This article explains how to configure a fresh new Windows Mobile smartphone to work with a SFR Illimythics subscription. It will focus on the setting of a Palm Treo 500, but the same settings have been applied succesfully on a HTC Snap S521.

As my original SFR mobile phone (a LG KS20) was broken not even after one year and as SFR did not want to sponsorize any new mobile, I decided to get a Palm Treo 500 from CDiscount. This mobile phone was announced to be unlocked from any operator, it was matching all my criteria and it was quite cheap.

After receiving it, the phone was really unlocked as it accepted my SFR Sim card. I was able to give normal calls, but impossible to use any data connexion. Any internet access thru pocket IE would immediatly cut the connection with some message explaining that I was not allowed to do such things. Having a 3G phone in hand, it was more than disappointing !

Knowing that SFR operator is very restrictive about the data access, I started to tweak the phone for it to be accepted by the SFR network.

Install registry editor

First thing to do is to install a registry editor on the Palm Treo 500. A very simple but efficient one is PHM Registry Editor.It works perfectly on the Treo 500.

Get the Smartphone edition from the author site http://www.phm.lu/products/Smartphone/RegEdit/  and install it on your phone thru ActiveSync.

One tip : While using the app, as it is the smartphone edition, you have to toggle between Keys and Values. By default, you navigate thru the keys. Once you are in the proper location, you have to select the button Values to see and modify the values defined there.

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Tweak the phone user agent

We will now tweak the registry to make the SFR network think that your Palm Treo 500 is an official HTC SFR Cruise bundled pack. This will magically open your data access.

Start Démarrer >> PHM Registry Editor and modify, remove or create as string all the values below :

 [Hkey_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Internet Settings/5.0/User Agent]

[Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform]

[Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Template\Same as Pocket PC]

Once all these values are properly set, you have to restart your telephone.

You should now be able to surf on the net with pocket IE on your SFR Illimythics data connexion

Configure your network for Internet Connexion Sharing

If you plan to use the Internet Connexion Sharing app provided on the Smartphone, you have to create a proper connexion for it.

You have to go to Démarrer >> Parametres >> Connexions >> GPRS. Create a new connexion, call it Internet and configure it as follow :

From now on, with a properly configured PC, you can use your mobile phone data connexion.

Just launch the app called Démarrer >> Partage Internet

1. select USB connexion
2. select Internet access
3. click on the Connecter button
4. plug the USB cable on your PC

... and enjoy surfing on your laptop thru your SFR Illimythics 3G access.

If you don't know how to configure your PC to use your SFR Illimythics access, 2 options are available :

• Proxomitron
  This is a local HTTP proxy server, which can change on the fly the user agent of any HTTP stream. When properly configured, it then allows to open your Illimythics access to any HTTP app (Internet Explorer, Google Earth, VLC, ...). Home site seems to be there.
• Firefox
  Used with the Switch Proxy & User Agent Switcher extensions, you can declare the SFR proxy server and change Firefox user agent to be compatible with SFR expectations. You can then surf (but only that).

With any of these options, the parameters to be used are :

You'll get plenty of guides on internet to help you in the configuration process for these 2 options (google is your friend).

If your phone is loosing its 3G connexion quite often ...

Few phone models are giving trouble with the SFR 3G network.

HTC SFR S300 & Palm Treo 500 seem to be part of them. Trouble happens when your telephone is connected to a 3G network with a weak signal. In that case, the telephone is sometimes loosing the network and is not able to connect anymore. You then need to disable the Telephone module and to enable it again to get back the connexion.

If you want to solve that problem, the only solution I've found is to force the telephone to connect to GSM network only. Obviously you will loose the 3G network, but your data connexion will still go thru the GPRS network, which still offers a very acceptable data rate, even if it is lower than 3G.

To do so, open Démarrer >> Paramètres >> Téléphone >> Réseaux GSM/3G and select GSM.

Then, you need to restart your telephone for that setting to be taken into account.

Hope it helped and saved some of your time.