Wireless Internet: BlackBerry Curve as Bluetooth Modem for OS-X Mac

Updated September 21, 2022 • 281 comments

Stay connected to the Internet wherever you go by using your BlackBerry Curve (8300) as a Bluetooth modem for your OS-X-powered Macintosh…

[ Apple MacBook ] This tutorial guides you through the process of connecting wirelessly to the Internet using your BlackBerry Curve (8300) as a Bluetooth modem for your Macintosh (running OS X) via native Bluetooth functionality. The benefits of such wireless connectivity are numerous, enabling greater productivity and maximized Internet access. The procedure is straightforward, and the tutorial assumes no prior knowledge of either Bluetooth or BlackBerry. Knowing your way around a Mac will help, but is not required. Note that using your BlackBerry as a wireless modem for your Mac (or any computer) is classified as tethering, and may or may not be covered by your wireless plan¹. Having said that, the setup time for this tutorial should be well under thirty minutes, and requires² the following three items:

Macintosh running OS X with Bluetooth
BlackBerry Curve 8300 with Internet access³
Blackberry Modem Script← Click to download version 8300 ( 2.08 KB ZIP )

All set? Let’s get started…

Install the BlackBerry Modem Script

Unzip the BlackBerry_8300.zip file and save a copy of the extension-less modem-script to the “Modem Scripts” directory on your Mac: Finder → Hard Disk → Library → Modem Scripts

Pair the BlackBerry Curve with your Mac

Okay, now to pair the BlackBerry and Mac via Bluetooth. Crack open your BlackBerry, go to “Manage Connections”, and enable Bluetooth via checkmark (the icon should then show a yellow minus icon). Then, go to “Bluetooth Options”, press the menu key, select “Options”, and ensure that the “Discoverable” option is set to “Yes”.

Now, open System Preferences on your Mac and open the “Bluetooth” configuration panel. Enable Bluetooth and make it “Discoverable” [ Screenshot ].

Next, within the System Preferences panel, select the “Devices” tab and click “Set Up New Device…” to begin the setup process [ Screenshot ].

The first step in the device setup process is a “Welcome” screen. Click continue. Next, in the “Select Device Type” screen, select “Any Device” from the list and click “Continue”. Next is the “Searching” screen, which eventually (it may take a few moments) should indicate your BlackBerry device as a mobile phone. After the device is found, select in the list and click “Continue”.

Next is the “Gathering Information” screen, which displays the progress of the information gathering process. Wait until the process is complete and then click “Continue”. The next screen displays the all-important passkey. [ Screenshot ]. At this time, your BlackBerry should display its “Enter Numeric Passkey” prompt. Enter the passkey in the field provided (Note: there is a limited amounted of time for this step — if necessary, click “Go back” on the Mac and try again).

Upon successful entry of the passkey, a “Pairing Complete” message appears briefly, and a confirmation prompt appears asking if you would like to “Accept connection request from mac?”. First, select “Don’t ask this again” and then click the “Yes” button.

Configure the Bluetooth Connection

[ Image: BlackBerry Curve and Mac PowerBook ]
BlackBerry Wireless Modem for Mac So far so good. We are almost finished! Now it is time to configure the Bluetooth connection. On your Mac, the “Devices” subpanel (System Preferences → Bluetooth → Devices tab) should display the BlackBerry 8300 on the Bluetooth device list [ Screenshot ]. Select the BlackBerry 8300 from the list and click on “Configure” to open the configuration dialogue (Note: the Device Configuration dialogue may have opened automatically after the device pairing process).

Next, in the “Select the services you want to use with your mobile phone” screen, select “Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection” and also select “Use a direct, higher speed connection to reach your Internet Service Provider (GPRS, 1xRTT)” [ Screenshot ]. Click “Continue”.

Then, in the Username/Password screen, leave the username and password fields blank, and enter *99***1# for the GPRS CID String. For the modem, click the dropdown menu and select the custom modem script, “BlackBerry 8300”. And finally, select “Show Modem status in the menu bar” and then click “Continue” [ Screenshot ].

