This is directly related to my other post, but I figured I would make a seperate thread as this can help more than just verizon v3c owners.
For background see other post: http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=422289

I will quickly explain how to setup a gateway for your WAP enabled phone to access the internet for free (only thing that it will cost you is your airtime minutes). The gateway in this case is simply an HTTP proxy server, which in my example will be using Apache 2. A proxy server is simply a computer that is connected to the internet that will make HTTP requests on your behalf. So your phone will connect to a computer (probably your home computer) which will inturn make the http request off to the internet, and then return the response to your phone. Hence using the bandwith of your home (and always connected) computer - and not your wireless companys computer and bandwith. Verizon for example charged $5/month for "Internet" on your phone. All they are doing is charging you for the service of letting you use thier proxy server. All you have to do is get into the settings of your phone and point it to your HTTP proxy instead of your wireless providers. This is NOT illegal - but if everyone knew how to do this wireless companies would be pissed.

Before you continue you will need to keep 2 things in mind
1) You will need to find out how to get into your phones configuration. Most of the time this is a secret area that is accessed by a series of symbols and digits. For example mine is #073887*. You simply have to google your phone for this code (and sometimes password). You will also have to search how to get to the WAP gateway area of the configuration. You should be able to google this.

2) Some phones/providers cripple the internet browser on your phone. They do this to try to combat you from using a proxy server other than theirs. If this is the case you will have to un-cripple (hack) your phone. I will not cover this here.

3) you must have a computer that is always connected to the internet and can be accessed by a fixed domain name. I use a FREE dynamic dns service called no-ip.info. Go to http://www.no-ip.com/ and sign up for no-ip free. Pick a domain name, and install the dynamic dns client on the machine where you will install the HTTP proxy server. This client will monitor if your ip changes, and if/when it does it will send some info to no-ip.info informing it of your new ip. so then <yourname>.no-ip.info will always point to your computer. Even if you dont follow the rest of this, i would use this service as it comes in handy for SO many things.

4) make sure that once you can access your phones secret WAP config area that it will let you put in a username and password to authenticate to the gateway. If not go to the bottom of this page and read 11).

Before I start, if you want a really simple (windows only) HTTP proxy server you can use HoTTProxy. You can follow the instructions here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=858697 .

I have never used HoTTProxy, I run linux, and am very familiar with apache (and its fast/secure/reliable) so here is what you do if you wanna go the apache route.

1) Go to http://httpd.apache.org/ download and install the 2.0.X version of apache HTTP server. Make sure to read the directions on how to install with proxy support (mod_proxy). You can load the proxy modules when you startup the Apache server. I wont go into this topic any more as it is well documented and can be in depth.

2) I am going to setup the HTTP proxy to run on port 8282 - so make sure your firewall/router/personall firewall allows incoming connections on this port. And if you are behind a router make sure it forwards the 8282 port to the computer that has apache installed on it. As a side note when you are setting up apache you will also have to open up/forward your http server port (usuially 80).

3) Once your apache server is up and running (you can serve the welcome page) you need to edit your httpd.conf file to enable the HTTP proxy.

You can copy paste the following directives into your httpd.conf file. You will only have to change the path that is listed next to the AuthUserFile directive (mine is /etc/apache2/passwd/passwords). This is a path to a file that will contain usernames/passwords of users (cellphones) that are allowed to use your HTTP proxy.

Listen *:8282
<VirtualHost *:8282>
ProxyRequests On
ProxyVia On

<Proxy *>
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
Require valid-user
AuthType Basic
AuthName "wap proxy"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/passwd/passwords
</Proxy>
</VirtualHost>

4) run the following command to create a user/password for the proxy server:
htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/passwd/passwords user

5) the command above will prompt you for a password 2x. After that it will create (-c) the file if it does not exist, and put in there the user 'user' with the password you specified. For example sake lets say the password was 'wap'. Note: the directory must exist and be writeable where the passwords file is going to be created. Make sure this passwords file has the correct permissions for apache to open it.

6) restart your apache server. On my ubuntu linux its:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

7) Now we are going to test that your HTTP proxy really works. Open up firefox and go to edit>preferences. Click the general button, then connection settings. Then click the manual proxy button and put in your no-ip name (ex: test.no-ip.info) and 8282 for the port. Click ok.

