phone as bluetooth modem

Finally a lucid article in smartphonemag.com which also points to an article in smartphonethoughts.com for PC configuration gave the crucial info - the number to be entered in the dial-up networking is *99# - once this is done, everything works. Apparently this is a code which tells the mobile phone to connect to GPRS connection which has already been set up. There are other similar codes found on googling - *99***1# for example, and another is *99*1#. Maybe this means the first GPRS setting in memory or something like that. Anyway, this provides a way to dial up with the USB connection also without using the USBModem_Dialer.exe - use the *99# as the number and the USB modem as the device. But here, two caveats:

1. The Modem Link software has to be running on the mobile before the USB is connected.
2. The APN has to be entered, since Modem Link doesn't seem to remember it.

APN entering has to be a bit of voodoo, as explained at the pdagold article - it has to be entered into the modem properties. In my case, the path is different from the pdagold article - in Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager -> Modem properties -> Advanced tab -> Extra initialization commands. Here, entered AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","airtelgprs.com" where airtelgprs.com is my APN. Then, the normal windows dialler works.