Upon successful completion of the device configuration process, the “Congratulations” screen will display: “Accessing the Internet using a high speed wireless data service (e.g. GPRS) from your wireless operator.” — Excellent. Click “Quit” to seal the deal.

Connect to the Internet via BlackBerry

With everything properly connected and configured, we are ready now to connect to the Internet. Click on the small ‘Modem Status’ (telephone) icon in your menu bar and select “Open Internet Connect…” [ Screenshot ].

Within the Connections dialogue box, select the Bluetooth tab and populate the form fields with the following information:

Telephone: wap.voicestream.com (T-Mobile) or wap.cingular (Cingular/AT&T)
Username: guest (T-Mobile) or WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM (Cingular/AT&T)
Password: guest (T-Mobile) or CINGULAR1 (Cingular/AT&T)
[ Screenshot ]

All set? Click “Connect”! If everything went according to plan, your Mac should be using your BlackBerry Curve as a Bluetooth modem and you should now see the “Connection Status” dialogue box, indicating connectivity [ Screenshot ].

Footnotes

¹ For Cingular/At&T subscribers: According to the customer service department, unless your plan specifically supports tethering, tethered connections will only work until the system catches on and blacklists your device (only as a tethered modem). Also, the representative assured me that pre-blacklist connections would not be billed.
² These are the devices used for the production of this tutorial. It may be possible to connect via alternate devices/software with similar features.
³ Different carriers provide different data/internet access plans and thus have different connection credentials (e.g., username, password). While covering every different plan is waaay beyond the scope of this article, the tutorial does provide connection credentials for both Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile.

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Book Author. Secretly Important.

281 responses to “Wireless Internet: BlackBerry Curve as Bluetooth Modem for OS-X Mac”

mike freeman 2008/08/12 5:00 pm

Conrad – I wasn’t able to get it to sync with my Mac, I had to use my neighbors PC. I called in and there is no way to do it on a Mac. You could use bootcamp, but I don’t have it.

mike freeman 2008/08/12 5:03 pm

ARGH! Ok, haha, I got everything to work like a gem….then my dumbass decided to use a theme that I got with the older version. When I did that, it gave me a 532 error and bricked my phone.

*ATTENTION* – If you apply the new OS – DO NOT – use themes from the previous version. I now have to reformat the phone and do the reinstall process again!

You’ve been warned.

Gianni 2008/08/12 4:10 pm

Mike,
Did you reattempt installing?

Gianni 2008/08/12 4:44 pm

Awesome! you will soon discover (if you haven’t already) that the new BB OS also includes html e-mail, a video camera, and better web browser. I’m glad to hear that it’s working. The connection is a bit slow; but, for those long drives its wonderful to have the ability to have internet.

Conrad 2008/08/12 4:48 pm

I have been following your comments all day but just to clarify, Mike, you did not have a pc or windows. Were you able to install on your Mac or did you use a pc. Thanks

Gianni 2008/08/12 4:52 pm

Food for thought, the new BB OS allows BB’s to recognize up to 8gig memory! Also if you don’t have the html, have the service books resent and it works. After you resend the service books (go to the options in e-mail manager) do a atl, right shift and del….hold them down all at once. this will reset the phone without having to do the battery pull.

Conrad 2008/08/13 9:49 pm

Thank you Mike and Gianni. Although it is perfectly ironic that in order to use my mac with my blackberry, I had to use a friend’s pc first to download the new blackberry os and desktop manager, the new blackberry os works perfectly. I have been able to surf the web and send and receive emails all via bluetooth my macbook pro (leopard). The new blackberry video camera is a pretty cool app as well. I took your advice Mike and deleted the previous 3rd party themes. I did take about an hour and a half to do the whole process but seems to be worth it at the moment. Keep you posted.

mike freeman 2008/08/14 12:27 pm

Ok, so I just talked with the good people over at T-Mobile (did I just call them good people?) Officially T-Mobile doesn’t support the 4.5 Update. Which you need to have to run the Bluetooth Modem on OSX’s platform.