8) Now request a website you have never been to. Like http://www.iliketostudy.com or something. You should get a user/password prompt saying "wap proxy". put in the user/password u used when running htpasswd (user/wap). If everything was setup correctly you should see the page load (slower than usual).

9) now time to setup ur phone to use ur new proxy. Go into your phones secret configuration area and go to the WAP Gateway section. Mine is called "web sessions". Create a new entry for the proxy server you setup (and are going to connect to now).

10) In there it should have a field for Gateway IP. This you will leave blank, or use all 0's. There shoudl be another field for the gateway domain name. Enter the no-ip.info domain you created earlier. for example <yourname>.no-ip.info. And for the port put 8282. If they ask for some service type enter HTTP (because its an HTTP proxy server you are going through). There may be some other fields for e2e or lxl - I have those just left as 0. If it lets you specify a home page http://wap.google.com is a good one.

11) there should also be 2 fields for username and password. use the ones we used earlier (user/wap). If there is no field for username/pw then your phone can not authenticate to a proxy server. This sucks. This means to get it to work you would have to remove pw protection from the apache server you just setup - then anyone who knew ur ip could use this proxy server for free. If your phone does not have username/password field you can 1) remove the authentication directives in your apache config. 2) find a free http proxy out there (search on google).

12) once the settings are in, set this new entry as your default.

13) you may need to restart your phone but i highly doubt it. Launch your phone web browser and see if it works! (hopefully it does).

Hopefully I have no typos above - if you run into probs let me know. I dont have much time to answer questions but i'll try my best. I cannot point you to a forum where I found this information from either, because I could not find a clear one myself. There are lots of different posts out there telling you how to get free internet on your phone. most ive found are wrong and or confusing. if i didnt know how to setup my own proxy server id be fucked - hence why im writing this article to help others who may not know how. I am also pissed about how verizon cripples your phone and tries to charge you for every little thing. Its a business I know, but I alreay pay out the ass for service. Drives me nuts to see family/friends bills high just because they didnt know shit they did (like recieve a text message they didnt want) costs money.

anyways hope this helps someone out. if it does i'd like to know, so i know i didnt just throw away 30 mins of my time posting this.

8/1/2006 7:49:29 PM

Quote :

"Hence using the bandwith of your home (and always connected) computer - and not your wireless companys computer and bandwith."

i stopped reading after this - i figure the logic didn't get better but maybe it did

8/1/2006 7:52:36 PM

Is there anyway to reduce the size of things on your computer so the phone doesn't have to download as much? GPRS is slow

8/1/2006 8:23:26 PM

i'm not entirely sure what you are asking but if you use sprint's default gateway they reduce image quality before sending it so they don't send as much data over the pipes/air

8/1/2006 8:24:50 PM

Yeah Im curious if I can reduce it with this process

8/1/2006 8:29:20 PM

well then indeed you can

8/1/2006 8:29:56 PM

Any guidance how? I've never played around with this.

8/1/2006 8:31:42 PM

you should go to howardforums.com for this - your chances of finding someone who has done this is higher there

8/1/2006 8:34:26 PM

Quote :

"i stopped reading after this - i figure the logic didn't get better but maybe it did"

What's wrong with the logic?

Don't you know how WAP works?

8/1/2006 8:42:56 PM

im trying to set it up, i dont know shit about this though so it will take awhile
i'll let you know how it goes

8/1/2006 8:47:20 PM

Actually im confused, I would still be using their network to access the gateway so why wouldn't I be charged?

8/1/2006 9:30:25 PM

^wondered that myself. yes the request/response will have to travel over their network. I think the $5/mo charge is for the infrastructure and maintenance cost for the hardware that is running the proxy?? thats my only guess.

as for your size comment, you could setup apache proxy to use mod_deflate (basically compress the data before its sent to your phone). Your phone's web browser woudl have to support gzip. I'll test it out sometime.

You can however use apache to cache pages for you. Will really speed up proxy server for pages that you access often (and that are cachable). Read about mod_proxy on apache's website if you get ambitious.

^^^I think the logic is pretty solid. i was just going fast and tryign to be as clear as possible for people who r nto really tech savy. he just has nothign better to do with his time then nit pick.



