I am a user of a Compaq 2510p which has due to company policy had Vista removed and XP SP3 installed. I also use a Nokia N82.

So far have failed to figure out how to use the phone as a modem to connect the laptop to the internet. Can someone please advise if I am trying to do the impossible. If not then how to successfully do this.

I can't tell you info as to details for your specic computer and phone.. but can tell you in general (as i do it with a dell laptop and a Motorola phone)

• First and most important, is you probably need a software application that targets this functionality. i don't believe you're going to get it work "right out of the box"
• The phones can be "tethered" to your laptop or not (and sometimes that's the wireless carriers choice and not a matter if the hardware can do it)
  • Tethered means it requires a cable to connect phone and laptop
  • Un-tethered is the obvious then. No cable. In my case, i use bluetooth on my phone and computer. Nice advantage is not having to plug/unplug a darn cable as u walk in /. out of the room. I;ll walk out and lose my Bluetooth connection, and then walk back in..here the beeping 10 secs until they reconnect

Thanks for that. I had been trying to get it to work without any special software as I had successfully done that a few years back with less advances PC and phone.

Can you advise what type of software I need or even better what specific software you use? I may be lucky and it does support my hardware.

well, i use Motorola Phone Tools so i think that rules out working with the Nokia.

who is your wireless carrier? for some reason verizon tries to stop untethered use (don't know why, or if they still do)

and also strongly recommend whatever you buy
- be certain of its return policy
- be certain to check out asap on your specific hardware

At one point (esp when considering new phones) i was carrying my laptop to wireless phone stores to ask if i could test (to see if my motorola softwre on my laptop worked with new motorola phones in the stores and OVER THEIR wireless network). is a pain, but can save you grief down the road if, as for me, needed to know it all worked) and honestly some of the tech details are something you just can't depend someone on the other end of a tech support phone to really know.. so u need just test it yourself

The carrier is Era in Poland.

Thanks for the rest but don't think I will be able to test anything there. The only thing they have in shops are PCMCIA modems locked to the bundled sim card. I want to use my phone with my sim to have the bill go to the same account and don't really want to go buying one even without a sim so I wouldn't have to move the sim back and forth.

All the hardware mentioned is already in my hands and not returnable so no choice but having a go at making it work.

you could start googling things like

nokia n82 wireless modem or
nokia n82 bluetooth modem 3g windows

and start tweaking the search words if you need better results and should hopefully find some more specific info

thanks guys,

just figured out that Nokia PC Suite which I already have installed has a couple of icons I have not identified before. One of them is "Internet". Now I feel like complete *****.

Nahhhh, hardly...

Is easy to overlook (especially when you don't yet know what you're looking for)

just glad it was simple for you to solve (or maybe i'll bite my tongue until you've actually logged onto the internet using it!)

True, roaming internationaly atm and my phone internet not working so can't test it untill I am back in 2 days.