I spoke with the TMO Blackberry tech support and told them my issue. I told them I was getting a 532 error, and the guy quickly put me on the phone with a RIM tech person.

Since you have to be on a PC to run any of the updates for the BB, they couldn’t help me. They offered to tell TMO to just send me a new phone. Which I am awaiting now.

My suggestion to everyone is to NOT update your OS to the new version. Or at least wait until its offered by TMO or RIM comes out with a Desktop Manager for Mac. As or right now, the dude from RIM told me that the version is LEAKED and they don’t support it.

I got lucky. They agreed to just GIVE me a new phone. But they said this was my “one time” they would do it. Had I not been lucky, then I would either have to buy a new phone / or pay someone to fix it. Either way, I wouldn’t like it.

Maybe I am wrong, and not techy enough to know how to fix it on my own, but I am sure there are people out there in my shoes who aren’t smart enough to do it on their own. So maybe I should say, do it if your smarter than I am, and know how to fix whatever you screw up. Good luck, and thanks again for everyones help. I just want y’all to know its not quite as easy as it looks.

Question to the people that have updated their OS. Have you had any odd error with it? I have done an enormous amount of research, and it seems like everyone is having a lot of trouble updating. And its impossible to update through mac, and if you mess it up, your up a creek.

Elle 2008/08/20 7:19 am

Will this stop my current connection from my mac to my BT wireless internet ?

katie 2008/08/26 2:11 pm

Hello everyone. Forgive me if this has been answered, but I’ve been looking through all of these posts and not knowing which one to go by! I have a blackberry curve and a macbook pro. I installed the modem script etc. And it connects me to the internet, but disconnects me after about a minute. I talked to apple and tmobile(my service provider) and no ones knows what to do. Any ideas would be great.
Thanks
Katie

Andy 2008/08/26 4:42 pm

Just tested this on ATT and it works for me. I am using a MacBook and Blackberry Curve 8310. The only hiccup is that I did not notice that the password ‘CINGULAR1’ is in ALL CAPS. It did not work for me until I changed it to all caps. Now if I could only use my Blackberry as a fax modem.

Thanks for the excellent writeup.

Mike J 2008/08/28 1:22 am

Hi Katie…I have an 8320 curve running osx 10.4 with T-Mobile. I also could not get a connection to work for more than a minute or two. After tons of research i decided for now it wasn’t possible. Finally i tried iMobiMac modem. It costs about $75 and there cust support is horrible, but it does work. I’ve been using it to successfully connect to the web for about 3 weeks. Its about twice as fast as a dialup. Also you need a strong EDGE network connection. Let me know if you want more info, Mike J……

Comments are closed for this post. Something to add? Let me know.

mike freeman 2008/08/12 5:00 pm

Conrad – I wasn’t able to get it to sync with my Mac, I had to use my neighbors PC. I called in and there is no way to do it on a Mac. You could use bootcamp, but I don’t have it.
mike freeman 2008/08/12 5:03 pm

ARGH! Ok, haha, I got everything to work like a gem….then my dumbass decided to use a theme that I got with the older version. When I did that, it gave me a 532 error and bricked my phone.

*ATTENTION* – If you apply the new OS – DO NOT – use themes from the previous version. I now have to reformat the phone and do the reinstall process again!

