Using Wi Fi on a mobile phone

[inthesticks]

DS1 has just bought a Samsung Monte.
It has Wi Fi which I thought would come in handy for free access to Facebook etc when he can't use a computer.

I've set it up to our home Wi Fi and tested it out without a Sim card. Working Ok. When he has a Sim card in though it seems to default to using the mobile phone line and using his precious credit.

So how to make sure the phone accesses Wi Fi when he uses the internet.

Incidently I can't believe how clueless DS is about all this. He is 14 and I am very old. I thought they were supposed to teach us about technology.

We are going on holiday next week and were hoping he could use the Wi Fi.

Hoping some clever tecky person knows the answer to this?

Is there any way to disable the phone function.

Admittedly I have no knowledge of that particular phone, but some have "aircraft mode" to disable one or both phone / wi-fi functions.

One I am using has something called the "Comms Manager" panel, which has icons for Bluetooth, Wireless and Phone (and one or two others). So it is possible to enable or disable individual 'services' - in my case I usually check for new text messages a couple of times a day by enabling the phone function, but the rest of the time I just have wireless enabled.

I hope that you can find a suitable menu - failing that, he will need to (1) force all calls to Voicemail (so if any friends phone him, the phone won't ring while abroad - else he could be hit for international calls if you are abroad) and (2) consider removing the SIM card (take a suitable sealable plastic bag to be able to keep it safe and clear of water / sand / liquids (in case it is in the bottom of a backpack and some fruit juice spills - don't want the SIM damaged or lost).

Checking the Samsung user manual (open the pages (to display thumbnails of the pages) and go down to pages 62 and 63 and hopefully you will force the phone to use your home wireless LAN not the mobile network.

Hope you have checked for 'hot spots' at restaurants / hotels / pubs where you are going so he isn't disappointed. Also if you go to France, the manual says you're not allowed to use wireless outside... Must say that's something I'd never seen before!

Thanks NetworkGuy for taking the trouble to reply.
I think it's working.

It's hard to tell whether the phone is selecting wi fi when you access the internet but I've tried various combinations. It seems the in built apps are somehow pre set to use the phone network but if you go in via "internet" and bookmark your chosen sites it uses the wi fi.

The hotel has wi fi so as you say if all else fails he can remove the sim.

At home, on your existing router, you may be able to check what's connected using ethernet sockets and via wireless.

Easy option is to switch mobile phone off, power up a PC/laptop, get the router page, and look for 'status' or 'wireless' and see if you can see anything listed.

Then get son to switch mobile phone on, and you should (if you refresh the wireless status display) see an unidentified item (unless the phone 'reports' that it is a Samsung.

Might be worth downloading that PDF into the mobile, assuming you can view it on there OK, so that when you are away, you can check the user guide if there's some security setting the hotel tells you to use. Might also be worth contacting them in advance to ask if they can send you an e-mail with the settings, as you are new to this phone and want to see you know what to set on it.

Hopefully they will co-operate. Good luck.

One easier way to check if his connection is via your home router and wireless (or via mobile network) is to visit this web page (it's just a list of BBC radio streams that can be played using Windows Media Player, which is on "Windows Mobile" phones)

At the bottom of the page it says something like

Viewed on IP 94.197.79.127 at 2010-08-01 08:03

Below that is a little graphic image which will repeat the IP address. In my case it didn't show the name of my ISP (Three mobile network) but what you can do is call up the page from your home PC and your son's phone (no need to find out about the router status info).

If his phone has pulled the page via wireless and your home router, it will have the same IP as your PC shows. If it downloaded the page via the Mobile network, the IPs will be different.

Sorry, had forgotten I saw that web page the other day and what it shows... should have mentioned it before!

I can see the phone in the list of devices connected to the PC wi Fi, and I know it works without the sim card.

One thing I did was to switch off the phone's wi fi and then access the net. then go back to the wi fi icon and see whether it has switched it on again , (hopefully an indication that it's used wi fi).

Son taken his new phone out now so I can't play with at the moment.

Must remember to set MN up on his bookmarks

Thanks again.