Reliance Phone as a Modem

I f you have a Reliance CDMA mobile phone, you can use it to connect to the Internet using Linux. You can either use the software provided on Reliance’s website (still in beta stage) or connect via a CDMA service provider.

Via CDMA service provider



To use your Reliance mobile phone as a modem, you first need to activate data calls in it. To do so dial *412 and wait for a confirmatory SMS. Then get a data cable (easily available for all Reliance CDMA phones) and connect your mobile phone to your PC/laptop. We tested it using PCQLinux 8.0 with glibc 2.3.2 and a Samsung N191 CDMA phone. The Kudzu (hardware-detection tool for Linux) will automatically detect the phone as a USB/COM modem, depending on which data cable interface you’ve connected it with. Once your OS boots, you have to configure the wvdial.conf to dial to the Net. For accessing the Internet, all CDMA providers use a standard number (#777). Now create a dialer in /etc/wvdial.conf which will dial to this number. Don’t use any graphical utility to create it as it may not work properly. Modify the file so that it looks something like this:

The Reliance software has an easy to use GUI

Modem = /dev/input/ttyXYZ


Baud = 230400


SetVolume = 0


Dial Command = ATDT


Init1 = ATZ


FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)





Username = your_phone_number


Password = your_phone_number


Phone = #777


Stupid Mode = 1


Inherits = Modem0

In the second line, replace ttyXYZ to ttyS0 (For Com1) or ttyS1 (For Com2) if you’re using a RS232 port on your PC to connect your phone. If you are using the USB interface, then replace it with ttyACMx. Here x is the number of devices minus one, which you have connected to your USB port. You can find it by running the usbview command. Now enter your mobile phone number with your STD code without the first 0 in both username and password fields. Enter #777 in the Phone field and don’t forget to enter the Stupid Mode = 1 option or your modem will not work. Now, run the following command.

#wvdial cdma

Here cdma is the name of your dialer. Currently, the bandwidth available is pretty good. We got 230 kbps.

Using Reliance software



You can download the binary .tgz tree from www.relianceinfo.com/Infocomm/html/rservices/rservices_ linux_rconnect.html. Since it is still in beta, it may be a little buggy. Unzip and untar the file using the following command.

#tar —zxvf rconnect-0.5.tgz 

Change to directory rconnect-0.5 and run the shell script called rconnect as follows. 

#cd rconnect-0.5



#./rconnect

Follow the instructions on the GUI for selecting and configuring the phone as a modem. When the wizard is finished go to any terminal and run the following.

#rconnect no>

Here the first phone number is your username and the other is the password. To disconnect, fire a command rdisconnect in a terminal window.

Anindya Roy