You’ve been warned.
Gianni 2008/08/12 4:10 pm

Mike,
Did you reattempt installing?
Gianni 2008/08/12 4:44 pm

Awesome! you will soon discover (if you haven’t already) that the new BB OS also includes html e-mail, a video camera, and better web browser. I’m glad to hear that it’s working. The connection is a bit slow; but, for those long drives its wonderful to have the ability to have internet.
Conrad 2008/08/12 4:48 pm

I have been following your comments all day but just to clarify, Mike, you did not have a pc or windows. Were you able to install on your Mac or did you use a pc. Thanks
Gianni 2008/08/12 4:52 pm

Food for thought, the new BB OS allows BB’s to recognize up to 8gig memory! Also if you don’t have the html, have the service books resent and it works. After you resend the service books (go to the options in e-mail manager) do a atl, right shift and del….hold them down all at once. this will reset the phone without having to do the battery pull.
Conrad 2008/08/13 9:49 pm

Thank you Mike and Gianni. Although it is perfectly ironic that in order to use my mac with my blackberry, I had to use a friend’s pc first to download the new blackberry os and desktop manager, the new blackberry os works perfectly. I have been able to surf the web and send and receive emails all via bluetooth my macbook pro (leopard). The new blackberry video camera is a pretty cool app as well. I took your advice Mike and deleted the previous 3rd party themes. I did take about an hour and a half to do the whole process but seems to be worth it at the moment. Keep you posted.
mike freeman 2008/08/14 12:27 pm

Ok, so I just talked with the good people over at T-Mobile (did I just call them good people?) Officially T-Mobile doesn’t support the 4.5 Update. Which you need to have to run the Bluetooth Modem on OSX’s platform.

I spoke with the TMO Blackberry tech support and told them my issue. I told them I was getting a 532 error, and the guy quickly put me on the phone with a RIM tech person.

Since you have to be on a PC to run any of the updates for the BB, they couldn’t help me. They offered to tell TMO to just send me a new phone. Which I am awaiting now.

My suggestion to everyone is to NOT update your OS to the new version. Or at least wait until its offered by TMO or RIM comes out with a Desktop Manager for Mac. As or right now, the dude from RIM told me that the version is LEAKED and they don’t support it.

I got lucky. They agreed to just GIVE me a new phone. But they said this was my “one time” they would do it. Had I not been lucky, then I would either have to buy a new phone / or pay someone to fix it. Either way, I wouldn’t like it.

Maybe I am wrong, and not techy enough to know how to fix it on my own, but I am sure there are people out there in my shoes who aren’t smart enough to do it on their own. So maybe I should say, do it if your smarter than I am, and know how to fix whatever you screw up. Good luck, and thanks again for everyones help. I just want y’all to know its not quite as easy as it looks.

Question to the people that have updated their OS. Have you had any odd error with it? I have done an enormous amount of research, and it seems like everyone is having a lot of trouble updating. And its impossible to update through mac, and if you mess it up, your up a creek.
Elle 2008/08/20 7:19 am

Will this stop my current connection from my mac to my BT wireless internet ?
katie 2008/08/26 2:11 pm

Hello everyone. Forgive me if this has been answered, but I’ve been looking through all of these posts and not knowing which one to go by! I have a blackberry curve and a macbook pro. I installed the modem script etc. And it connects me to the internet, but disconnects me after about a minute. I talked to apple and tmobile(my service provider) and no ones knows what to do. Any ideas would be great.
Thanks
Katie
Andy 2008/08/26 4:42 pm

Just tested this on ATT and it works for me. I am using a MacBook and Blackberry Curve 8310. The only hiccup is that I did not notice that the password ‘CINGULAR1’ is in ALL CAPS. It did not work for me until I changed it to all caps. Now if I could only use my Blackberry as a fax modem.

Thanks for the excellent writeup.
Mike J 2008/08/28 1:22 am

Hi Katie…I have an 8320 curve running osx 10.4 with T-Mobile. I also could not get a connection to work for more than a minute or two. After tons of research i decided for now it wasn’t possible. Finally i tried iMobiMac modem. It costs about $75 and there cust support is horrible, but it does work. I’ve been using it to successfully connect to the web for about 3 weeks. Its about twice as fast as a dialup. Also you need a strong EDGE network connection. Let me know if you want more info, Mike J……

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