Using Your Motorola Phone As a Modem in Linux

I have a nice Idea GPRS plan through which I get unlimited surfing at a low rate.My Airtel Broadband was down yesterday for a while so I decided to use my Motorola L9 as a modem.On windows,the process is really simple.You just need to install Motorola Phone Tools from the CD bundled with the phone.Rest of the process is like an automated procedure.

Motorola Phone Tools is not built for Linux.I did not want to use emulation because I felt that there has to be something simpler and I found it.I found out that I was basically looking for 'wvdial'.Ubuntu has wvdial installed by default if it isn't installed,you can get it by running

sudo apt-get install wvdial

Now connect the phone to the computer in Data mode.Your next job is to edit the file wvdial.conf.To do that,run the following command in a terminal

sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

Delete everything from the file and paste this into it-

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=3,"IP","*GPRS APN*",,0,0
Stupid Mode = 1
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = *99***3#
ISDN = 0
Username = *your number*
Password = *Passoword*
Baud = 460800

GPRS APN for Idea is "internet" and for Airtel,it is "airtelgprs.com".You can always check it up with your provider.The password for Idea is 1.Clarification:You have to replace *GPRS APN* with internet for Idea and airtelgprs.com for Airtel.

You can also run wvdialconf to make sure your Modem,Baud,Init1 and Init2 settings are best suited to your phone.Just run this command in your terminal

sudo wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf

The configuration part is done now.To connect to the internet,with the phone connected in Modem mode,run the following command in a terminal

sudo wvdial

I hope this guide was useful and if it was,Happy surfing.