Treo 650 unleashed

I went through the process of “Unlocking” my Cingular Palm Treo 650. Why? Because, as many of you know, wireless providers lock phones to their service. Every carrier does this and it’s actually been well documented because some carriers have blocked really great features like bluetooth.

What Cingular has done to the Treo 650 was disable DUN (Dial Up Networking) through Bluetooth. Something very useful because I could use my laptop to get Internet where I would normally be without. Something, not a big deal for Mac users since Missing Sync has an Internet sharing option included but if I had a PC or was without missing sync I would be a little more stocked.

The other huge reason for unlocking your Treo would be to get Palm’s updates ASAP, since Cingular or other carriers take forever to release an update. And if you have a Treo you know there are a lot of little bugs that are fixed including better memory management and much better voice quality.

Here are the instruction including some of my notes because it was an ordeal until I used a card reader and a computer without missing sync (PC).

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June 21

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About the Author, Dan Cameron:

I'm the owner and solution engineer at Sprout Venture, a web solutions company that specializes in web development including WordPress.

I started my first blog in 2003 and transitioned to WordPress in 2004. Since moving to WordPress I've written a few plugins and themes for public consumption. Lately I'm busy engineering/building/coding and have only been able to share a few code snippets.

If you're in need of some web development, web design or custom WordPress plugins and/or themes contact me, I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

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  • Shane
    Just to let everyone know, you can use the Treo 650 as a modem with out using third party software such as PDAnet. In fact, I am using it right now. Here is how I did it; First, I went to Prefs, and tapped Network. I tapped Service, and went down to Cingular CSD. Then I went to Modify. I changed the connection from Dial Up to ISDN. Then I tapped Done. Then I tapped bluetooth to enable dial up. I connected my laptop to the phone via blue tooth and connected to Dial up service through my phone, and it works perfectly. The highest speed that will work is 480kbps. Obviously, this isn't fast as Cable or DSL, but it is definitely faster than Dial up. However, it is still rather fast from what I am seeing.
  • Dan
    Yeah, I haven't looked into it yet and I am not too concerned since I probably will never use it as a modem anyways.

    This might be confusing since the post seems like I unlocked the phone because I wanted DUN enables but really that isn't the case at all. I wanted the update and the notion of having a unlocked/hacked rebel phone that was in my control.
  • Since you have an unlimited plan, it actually does make more sense (still a sucky thing for them to do, but oh well). The idea is that if you aren't going to use up that much bandwidth if you can only use it directly from their device, because of the form factor, etc. - whereas if you were just using their data service as a modem for your laptop, you could more easily/comfortably use a lot more of their bandwidth.

    ATT also tried a similar tactic, when they introduced their "unlimited" data plan (shortly before I switched) - you could use unlimited data *from your device (phone)*, but tethered devices they would still charge you per KB for (probably for the same reasons I described above). Sounds like Cingular tries to take a different approach by just not allowing you to do it at all, but you may want to check on that (I'm sure you already have) to make sure that they aren't charging you extra since you found a way to do tethered access.
  • Dan
    suffer the 100kbs.


    I do have an unlimited now, Cingular has a $25 unlimited that they don't really advertise and is hard to find. MediaNet I found out works as an unlimited data plan.

    It is weird why they would do something like this but it says on there site:
    Tethering the PalmOne Treo 650 via Bluetooth is currently not supported by Cingular Wireless. However, third party software may allow the PalmOne Treo 650 to act as a Wireless Modem. For more information and available options please visit the Palm One website at http://www.palmone.com/us/.</blockquote>

    And their talking about any bluetooth connection, even hotsyncing which works out of the box.

    It's either Cingular or other providers are getting lazy or they don't want people to buy a cell phone with unlimited access for exclusive internet access.
  • No, I just think I read that wrong. You might want to go the other way (using your laptop's network connection from the Treo) since the Treo doesn't have 802.11. When I am at home, I use 802.11 on my PDA; I only use Blueooth to my phone if I'm not around a 802.11 AP.

    I can't beleive they would disable that, especially since you don't have an unlimited data plan - they would be raking in the dough from you. (unless you switched to unmetered - maybe you did and I forgot)

    I know that ATT didn't disable this (at least on my phone) and Cingular didn't either.
  • Dan
    Yeah, that is the way it works. I would use the Treo as the connection to the internet over bluetooth. The same way you do it with your PDA and Nokia.

    Did you read it the other way. I better check to see if I said something wrong or misleading.

    And sync you bring that up, I don't know if you could go the other way. I don't know why you would but I wonder.
  • But can you still go the other way (use your Treo's connection from your laptop over bluetooth)?
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