Getting the Motorola Ming (A1200) to work as GPRS modem for a Mac

These instructions worked for me, using a MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) and a Motorola Ming (A1200) running the generic 46p firmware and connecting to T-Mobile in the US via GPRS. Please let me know if they work or don’t work for you - and remember to check the A1200 forum at MotorolaFans.com

Step 1: preparing your Mac to use the phone

Add this Motorola Ming script to /Library/Modem Scripts on your Mac.

Next open a terminal window (Terminal can be found under Applications/Utilities) and execute the following:
echo “:192.168.0.254″ > /tmp/options; sudo mv /tmp/options /etc/ppp/options
(you’ll have to type in your password here to authenticate as administrator in order to be allowed to write in /etc/ppp).

Step 2: getting your phone ready to connect

In the main menu click on Bluetooth. Click on the menu button (lower left corner) and switch the phone to be “Discoverable”.

Step 3: starting the communication on your Mac

Turn Bluetooth on on the Mac as well and start the Bluetooth Setup Assistant (you can get to that from System Preferences -> Bluetooth -> Devices -> Set Up New Device…). Search for “Mobile Phone” and it should list all the Bluetooth phones in the vicinity that are discoverable. Click on “Motorola A1200″ (or, if you have a China Mobile flash image, click on Motorola 明) and continue.

Next you need to exchange the secret key for pairing the Bluetooth devices (just follow the requests on both the computer and the phone) and then grant the computer access. After a moment the Mac will suggest that it can use the Address Book and offer Internet through the phone. Since we want to set up GPRS you need to select the “Use a direct, higher speed connection…” option (even though “higher speed” is rather subjective, here).

Next comes the “Bluetooth Mobile Phone Set Up” dialog. As username and password you can pick anything, tmobile / tmobile works. The GPRS CID String is *99***2#. As Modem Script pick the “Motorola Ming” script that we installed earlier. Hit Continue and you should be done here.

Step 4: dialing out

Start “Internet Connect” (under Applications). Click on Bluetooth. The Configuration should all be set up correctly, all you need to do hit Connect (for some reason I occasionally am asked to type in the password again - no idea when and why then - just type “tmobile”).

You should be connected!

Update: these instructions won’t work if you are using Mac OS 10.5 Leopard - they were written for 10.4 Tiger. I wrote another post on how to use the Ming as GPRS (and EDGE!) modem under Leopard.

Thanks for visiting!
I hope this was helpful - if not, please leave a comment and let me know why! Were you searching for something else? Did I miss an important aspect?

4 Comments so far

  1. Alfeo on April 19th, 2007

    I get this error “An incorrect PPP option has been set. Please verify your settings and try again.”

    Before, it use to connect to the phone and try to authenticate. Now it wont even connect to the phone.

    How do I undo the terminal command?

  2. Zeh Guilherme on September 21st, 2007

    Hello! Do you can send the archive applescript for my email? I don’t obtain to compile the model indicated in this page.

  3. [...]This is an update to an older post of mine that dealt with this same issue under Tiger. Since I wrote that post I have upgraded to Leopard and [...]

  4. Eduardo Lopes on April 16th, 2008

    Hi!
    I followed your tutorial and receive exactly the same error message than Alfeo above β€œAn incorrect PPP option has been set. Please verify your settings and try again.”

    Before, I also used to connect to the phone and try to authenticate. Now it wont even connect to the phone.

    Any clue?

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