Sunday, October 11, 2009

How to activate a T-Mobile G1 with a prepaid sim with no data plan.


That's it, I just got it, my first first Android phone, a T-Mobile G1. I got it new and Unlocked on Ebay for around 300$ canadian. The only thing I had to do, was to activating it.

As you probably know, Android phone requires that you login into you Gmail account to be activated. And, during this activation process you need to be connected through a wireless internet because the wifi mode is desactivated by default.

But, I didn't want to pay too much for a wireless plan, so I decided to use a pay by minutes sim card without any data plan. This cost me around 20$ a month.

The easier way to activate an Android phone when you don't have a data plan is to find a friend who has a data plan and ask him to use is sim card for 5 minuttes. My friend have a Fido data plan and here is the setting I use to connect to the Fido wireless network and activate my phone.

Once you've put the sim card in your phone, you should see the T-mobile screen and be able to navigate to the connect to Gmail screen. As a remember is a green screen with the T-mobile logo on it. This screen will disappear once your phone is activating. Press the menu button. You should see the add APN button. Press on it. Now you should see a list a T-Mobile APN. Press on the menu button again, press add new APN. Use the value below. Then, go back to the connect to Gmail account screen and enter your account username and password. It should work fine as it did for me.

# Name: Fido
# APN: internet.fido.ca
# Username: fido
# Password: fido
# MCC: 302
# MNC: 37


See those resources for more info about unlocked Android phone and APN.

Google Android G1 Unlocking and using with Fido
http://www.sems.org/entry.asp?ENTRY_ID=332

Activate G1 Without a T-Mobile SIM card
http://modmygphone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7791

Many words carriers APN for Andriod Phone
http://www.modmygphone.com/wiki/index.php/Carrier_APN_Settings

Android G1 Phone in Canada on Rogers
http://oliverfisher.blogspot.com/2008/10/android-g1-phone-in-canada-on-rogers.html