lumrant
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
WAP!
With the help of Knave, I have stuck it to The Man! The Man in this case being Verizon. I can now once again browse various Web resources for free using my cell phone, provided that:
- Road Runner does not change my IP address to something different
- My home computer is up and running
OK, admittedly, it's fairly brittle. But still, it's better than relying on somebody else to keep a free WAP Gateway up and running (at least I know whom to blame if mine is down!), and it's better than paying $5/month to Verizon for something that is, at the end of the day, mostly only there to amuse me while I'm killing time at the doctor's office or something.
The engine: an open-source WAP Gateway server called Kannel. As of this moment, anyone in the world can open up their mobile phone, tell it to use IP address 68.202.100.132 (port 9201) as their WAP gateway, and voila: my home computer is suddenly feeding data to their phone from the Internet. Creepy. I'm sure Road Runner will deprive me of this IP soon, so I'm not fearful that my poor computer will be overwhelmed with gateway requests...
Ah, blogger. Sadly, I come not to add anything meaningful, but instead to record some details of my hunt for a free WAP gateway.
For a couple of months now, my bootlegger WAP Gateway on my cell phone has not been working, and I've been too lazy to figure out why. Today, inspired by the discovery that I can access my ISP's Web mail client via WAP, I have decided to get to the bottom of it.
First thing: I double-checked the old WAPTunnel.com settings and verified that I had them right. Apparently, WAPTunnel is no longer providing a free gateway at 207.232.99.109 (Port 9201). :-(
Next: research. Though the old FAQ site that I had relied on still claims that WAPTunnel is the way to go, I finally stumbled into other threads elsewhere that insist that "WAPTunnel is dead." Fortunately, someone listed the alternative gateway 12.25.203.11, which they claim was given to the public by OpenWave.
Well, trying that one, it does work: it sends me to an OpenWave homepage that gives me some access to news, sports, etc., and urges me to get a real account. And indeed, when I go to Advanced and try to change my homepage to my WAP page, I am denied! So, apparently, this new WAP Gateway is free, but it isn't open in the sense that it will let me get to arbitrary places.
Searching Google for "207.232.99.109 12.25.203.11", I found only one hit: a sort of Master Guide on this topic that was posted in January 2004.
Looks like I'll find the love I need there! Off to screw around with my phone.
By the way, I'm screwing around instead of working today because my work group is busily having a little party in honor of an Award we won. This is my exciting way to join in!
