Tutorial: Free WAP on Chocolate

[jmos1277]

I'm doing this quick tutorial on getting free WAP on the LG Chocolate because it's a little more involved than most phones. The WAP settings on the Chocolate appear to be read-only and cannot be edited via the "secret" WAP menu. However, they are still easily editable via Bitpim This tutorial explains how to use Bitpim to set up your Chocolate to use the free WAP proxy available via mycellconnect.com.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 1: Register with www.mycellconnect.com:
--------------------------------------------------
Before starting, you'll need to go to www.mycellconnect.com and register. When registering, make your username your 10-digit cell phone number, and your password "vzw" (without the quotes).



--------------------------------------------------
Step 2: Connect your Chocolate to your computer:
--------------------------------------------------
You can connect your Chocolate to your computer either via USB cable or via Bluetooth. Since I'm using Bluetooth, I'll explain that here. On your phone, go to Menu -> Settings & Tools -> Bluetooth and enable Bluetooth by clicking the left softkey (On).

Next, go to Control Panels -> Bluetooth Devices on your Windows XP based computer (sorry, no tips for users of other OSes).

Select the "Devices" tab, and click "Add".

On your phone (still in the Bluetooth menu), hit the right softkey (Settings) and select "Discovery Mode". Select "Visible" and hit "OK".

Now QUICKLY return to your computer, check "My device is set up and ready to be found", and click "Next". Windows, will search for your phone. When it finishes searching, you should see "LG VX8500" in the list of devices found. Select your phone and click "Next".

In the next window you need to set a passkey, I had Windows "Choose a passkey for me" and clicked "Next". After clicking "Next", your phone will ask if you'd like to accept a "pairing request". Select "Yes" and enter the passcode exactly as displayed on your computer. Your phone should now tell you that you were successful. It will then ask you if you'd like to "Always Connect" or "Always Ask". I chose "Always Connect" so my phone will connect to my computer whenever they are nearby and my BT is turned on. Windows will also now show your phone listed in the "Devices" tab of "Bluetooth Devices".



--------------------------------------------------
Step 3: Install Bitpim
--------------------------------------------------
If you don't already have Bitpim installed, download and install Bitpim. When you start up Bitpim it will search for your phone. In version 0.9.05 of Bitpim, the LG VX8500 is not yet available. However, Bitpim will report that it has found an "Other CDMA Phone". Using this setting you can't update your phone book, but you can browse the filesystem on your phone which is all we need. (If you want to use Bitpim for your PhoneBook, Calendar, etc. you can manually set the Bitpim "Phone Type" to "LG VX8300" which works.) If you've just installed Bitpim, you'll need to enable the "Filesystem" view by checking "View Filesystem" in the "View" menu.

Once you have the filesystem view, go to the "/OWS" directory. There should be three files in there, "wdptable1.fil", "paramtable1.fil", and "PM_DONE". We need to modify the "paramtable1.fil", so right click on the file and save it to your computer. *** DON'T MODIFY THIS FILE ... MAKE A COPY OF THIS FILE AND MAKE ALL CHANGES IN THE COPY ... KEEP THE ORIGINAL IN CASE OF A PROBLEM ***



--------------------------------------------------
Step 4: Modify your parameter file
--------------------------------------------------
Once you've made a copy of the file, open it up in your favorite hex editor. My favorite happens to be Hex Workshop. In the ASCII formatted data, you should see several web addresses and some port numbers as well.

The first thing we'll change in this file is your browsers homepage which starts at offset address 0x0000000B. The default value is "http://homepage" ... OVERWRITE this value with "http://www.mycellconnect.com/wap.html". The new value is much longer than the previous ... so you'll have to overwrite the some of the NULL characters that follow the original address as well. Be sure to overwrite them though ... don't make the file any larger by insert values. The second instance of "http://homepage" at offset 0x0000008C can be left alone.

Next, overwrite the port value at offset 0x000000CC. The original setting "8080" ... change it to "8888". Do the same for the second port value at offset 0x000000EC. Leave the other port values "0443" alone.

Now change the address for the Primary Proxy server at offset 0x000002A1. The original value is "gw.vzwwap.com". Change it to "38.99.2.245". Since the new value is shorter than the old, be sure to clear out the remainder of the original address (i.e. "om") by overwriting it with NULL characters.

Change the address for the Secondary Proxy Server at offset 0x000002F2. The original value is "gw.vzwwap.com". Change it to "69.120.133.58". Again, be sure to overwrite the remainder of the original address with NULL characters.

Finally, this last change is to make it easier to launch your browser. My old phone (VX6000) had a shortcut key to launch my browser. However, the Chocolate doesn't seem to have one. To get around this, I modified one of the preset shortcut keys to launch my homepage as opposed to it's own application page. Since I don't use Chat and never intend to ... I decided to modify that shortcut to launch my homepage. To do this, go to offset 0x00000343 in your hex editor. The default value should be "http://mw2.vzwwap.com/chat". Overwrite this value with "http://www.mycellconnect.com/wap.html".

