Tethering allows the sharing of a mobile phone’s GPRS/EDGE/3G Internet connection with a PC, typically via USB or Bluetooth/WiFi. Nokia, Andorid and Windows Mobile (before Windows Phone 7) phones support tethering. Most service providers in India have data plans that allow tethering, enabling access to the Internet on laptops while on the move.

In fact, tethering has often come to my rescue where most other ways to connect to the Internet have failed. I blame it on the lack of their availability and/or price. Hence I aptly demand tethering from every phone I own or use. But my latest  phone, a Dell Venue Pro ^[1] (powered by Windows Phone 7), does not support tethering out of the box.

Googling reveals a hack which is repeated across the Web. But the hack never worked on my Dell Venue Pro. The issue was, the hack instructs switching to Composite mode via an option called Service Center. But on my phone I could not spot the Service Center. I suspect it could be that Dell chose to hide the Service Center option in its phones sold in India. Fortunately, I found a trick which reveals the Service Center.  Thanks to these couple of hacks, I now enjoy USB tethering with my Dell Venue Pro, on my laptop running Windows 7 64bit. Following is how I tethered my Dell Venue Pro bought in India.

1. Follow the instructions found here (original link) ^[2] or here (better explained) ^[3].
2. As explained above, if you don’t see the Service Center under EM, refer to this interesting trick ^[4].
3. Following are the Extra Initialization Command, for a few phone service providers in India, that I tried out. The dial-up number *99*# and a blank username and password worked for me for all these service providers.
   • Vodafone:
     AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”portalnmms”
     or
     AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”blackberry.net”
   • Airtel:
     AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”airtelgprs.com”
   • MTNL 3G:
     AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”gprsmtnldel”
     

I have not included the entire step-by-step instructions to tether a Dell Venue Pro because I want to give full credit to the original websites that posted the much-needed hacks. Having said that, in case you have any queries you can always shoot a comment ^[5] at me

Note: If you want to sync with Zune Software, you will have to turn off Composite mode and switch back to Zune mode. This can be done by going to the Service Center (as explained in the links above) and clicking on the Zune button.

Happy Tethering!!!