Configuring Connection Manager On My W960i (long)

Use Connections Manager to configure connections on the SW W960i.

I have a 125Mb data allowance from Vodafone which costs me £10.00 per month. If I exceed 125Mb then it costs me £1 per Mb. It is therefore crucial that my W960i is configured with the correct connection settings.

The documentation and help is fairly sparse but I think I have figured out how to configure network and internet connections on my SE W960i.

Accounts
First setup your accounts such as WAP, Internet and WLAN and then organise the accounts into groups.

Groups
Each account can be assigned to one or more groups.
In each group the accounts are placed in priority order.
When an application needs to make a network connection it will connect using the highest priority account in the group.

Default Group
The group name displayed in italics is the default group used by most applications.

Connections Manager displays the list of current connections. Connections shown above the Log line are active connections and connections shown below the Log line are connections that were in use but are not currently connected.

From Connections Manager select Settings and then Internet Accounts.

The Accounts Tab displays a list of configured accounts.

You can also use the Connections application in Control Panel to open Internet Accounts directly.

Accounts
The Accounts Tab lists each account that has been setup on my W960i.
At the moment I'm not sure what the Ad-Hoc Bluetooth PAN account is actually used for.

The Accounts Tab displays a list of configured accounts.

On my W960i the Contract Internet account is a 3G data connection that is pre-configured by Vodafone.

I use the Contract Internet account to connect directly to a remote site or server and without using a proxy server. I use the Contract Internet account for applications like ActiveSync and Google Maps.

Be careful which applications you allow to connect using the Contact Internet account as images are not compressed which means that you may be using up your 3G data allowance more rapidly then if a WAP connection was used.

On my W960i the Contract Wap account is a 3G data connection that is pre-configured by Vodafone.

I use the Contract Wap account with the default Web Browser. The Contract Wap account uses the Vodafone proxy server which down sizes any images so that they use less Internet allowance.

The Free Public WiFi account is a WAP account is pre-configured by Vodafone.

The Free Public WiFi account can be used you connect to any available public or unsecured WiFi service. Using a WiFi connection where available can be faster and cheaper than using your service providers 3G data connection.

The Public WiFi account does not have a SSID (Service Set Identifier) or security specified so it will connect to any public or unsecured WiFi service.

InlaserWLAN is my home wireless LAN. I added this connection to the list of accounts on my W960i.

The InlaserWLAN account is configured with the SSID (Service Set Identifier) and security is set so no hacking.

I don't use the PAYT Internet account as I have a contract with Vodafone.

I don't use the PAYT Wap account as I have a contract with Vodafone.

Groups
The Groups Tab lists the groups that have been setup on my W960i.
Accounts can be placed in groups.
Each account can be placed in multiple groups.
The priority of each account can be specified.
The name of default group is shown in italics.
Many applications connect to the Internet using the default group.
Other applications have a setting to allow the connection group to be specified.
The application tries to open a connection using the highest priority account.
If the connection fails then the next account is used and so on.

I have setup 3 network groups on my W960i.

 

I created the Internet Group on my W960i to only have WLAN (WiFi) connections. I use the Internet Group when I want a faster connection or I don't want to incur and 3G data charges.

The Vodafone Internet group was pre-configured by Vodafone when I received my W960i and it contained the Contract Internet account. I added Free Public WiFi and InlaserWLAN.

I use the Vodafone Internet group for applications which need a direct connection to the Internet and do not need or will not work using the Vodafone Wap proxy server.

The Vodafone Internet group will use my home Wireless LAN or a public WiFi or finally the Vodafone Contract Internet Account.

An application that works using WLAN (or WiFi) should work equally well using the Vodafone Internet group and visa-versa.

Be careful which application you allow to use the Vodafone Internet connection as images are not compressed which means that you may be using up your 3G data allowance more rapidly then if the Vodafone Wap group was used.

Application that use the Vodafone Internet  group are Opera Mini and Google Maps.

The Vodafone Wap group was pre-configured by Vodafone when I received my W960i and it contained the Contract Wap account. I added InlaserWLAN.

I use the Vodafone Wap group for applications which do need to use the Vodafone proxy server.

The Vodafone Internet group will use my home Wireless LAN the Vodafone Contract Wap Account. This configuration means that when I am at home my W960i will use my home Wireless LAN which provides a faster connection and does not use up my 3G data allowance.

Some applications such as Mobile TV only work when they are connected using the Vodafone WAP connection so if I want to use one of the affected application then I simple turn off WLAN on my W960i and the network connection defaults to Contract WAP.

Application that use the Vodafone Wap group are Web (using the installed browser) and Mobile TV.