Step one: Don’t call Vodafone customer service when you find that the thing was delivered without GPRS access settings.
Step two: Don’t assume that the settings are on your SIM card.
Step three: Don’t believe the Vodafone propaganda that they have a “GPRS Helpline” – your call goes through to the generic helpline in the queue with all the billing enquiries.
Step four: Don’t get yourself angry by listening to the little voice in your brain that says “Every call centre in the world keeps real-time stats on how many callers are on hold, how many hang up, and the average time to answer a call – you’ve actually seen one with a big LED display hanging from the ceiling with those figures on. SO WHY THE FUCK CAN’T THEY PUT THE AVERAGE WAITING TIME IN THE RECORDED ANNOUNCEMENT SO I KNOW IF THIS IS WORTH DOING, RATHER THAN OH-SO-FRIENDLY BULLSHIT ABOUT HOW ALL OUR OPERATORS ARE HELPING OTHER CUSTOMERS AND AWFUL MUSIC?”
Step five: Answer the phone jockey’s security questions. Give a full and detailed account of the information you need – the Access Point Name, username, password, primary DNS server IP address, session type, security/authentication status and homepage URL.
Step six: “I’ll just put you through to our products and services…”
Step seven: Hold for 15 minutes. See step four.
Step eight: Give up.
Step nine: Google.
Step ten: Try a variety of mutually contradictory settings, three versions, proffered by websites.
Step eleven: Try the following settings under GPRS Connections/The Internet
APN: internet (for contract customers – pp.vodafone.co.uk for PAYGers.)
Username: web
Password: web
Homepage url: http://live.vodafone.com
Primary DNS: 212.183.137.012
Secondary DNS: There is no secondary DNS
Gateway IP address: Blank
Information from here. These guys, and these, have duff gen. It shouldn’t be like this. The pointless username/password especially piss me off.