This was first posted in my old, dead blog Jazzed Up! on Dec 31, 2007 6:05 PM

Note: This trick is not specifically for BSNL Broadband, It applies for anyone who uses a broadband connection which requires you to connect using your username and password.

Wanted to schedule your BSNL Broadband Night Unlimited Connection to dial up automatically to the internet when the “happy hours” start because you wanted to download a huge file/use uTorrent? Well, here is a simple method. Now you don’t have to wake up every morning at 2:00 AM to connect or again at 8:00 AM to disconnect your connection.

Well, lets begin assuming that you have already finished setting up your connection, port forwarding etc. (see this for more information if you haven’t). This trick is very short and simple.

Open notepad and type:

rasdial [connection name] [username] [password]

without the square brackets.

For example, If I have named my connection Dataone, my username is pranav and my password is iwonttellyoumypass, I’ll type

rasdial Dataone pranav iwonttellyoumypass

Got it? Now click on File -> Save As…

Type in Connect.bat as the file name, select the location.

Note: You need to select a place where you will keep it permanently, If you move this file later on, then it won’t connect automatically.

For making a batch file which disconnects, open notepad again, copy and paste the following:

rasdial /disconnect

Save this as Disconnect.bat in the same location as before(not necessary).

But we need to schedule the connection. So what we do is open the Scheduled Tasks program(Thought it was waste when you saw it somewhere in the start menu, did you? Well now that is coming to your rescue!!!)

Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Scheduled Tasks

Double click Add Scheduled Task to open a wizard. Click Next > Then click Browse, go to the location where you saved the Connect.bat file, click on it and then press open. Now select Daily and click next. Set the start time to 2:05 AM(This is the time when the night unlimited time starts. Since there can be uncertainty about when It becomes 2:00 AM for BSNL, we set a safe 2:05 AM or 2:10 AM) and press Next. Enter your Windows XP account password, if any, or else leave blank.

For those who didn’t enter a password:
Press next, check Open advanced properties for this task when I click on Finish and press finish. In the advanced properties dialog box which pops up, check Run only if logged on option at the bottom of the box. Click apply and then ok.

For those who entered a password, click next and then click finish.

Now, your computer will automatically connect to the internet at 2:05 AM.

If you also want to schedule disconnecting, then repeat the above steps selecting Disconnect.bat and setting the start time to 7:55 AM.

Now you can keep your computer running and sleep peacefully. Sweet dreams!