At long last I have my personal MTN sim working for both voice and data on my android phone, *and* I can connect the my computer to the Internet using mtn’s gprs connection using JuneFabric’s PdaNet software.
Sigh, well PdaNet only works for windows, not my MacBook Pro, but since my MBP is currently out of commission with an inexplicably inoperable motherboard (the graphics card seems to have fried itself, so it’s being serviced – side note: by some miracle there’s a shop that does warranty repairs on apple computers in Kampala, but it takes a while bc they have to order parts from Cupertino), not working on a MBP is a moot point at the moment. And I can always switch back to my Palm phones if I want to tether the Mac via bluetooth.
Anyways the point being that I spent hours trying to get this sim card enabled for the 90k/month data plan last March, and they kept saying a new plan was in the works – and apparently now it is available. Whee!
I also noticed that while I’ve been having trouble connecting to the internet on pay as you go internet using this sim card for a while, recently it started connecting using the modem APN instead of the standard APN, so I am using MTNDATA as my apn setting instead of yellopix.mtn.co.ug.
Zain is also pretty easy to get configured for internet – you can either go into a shop in Kampala or just top up with 90k shillings and do it yourself. Set the apn to web.ug.zain.com and connect. From there you will need to go to a browser and try to open a website, which will redirect you to a zain site, where you will be able to choose from three plans: Zain Access (the pay per kb plan), Zain 1GB (the 90k plan), and Zain Unlimited, which doesn’t charge additional fees for usage over 1GB in a given month. If you choose Zain Access you will be stuck with it – and have to talk to customer service for several hours in order to get switched back to Zain 1GB. Once you click one of the links, it will show you the prices for the plan, then you can confirm, and you’ll be in.
With Zain I haven’t in general had technology issues with any of my phones, although the sim no longer works with my old falcom modems. They will sell you a usb modem (locked) made by huawei for 360,000 ugx (180 USD) which works reliably at fairly decent speeds. In the past I have been able to roam in dr congo on my 1GB plan, but recently was told that we can only roam on Zain Access, because they haven’t worked out payment policy.
So this is what works. It’s not the most stable connection in the world, tethering the android. Nor the speediest. But it hits a price point and I can check email and download files.
I’m doing essentially the same thing, although I’m using an iPhone with v3.0 of its operating system, which has built-in tethering. You have to install a ‘profile’ to enable tethering but there are places online that will generate a profile file with any APN you want.
I actually use two separate phones, my iPhone using a work-provided SIM for which they pay for the 90k dataplan, and then a little Nokia (ka-torche) for my personal voice number. That also lets me leave the iPhone at home e.g., if I’m going out late so I don’t have to worry about breaking/losing it or having it stolen or anything. I’ve described the whole thing in painful detail at http://phutterman.blogspot.com/2009/06/iphone-tethering_27.html and the post after (switching to BT from USB because of an OSX bug, and convenience). But yeah, the APN for the 90k plan is MTNDATA, but the per-kb plan (that I have on my own SIM as a backup) is still yellowpix.mtn.co.ug.
Anyway, sorry for the long comment, but this is Nat (from Berkeley), we emailed a bit – let me know when you’re back in Kampala, we should meet up at some point. Sorry it didn’t work out to before.
When are you going to write something other than phone reviews?
Hey that wasn’t a phone review… anyways a while back I promised a series on how to configure mobile phones for the various networks here so this is the wrap-up of that series. The last post is the first of a few posts on mobile phone-based financial services…
Do you have any special requests?
This doesn’t matter with your MBP out of commision, but…
I just found that it *is* possible to tether android to mac. Like PDANet, this method requires a USB cable (all the wireless tether methods require rooting the phone). Unlike PDANet, this requires manually fiddling proxy settings.
Tetherbot: http://graha.ms/androidproxy/
Hem… I tried tetherbot a while back, but never got it to work. Have you gotten it to work? Anyways tetherbot only does at maximum some port forwarding, so it’s a bit of a pain to use for much beyond web access..
Hmm except for the fact that I can’t receive calls when I’m using my USB modem, I’m giving up on PDANet. Sigh. It’s slow, it’s unreliable, and flaky. When I use the same SIM card inside the Huawei E-some-random-number-i-can’t-remember that MTN sold me (which is locked to the MTN network) for 360,000 UGX (180USD), then I get a relatively reliable connection at about 5kbps as opposed to a connection that flakes out every 20 minutes at 2.4kbps.
Okay so the calls at the same time as I’m surfing on my computer is a big deal. Maybe I’ll try PDANet for my Palm phones and see how well that works. I think Bluetooth on my Palms for OSX works much better though… I know I can do it by hand on Windows if I can just find the right PPP script and drivers… but I don’t feel like spending the time on it right now. Much easier to use the 180USD modem…
connect 0784853630 to the internet