SIM Unlocking a Cingular 2125 and Setting up Exchange with ActiveSync
Well this post really has nothing to do with Venture Capital, but I spent yesterday night setting up a new phone and had to go to many different places on the web to figure out how to make it work. I have benefitted from HowTos that people post many times before, so I thought maybe it’s time for me to share my experiences on this one. Also, it shows that (i) VCs know how to change a SIM card, a fact that is not universally accepted and (ii) VCs don’t ALL have Blackberries.
The phone in question is the Cingular 2125 (CNet review, Russell Beattie’s review) that looks a bit like a shoehorn and is still reasonably priced (especially if you can negotiate with the Cingular folks after having had a SonyEricsson T68i for more than 3 years…). If you want to unlock the SIM and set up ActiveSync for Exchange, the below may be helpful.
Unlock the phone to make it work with any SIM card
If you are like me and want to also use the phone with a different provider abroad, it’ll ask you for an unlock code when you put in a non-Cingular SIM card. You can pay some shady service on the web to the tune of $35 to get an unlock code, but not only do I have no idea whether these guys just want your Credit Card to purchase a shiny new phone for themselves, I also don’t know whether it works. I was happy to find a free piece of software that does the job well – here’s what I did:
1) Install the Microsoft ActiveSync software from the enclosed CD. This lets you transfer files between your PC and Phone. Note that I had no SIM in the phone when I did this, just the Cingular 64k smartchip that came for free with the phone.
2) Download the free unlocking tool from SPV Services called
SPV-Services.zip.
3) Unzip the tools into a folder on your computer. Now open Microsoft Active Sync, hit the “Explore” button and drag the cert.cab file onto one of the folders in the Active Synce Window. For example, I chose the “Notes” folder. You can now go to the “File Manager” function on your phone (Home->Start->More->File Manager) and navigate to the folder where you dropped the file. In my case, this was “MyDocuments\Notes”. Select the cert.cab file, click on it and confirm execution. You may need to reboot the phone, but it worked without it for me.
4) Go back to the folder on your PC where you downloaded the SPV Tools and start SPVServices.exe. Select SIMLockTool. In my case it warned me that it will only work with Orange C500 or 550 – I had read somewhere that it also worked for the Cingular 2125 so I chose to dare it. However, I am sure by doing this you may VOID YOUR WARRANTY and I cannot guarantee at all that it will work for you – I did so at my own risk and it worked fine. So if you want to go for it, type “AGREE” in the box below the disclaimer, hit Login and see the magic happen. Disconnect your phone, enter your non-Cingular SIM card and voila – you should be set.
Setting up GPRS for your current provider
If you are using a different provider, you may need to set up a new GPRS connection (provided you have a data plan). In order to do so, on the Cingular 2125 go to Start->Setting->Connections->GPRS. Then click Menu->Add. You can find a list of international operator’s access points here, but I found an excellent page that included the generic login infos and DNS server in this Google Cache link – the original page seems gone. I then deleted the original Cingular connection because I was not sure whether the phone would automatically pick the right one.
Setting up Exchange
1) Configuring your server. This is described in this MSFT article. However, this didn’t work for me just yet…see below if you’re in the same boat.
2) Install the certificate
If you are using a self-signed certificate on your Exchange server (chances are, you are…) you first have to install the cert on the phone otherwise you’ll get an error with the meaningful support code 0x80072F0D. To do, you need to export the certificate on your PC so you have it as a file. On the Mac, go to Keychain, select the cert from your exchange server and hit “Export”. On Windows, go to this MSFT article and make sure you read the notes at the bottom. Once you have the certificate exported, transfer it from your PC to the phone using Active Sync the same way you transfer the cert.cab file as described in the Unlock your SIM section above.
Once the cert is on the Cingular 2125, navigate to the cert and click it, confirm installation and you’re done.
Now everything should be working fine. If there are still issues, the following point may help, otherwise you can skip to miscellaneous hints below if you’d like.
3) Making sure your Exchange server is set up as a front-end server
This only applies if your server is NOT a Small Business Exchange server.
Now this can be a tricky part if you are in a big company and can’t simply have the admin play wih Exchange settings. Anyway, in my case the phone kept asking for my password, even though I entered the right one. This issue seems to be related to the fact that ActiveSync doesn’t play nice if your server requires SSL based authentication, and I believe most people (hopefully) set theirs up to do so. In this case, I guess you are having one of the issues described in this Microsoft article. Fixing it requires making Exchange a front-end server, and while I have no idea what that means it is achieved by setting a check box. This is the article that explains how to do it.
If it still doesn’t work, check the error code. Go into ActiveSync on the Cingular 2125, select the “Attention required” (this should show up if there was an error). Click on “View Support Code”. Now you can refer to the list here (sorry, partly in German), or hunt for it in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Miscellaneous
- I didn’t like the “Get XPress Mail” item from Cingular that they stuck in the middle of the home screen, since I was using ActiveSync. To get rid of it, select Start->Settings->Home Screen and for “Home Screen Layout” choose “Windows Default” instead of Cingular and the logo is gone..
- There is a very detailed description of the phone at msmobiles.com. Via a comment to a Robert Scoble post I also came across this application that apparently lets you record calls…I haven’t tried it, but if you want to record a podcast on your phone this could be a way to do so.
I hope this was helpful to you, and if you read this far I am sure you own the phone so have fun with it and please let me know if you have any hints for me as a newbie to this phone!
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