Internet access on the Nokia 9200
Series Communicator is necessarily limited by the speed of the phone's GSM
connection. As a consequence, testing and debugging Internet-based applications
on hardware can be both expensive and tedious. The RAS IAP application
alleviates this problem by enabling you to connect to the Internet over a much
faster serial connection, via your PCThe application demonstrates how the
Symbian OS Communications database (CommDb) API may be used to configure an
Internet Access Point (IAP). To some extent it also shows the common paradigm
for using most DBMS derived APIs.An Internet Access Point defines ISP, modem,
charge card and location records that can be used together to make an Internet
connection. The IAP for the RAS connection specifies an ISP and modem record
(charge card and location records are required for this type of IAP). The CommDb
is a standard DBMS database. Modems, ISPs, charge cards, locations, IAPs etc are
all stored in their own tables within the database. There may be a number of
records within each table (e.g., there may be a number of IAPs, modems, ISPs,
etc.). As described in the preceding section, each IAP record defines the set of
ISP, modem, charge card, and location that can be used together. In other words,
an IAP record defines a set of records the other tables.The implication of the
above statement is that sets of CommDb records are accessed through their
associated table. The other implication is that you cannot create an IAP record
until you have already created the other records. Finally, the fact that there
may be many records in a table implies that each record must be uniquely
identified.2. Copy an existing CommDb that has a correctly configured IAP. This
method "works", but has several problems. Firstly, Symbian does not guarantee
that the CommDb will be binary compatible between releases. In practice this has
not been an issue, but it is something to keep in mind. Secondly, while you are
using your RAS IAP, you don't have access to IAPs you configured in the "real"
CommDb. Finally, and most importantly, CommDb configuration should be targeted
to the platform; The CommDb that you use for RAS connections may well disable
some of your other phone services.. Add an IAP to your existing (proven) CommDb
using RAS IAP. The advantage of this method is that you get to retain the CommDb
that your manufacturer put onto the phone, and therefore can expect the device
to continue to work with the new IAP! Also, the CommDb API is binary compatible
between releases, so you can rely on this method as you change phone. It is also
by far the simplest method! Rather than coding the application from first
principles, I used the standard Minimal Eikon Application Developer (MEAD) and
Menu Builder tools to create an application that I could easily customize. I
then modified the engine to write to the CommDb, and the UI to call the engine
as appropriate. Each of these exports calls non-exported functions to actually
implement the creation and deletion of the components of the
IAP