To start my dialup connection from the command line, and have qtopia know it is there, I enter:
qcop QPE/Network 'start(QString,QString)' "/home/root/Applications/Network/modules/DialUp30.conf" ""
You would substitute in the pathname of your particular network configuration file. Our roms are different, but I always use the "Internet Wizard" GUI to set up my configuration file.
It should work the same no matter what type of network connection you have. My applet always shows the correct status when I start from commandline.
sdjf