How to share GPRS connection on your WinMo (Widows Mobile) based phone with laptop over Bluetooth

Does the title of this post seem quite off topic for Arunachal Diary? Sure it is. Then why am I doing a post on this in Arunachal Diary, you would wonder. So, here is the story. (If you’d like to skip the story part and like to jump directly to How To…then click here)

The Story

Having moved places, I was looking for a service provider that could provide me with a broadband connection so that I could continue with updates on Arunachal Diary. Having better facility than Ziro in my new place, I thought it would not that be difficult to get one; only to know that it is not as easy as I thought it would be. So, in the meantime I thought of activating the GPRS service on my phone so that I could update Arunachal Diary with short post over GPRS through my WinMo device (I’m using HTC Touch with Windows Mobile 6.1). But updating Arunachal Diary with short posts over WinMo device was not a smooth sail either. (I bet, those using touch devices would surely vouch for the pain in typing out using onscreen keyboard) So, I decided to share the GPRS facility on my WinMo phone with my laptop; but the question was how do I do? After ‘Googling’ for a while, I found out how to share the GPRS connection so that I could surf the net on my laptop using GPRS connection on my WinMo based phone. And I thought why not share the little knowledge that I gained over the net so that you readers gain from my experience; hence this off topic post.

How to share GPRS Connection in WinMo based phone with your laptop over laptop?

A picture says thousand words, but in this tutorial I would not be using any snapshots of WinMo screen but would rather use words only to tell you how to share your GPRS connection on WinMo device with your laptop. Here are the steps: -

1. Pair your WinMo PPC with your laptop.
2. Go to Start>Programs>Internet Sharing in your WinMo PPC.
3. Select Bluetooth PAN in PC Connection selection box.
4. Select your network connection in Network Connection box.
5. Press Connect button.
6. Now right-click on the Bluetooth icon in the system tray on your laptop and select Join Personal Area Network.

That's all and now you can use the GPRS service on your phone in your laptop to surf the net.

Have fun!