GPRS for ETL in Laos
What’s all this GPRS about, anyway?
GPRS allows you to use your mobile phone to hook your laptop to the rest of the Internet. Just as you might use a ‘regular’ fixed line telephone to ‘dial up’ to the Internet, why not use your mobile to do the same? (Well, at least the principle is the same.)
But what do I need?
You need an ETL sim. These are available at mini-markets for US$5. (Do not confuse with the other carriers: LaoTel, Tango, and Lao-Asia).
You do, however, also need a way for your mobile to ‘talk’ with your laptop - either Infra-red (IR) or Bluetooth - and you need them on both mobile and laptop. A bottom-of-the-line Nokia can offer Infra-red, but with IR you need to line-up the laptop and mobile when using it. You can get a Bluetooth or IR adapter for your computer for about $20US.
Howto setup GPRS in Lao PDR
Firstly, note the official ETL site and details to setup GPRS on the mobile and setup GPRS on the laptop.
Unfortunately they omit some key requirements:
1. You have to have recharged your sim with at least 50,000kip (about US$5). Actually you’re supposed to but they dont seem to check.
2. You have to request to register your account for GPRS. You can do this by calling 135 (free call from ETL mobile) and giving them your number. I did this at 9pm and it wasnt a problem for the call centre people and they called me back to confirm the activation within 5 minutes. Also the guy I spoke to could speak English very well (shamefully so compared to my Lao). Perhaps if you get your sim from the ETL shop, then they can activate it for you on the spot.
To setup GPRS on the mobile, I mostly followed their settings. I use a Sony Ericsson model and you find these on most recent-ish Sony Ericssons in the Settings > Connectivity menu.
Data Account:
APN: etlnet (or etlwap)
DNS: 192.168.4.130
Internet Settings:
Internet mode: HTTP
Use proxy: Yes
Proxy Address: 192.168.4.130
Port number: 80
Everything else was left blank (username, password, ip address).
Set up the phone first, because you can test it by using the phone browser to hit http://google.com, before hooking up the laptop.
Then to setup GPRS on my old but much-loved Apple 867MHz G4 PowerBook, I used Ross Barkman’s scripts. As there is no 3G here yet, I just used the SonyEricsson GPRS CID1 +CGQREQ. Make sure to follow the README in the download package! I have Bluetooth on both my mobile and laptop and wont go into the steps of setting that up since 1) I had no problem with that, and 2) it’s well documented.
I get about 3.5KB/s download.
Other links:
Note: there are locals who also use the Thai network(s) and claim better reception, even across the border, but I have not explored that option yet.
What’s the deal?
GPRS is currently only available through one of the four carriers in Lao PDR, ETL. It was free from Aug 2005, however, since November 2006, usage has been charged by data download/upload (not time) at approximately 1,000kip (or 10 US cents) per MegaByte.
