The Ideos and other Huawei phones (Y210 and U5130) have proved to be a great bargain for Kenyans who want an Android smartphone but without the resulting dent in the pocket. At less than 8,000 bob, many Kenyans have been able to access cellphone features that only smartphones provide. Unfortunately, Airtel users have been suffering because configuring Airtel Internet settings on an Ideos and other Huawei models can be a real headache. The automatic settings you receive when you send the word “ALL” to 232 do not work and calls to customer care either go answered or you receive settings that do not work. For many customers, only the inconvenience of having to visit to an Airtel Office resolves the problem. After much trial and error, I have finally found out the exact settings that work. See below.
Instructions
- On your Huawei Ideos U8150 phone, go to ‘settings’, then ‘wireless and networks’
- Scroll down and select ‘mobile networks’.
- Select ‘Access Point Names’
- Click on the menu button on your phone (next to the home button on the left) and select ‘New APN’
- In the fields that appear, enter the following:
- Name: Airtel Internet
- APN: ke.celtel.com
- Proxy: Leave blank
- Port: 8080
- Username: Leave blank
- Password: Leave blank
- Server: Leave blank
- MMSC: Leave blank
- MMS Proxy: Leave blank
- MMS Port: Leave blank
- MCC:639
- MNC:03
- Authentication type: None
- APN Type: Default
- Click on the ‘Menu’ button again and select ‘Save’
- Switch off your phone, wait five minutes and switch it back on.
Tips & Warnings
- One would expect that the APN would be something like ‘ke.airtel.com’ but it appears that Airtel have never changed the APN. They still use the old APN that was in use when the company was named Celtel.
- These settings should work on other low end Huawei models such as the Y210 and U5130.
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