For my last birthday, I got a mobile phone Sony Ericsson W705 from Movistar. One of the features that catched my attention was the WiFi features. As soon as I started messing around with the phone, I connected it to my home wireless LAN and start using the internet applications. But a question arose very soon: how did I know when I was using the free LAN and when I was paying the costly 3G connection?
Movistar provides access to internet through its mobile network using the service “e-moción” (that comes from the word for “emotion” in Spanish) which use 3G or GSM, depending on the availability. Up to now (2009-12-31), you buy a daily flat rate of 1 € (until 10 Mb). This is automatically paid when the 3G network is used, without any notification.
The problem was that I was using my (free) home wireless network, but sometimes the connection failed for a lapse of time and the phone connected automatically to the 3G network, spending 1 € per day without my consent.
By trial and error, I got to create a connection profile in which only local connections are permitted (remember this instructions are for a Sony Ericsson W705):
- Go to Settings > Connectivity > Internet Settings > Connect with.
- Go to Options > Create new.
- Choose PS data (however, as we don’t want to use neither GPM nor 3G, it doesn’t really matter)
- Give a name to the settings profile. Don’t specify an APN.
- Set the cursor over the new profile and choose Option > Edit. Activate “Start session request”.
Repeat the steps with the streaming settings. In this way, every time an application tries to connect using 3G/GPM, you’ll need to introduce a username and password, avoiding unwanted connections. To activate the mobile network, you only have to go to Settings > Connection > Internet settings and choose the default one, provided by the mobile network operator.
Added later (2010-1-1): Unfortunately, some applications (specifically Facebook in my phone) use their own settings to get connected. To avoid particular applications to use their own settings, go to Multimedia > Applications > Options > Internet Settings and choose Default.