I noticed that many BlackBerry owners do not know how to tether their BlackBerry with their computer. Tethering in simpler terms means linking your BlackBerry to your computer to act as a modem so you’ll have a wireless Internet connection no matter where you are. Today, I’m going to give you a guide on how you can set that up in no more than 5 minutes. Before tethering your BlackBerry, you should check if your BIS data plan includes WAP/3G usage or not or else you’ll be charged according to the amount of data you download/upload. This guide will be done with a Windows 7 and should be similar to the Windows Vista.

First and foremost, the BlackBerry Desktop Manager has to be installed in your computer. If you do not have it installed and you don’t have the CD to your BlackBerry Desktop Manager, you can download it here. After you have installed the Desktop Manager, it is also important for you to connect your BlackBerry device to your computer via USB as well so that the standard modem drivers will be installed.

When you have installed both the BlackBerry Desktop Manager and the standard modem drivers, the next step is to add in some initialization commands so that it works with the BlackBerry. To do this, at the Start Menu, right click Computer and select Properties. On the left sidebar, select Device Manager and locate Modems, expand the list and double click the Standard Modem which will then open the properties page for it. Go to the Advanced tab and enter the following initialization command exactly like it is:

Celcom Users:
at+cgdcont=1,”ip”,”celcom3g”

Maxis Users:
at+cgdcont=1,”ip”,”unet”

Once you have entered the initialization command, hit OK to save the command. Note that “celcom3g” and “unet” is the APN for the respective mobile network operator, it varies from one to another so do check with your network operator for the APN.

The next step is to actually test if its working fine so double click the Standard Modem again and go to the Diagnostics tab. Hit the Query Modem button and it should show you Success at the Response field. Hit OK and close your Device Manager.

You are just a step away from connecting to the Internet if you reach this far. All you have to do now is to create a new dial-up connection. To do this, go to your Control Panel which can be found at your Start Menu, select Network and Internet and proceed to Network and Sharing Center. You should then see a Set up a new connection or network, select it. Now you’ll be given a list to choose from, select Set up a dial-up connection. If you are prompt “Which modem do you want to use?” then select Standard Modem. Fill in the fields as follow:

Dial-up phone number: *99#

The User name and Password field:

For Maxis:
User name: maxis
Password: wap

For Celcom:
Just leave the User name and Password field blank.

As for the Connection name, just key in anything you like so as long you can identify it. In my case, I entered Celcom 3G. Do note that the BlackBerry Desktop Manager has to be running with the BlackBerry device connected to work, so if you have both of this done then click Connect and you should be connected!

There’s also an easier way to tether your BlackBerry recently. The BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 SP1 now comes with an IP Modem feature for tethering so it can all be done via the BlackBerry Desktop Manager now. You can download the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 SP1 via this link. You have two ways to tether your BlackBerry, which would you prefer?