poping up that shows how much Rupiah are loaded to the card. If you loaded 50.000 Rup it should say: Rp. 52.000. You can now leave the shop ;-).

gsm01

4.) Now you have to activate 3G and buy credits (called “flash”) to use the Internet. For activating 3G text “3g” (no quotes) to 3636 via SMS. You´ll get a confirmation SMS.

5.) Now text “flash on 50K” to 3636 via SMS. This means you want to purchase a Internet data package worth 50.000 Rup. At the moment you´ll get 600 MB, valid for 30 days (the data amout may change). You´ll get a confirmation SMS but this time you have to RESPOND. Just type “flash ya” and send it. You´ll get a confirmation SMS that you have purchased a flash data package. Now dial *889# on your phone. You´ll see a screen poping up that shows how much is left of your data package. Initially it will say: 600 MB Flash3G. You can do this again and again to check how much is left.

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6.) You´re done so far. Now you can start using the Internet with your smartphone. If you run out of data repeat step 5. If you run out of money then locate a shop again and ask the owner to load the card with money again. You can also do it on your own at any ATM in Bali.

MWConn – GPRS / EDGE / UMTS modem connection tool

I found this little piece of software in an article at golem.de about the ash cloud from Island. Funny hah ? 😉

But this software is so great that I have to write about it. What is it ? The website says it´s a Freeware Access Tool for mobile Internet. And it´s a software tool that supports numerous GPRS / EDGE / UMTS modems (USB, PCMCIA, PC-CARD, etc.) and a bunch of mobile net providers all over the world. Especially when you´re abroad and don´t want to spend millions for international (data) roaming you can just buy a prepaid sim, insert it into your (sim- & netlock free) modem, select the appropriate profile in MWCONN and there you go – happy surfing.

It´s also very helpful if you need to use more than one data modem. You can create a separate profile for every device and then simply select the one you need.

The tool also allows a nearly endless configuration of everything and supports Windows and Linux. Admittedly the graphical interface of the tool is not the most beautiful and you may need some time before you know how to handle it. But then it provides great functionality, anywhere in the world. They also have a Wiki where you can check if your modem is compatible with the software.

Website: http://mwconn.net

Wiki: http://www.mwconn.info/wiki/

Windows XP 64bit & T-Mobile web’n’walk Stick 3 / Huawei E170

Well this is part 2 of my personal driver odyssey with Windows XP 64bit. I own a T-Mobile web’n’walk Stick 3. Without branding it´s a Huawei E170 and – important at a later point of this article – similiar to a iCON 225 USB HSDPA / HSUPA modem.

stickThe problem :

After installing Windows XP 64bit the usb modem doesn´t work. Installing the provided drivers directly from the device (the device is also a USB mass storage) is without any sense, cause it comes without any 64bit drivers.

If you´re lucky the device is listed as not working in the device manager. If you aren´t then it simply doesn´t appear.

The software (T-Mobile Internet Manager) will install anyway (together with the not compatible drivers) but it will probably say something like “Device not found / or device not connected” although the stick is connected and may as well blink blue (HSPA) or green (EDGE).

The solution (might differ for every particular case) :

0.) Plug your web’n’walk Stick into a USB port of your pc. Update the firmware of the web’n’walk Stick with the software from the T-Mobile webpage (can be found here).

1.) Install the drivers and the software directly from the updated stick and restart your pc.

2.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager, check if the device is recognized and if you can connect. If so, congratulations, this one was easy for you. If not – continue with step 3.

3.) Download the iCON 225 device drivers (can be found here – Driver Installer 4.0.17.0) and extract it to a folder on your disk.

4.) Uninstall the T-Mobile Internet Manager and restart your pc.

5.) Install the iCON 225 driver, by using the \TcpSchema 2\without service\x64\DriverInstall.msi from the folder where you extracted your iCON driver. Restart your pc.

6.) Open the device manager and check if the USB mass storage device (aka the stick) has a yellow exclamation mark. If so, unplug the stick from the usb port, wait a moment and reconnect it (the exclamation mark should disappear afterwards).

7.) Now install the T-Mobile Internet Manager by using the setup.exe directly from the usb sticks T-Mobile Internet Manager folder. Restart your pc.

8.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager and yesssssssss now the device is recognized and you can connect.

Have fun !!!

Appendix :

devicemanager

These 2 Huawei devices must appear in your device manager. Otherwise the stick won´t work at all. In some cases you might see these devices already after installing the inital drivers and software from the stick (Step 1), but marked as not working with yellow exclamation marks. In this case, ETNA will help you out. ETNA is a user developed driver by Maysi2k originally designed to bring a web’n’walk Stick to live with Windows Vista x64. But ETNA also proved suitable for some Windows XP x64 installations.

Howto :

0.) Download and extract ETNA to a folder on your disk.

1.) Open the device manager, choose the yellow marked device(s) – (you have to do it one by one).

2.) Update Driver and give Windows the folder you extracted ETNA to search for newer versions.

3.) Windows will automatically install the ETNA drivers for the appropriate device.

4.) Repeat these steps until all the Huawei devices are no longer marked as not working.

5.) Start surfing !