That's it for modifying this file. Save it and close your hex editor.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 5: Write new parameter file to your phone
--------------------------------------------------
Return to Bitpim (which hopefully you left running). Right click on "paramtable1.fil" and "overwrite" the file with the modified file you just created. When I do this, the "PM_DONE" file disappears, but you don't seem to need it anyhow.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 6: Check your settings
--------------------------------------------------
Now that you have the new settings on the phone ... you should check to make sure they are correct. For some reason my "Proxy Port Settings" didn't seem to take. Luckily, this seems to be the ONE field that you can actually edit in the WAP menu. To get to the WAP settings, go to Menu -> 0 -> 000000 (security code) -> WAP Setting -> Proxy Address Setting -> Primary Address. This should be "38.99.22.245". Next check the "Secondary Address" which should be "69.120.133.58". Now check the Proxy Port Setting -> Primary Port setting. My value was actually incorrect here for some reason and I had to modify on the phone here. It should be "8888". Also, check (and fix if necessary) the "Secondary Port". It should also be "8888". Finally, verify that your homepage is set to http://www.mycellconnect.com/wap.html. DON'T "Reset Browser". If you do, you'll have to reupload your modified file and fix your port settings again.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 7: Set up your shortcut
--------------------------------------------------
Remember the Chat shortcut we modified? Well, now it's time to set that up. Go to Menu -> Settings & Tools -> Phone Settings -> Shortcut Key -> Left/Up/Right/Down Key (you can choose). Select "Chat" as your shortcut key.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 8: Reboot phone and check again
--------------------------------------------------
This isn't a necessary step ... but I'm the kind of guy that wants to make sure that these settings will still be here the next time I turn on my phone. So, if you're like me ... turn off your phone and turn it back on again. Recheck all of your Proxy settings one last time. If everything looks good ... time to take it for a test run.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 9: TEST IT OUT
--------------------------------------------------
Hit the "Chat" shortcut that you set up earlier. It should launch your browser and bring you to the mycellconnect wap page. If it works ... stand up and do a little jig. If it doesn't work ... then either you did something wrong or this (my first) tutorial sucks. Either way, post your problems and I'm sure someone here will be able to help you out.



--------------------------------------------------
Step 10: OPTIONAL
--------------------------------------------------
If you prefer to use your own WAP homepage instead of the MyCellConnect homepage, modify the values in the "paramtable1.fil" file to use your own homepage. You'll need to modify the values at offsets 0x0000000B (the browser homepage) and 0x00000343 (the chat shortcut). Set them to whatever you want and rewrite the file to your phone using Bitpim. Be sure to check the ports again after writing the file ... they don't seem to take the value specified in the "paramtable1.fil" file and appear to reset back to their default value of "8080" every time I write the file.



--------------------------------------------------
Additional Info:
--------------------------------------------------
Of course, if you choose to modify your phone and you break it ... I'm not responsible. Mod at your own risk.


I hope this tutorial is helpful ...
Let me know what you think.

[Taz1973]

This is great, it work on my 8300 as well

[piotrus48324]

do you pay something for it? does it use your airtime? any cost involved?

[piotrus48324]

To enable bluetooth (other than in settings+visible mode) did you have to go to any "secret" menu and enable something? I ask cuz verizon sometimes blocks those functions, and so far my laptop does not recognize any device in the area.....

[jlbrightbill]

Many people have different driver sets than your instructions for pairing the phone, just FYI.

[phattbam]

so free really means free for this?

[LoneGunner]

what is wap?

[10dulkar]

do i not need any sort of drivers of my phone on my computer? where can i get them....

[LoneGunner]

wap doesn't use any airtime?

[Humpa]

wap doesn't use any airtime?

Of course it does!
Unless you have the $15 VCast package or the $59 BBA - data minutes are unlimited with those two options

Nights and weekends are free, like normal.

[jmos1277]

Many people have different driver sets than your instructions for pairing the phone, just FYI.

Thanks for pointing that out. I actually didn't even think about that when I wrote this last night (it was pretty late).

I'm sure most people can get their computer paired with BT without my tutorial anyhow. I almost didn't even writeup that section, and was going to assume that people had already done it.

[Humpa]

I'm sure most people can get their computer paired with BT without my tutorial anyhow. I almost didn't even writeup that section, and was going to assume that people had already done it.

You'd think that - until you hung around HoFo for awhile, then you'd think that no longer.

EDIT: nice write up btw, I've saved it with my other useful stuff (I answer a lot of questions here at HoFo, and like handy threads like this that I can point people to when they ask).

[jmos1277]

This is great, it work on my 8300 as well

DOH!!! I spent a couple hours last night figuring this out and then writing it up. When I read your post ... I thought to myself, "why would he need to do this on the 8300? Is that locked also?!" So I searched for "VX8300" and "WAP" and found a couple tutorials that are very similar to mine. I didn't know the VX8300 was set up like the Chocolate!!


Well, I didn't see any other tutorials that included modifying one of the shortcut keys ... I hope that is at least helpful.

[jmos1277]

To enable bluetooth (other than in settings+visible mode) did you have to go to any "secret" menu and enable something? I ask cuz verizon sometimes blocks those functions, and so far my laptop does not recognize any device in the area.....

You may also need to go to Menu -> Settings & Tools -> Call Settings -> PC Connection and set it to "Bluetooth".

[jmos1277]

You'd think that - until you hung around HoFo for awhile, then you'd think that no longer.

EDIT: nice write up btw, I've saved it with my other useful stuff (I answer a lot of questions here at HoFo, and like handy threads like this that I can point people to when they ask).

Thanks Humpa. I don't hang around here too often. But I've lurked on and off for the past couple years. I've found a lot of useful info on these forums and thought I'd return the favor.