[Edited on August 3, 2006 at 2:30 PM. Reason : forgot to respond to size]

8/3/2006 2:26:31 PM

i daresay that rynop has contributed more useful information in tech talk in the past month than most users do in a year...me included (because i'm pretty much worthless)

[Edited on August 3, 2006 at 2:34 PM. Reason : .]

8/3/2006 2:33:10 PM

So let me get this straight. The advantages here are:
1. You don't have to pay the Carriers' charges because you are access the internet using your own computer and proxy.
2. Since you set it up you have complete control and can configure it to display/download/whatever using your own setup.

but

you do incur a cost through minutes from your Carrier??

8/3/2006 2:35:13 PM

^ that's how i see it, yes...BUT if you have free nights/weekends, you incur no airtime charges...if you're online during your anytime minutes, it comes off of those, but there are no internet usage fees

8/3/2006 2:47:41 PM

i'm online via cellphone/laptop in the airport right now - thx sprint - unlimited i-net for free at anytime of the day - doesn't take away any minutes

the only reason you should have to change the gateway is to avoid pictures being compressed

8/3/2006 2:49:59 PM

i have 2 questions.

1) if i have cingular and about 7000 roll over minutes, will this work

2) if in fact this does work, will someone be willing to hook up my phone for like 5 bucks, i'll come over to your place, so all you gotta do is just hook it up, and i'll give you 5 bucks

8/3/2006 2:56:04 PM

last time i tried this i destroyed my phone

8/3/2006 4:17:19 PM

Yeah im cingular, data doesn't take up my minutes

8/3/2006 4:22:41 PM

bttt

8/4/2006 12:44:30 AM

^x7 - 1) correct 2) Sort of, depends on how much freedom your phone/company gives you. Like i stated before verizon are greedy nazis, so by default you cant do shit without paying for it. And yes the only charge (as far as ive seen with verizon) is airtime. I dont do anything crazy tho - like download porn (video clips).

Also keep in mind that if your phone is good it doesnt actually use ur minutes after the page has loaded and just sitting there. If its good it shoudl only use during request/response (when data is actually flowing).

^x5 - no idea what ur talkin bout there. That compression comment is not correct.

^x4 - 1) yes. man 7k? how much u pay per month man? must be business phone. 2) if you have v3m i can send u more detail. if u dont, $5 would not be worth the research time.

^^^ yes anytime you go messing with your phones internal configuration there is the pot. to mess shit up. Be careful and backup anyplace possible.

^^Thats pimp - you sure about that? dont see how they offer that. Do you pay a monthly service fee for "internet" on your phone?

ok thats all for now, time to go get wasted, cant beat 2for1 and otuback. I could be persuaded to let a few TWW people use the proxy i have setup already. would have to promise to not leave the shit on all day and not do illegal stuff. id have the ability to monitor but woudlnt wanna take the time to do it.

8/4/2006 4:47:51 PM

yeah i have an x mb data plan, doesn't affect my minute

this method still uses data on their network

so other than the compression, i don't see how that helps

8/4/2006 8:56:21 PM

Quote :

"only thing that it will cost you is your airtime minutes"

haha stopped reading there

8/4/2006 10:16:48 PM

Ok so peep this...I need a new phone, but I'm not under contract. It ran out with Cingular 3 years ago and I refuse to resign b/c they don't have a plan that can match what I have. Good thing is that it's GSM though so as long as the phone is either Cingular branded or unlocked I can switch SIM cards and go.

I assume all I need is a phone that has WAP ability, but you mentioned something about staying connected and burning minutes. How can I tell if a phone will do this or not?

8/5/2006 12:53:26 PM

you don't have to switch plans, you'd just have to extend your contract. It's BS that they try to tell you that you HAVE to change your plan.

You could just easily tell them you're going to go with another company

[Edited on August 5, 2006 at 1:43 PM. Reason : bah]

8/5/2006 1:43:19 PM

usually you can add stuff to your plan


cingular charges for both minutes and web usage though depending on what dumbass plan you have

and they charge for web usage nomatter what gateway you're using, because after all you're still using their network to connect to that gateway.


and i'm buying a new imported phone soon, thank god for GSM

8/5/2006 2:04:04 PM