GPRS vs. WAP - Networking

T-mobile is offering unlimited GPRS service for $50/month, which is insane since they used to offer it for $20. They do have a plan for blackberries with minutes that doesn't seem too unreasonable, but it is WAP service. Is this worth getting? What is the difference? Thanks.
-Ross

GPRS is way way way better than WAP, faster too. With GPRS speeds are similar to a 56k modem, WAP is something like a 14.4k modem (I think it's 11k but I can't remember). With WAP you pay for the time you spend online, with GPRS you pay for the data you download and can use the phone whilst connected to GPRS. Get GPRS.
Regards,
Neil.

wap = whatever content they have on their network/server
gprs = anything on the internet.
be warned that some scumbag providers call wap gprs. I have been trapped like this about 12 months ago by vodafone. At the time their own network could not support billing full gprs so after some serious complaining over the service I got I ended up with a company called martin doors who was a partner with vodafone (vodafone do have it now though).
Here I pay 2.5c/kb. $50 usd is high but if I used it unlimited it would be way more.

Actually, WAP is the "highway" as it were, with GPRS and GSM being the actual types.
GPRS is pay per KB,
GSM is pay per minute.

If the two offers were unlimited gprs and unlimited wap, is their any other difference besides speed?

I did not know that wap was available via dial up. My only acces to it was through gprs. What I was getting at was the content. With vodafone AU the internet is only available through "full" gprs, ie you could not go to this site through the wap connection.
Anyway gprs/gsm is the same thing just put to different use.

In the Netherlands TMO offers gprs unlimited 'Internet Totaal' (includes wifi hotspot usage & meant for laptops etc) access for €50 per month & they offer 'Pocket Internet Totaal' for only €9.50 per month (unlimited gprs access & hotspot usage meant for pda's). So it's exactly the same thing even on the phone bill, only the pockey version includes a €40 discount. Guess which contract I'm having with about 200MB usage a month ;-)
Complain about it, refer to it. More European countries offer this scheme. Maybe it works.
Good luck, M

"Actually, WAP is the "highway" as it were, with GPRS and GSM being the actual types. "
no GPRS and GSM are the "highway" as in the connection type
over which HTML or WAP is transmittet
WAP is a sad subset of HTML and require ones operator to make links before one can access a wap page unlike normal internet

Related

O2 payg gprs

I have never been able to access gprs on my O2 payg sim. The sim comes with free sms plus free gprs pages and free wap. Am I missing something, is the sim automatically gprs ready or do I need to get it activated? Others on the forum seem to have managed it but I just cant and I have to be content with standard GSM connection. Any help greatly appreciated, the sim is the one that gives 300 minutes wap plus 300 sms messages free for a minimum tenner a month topup. Thanks.
Is anybody using O2 payg and also using gprs on xda, if so, did you have to get your sim activated to do so. I have found it impossible although others claim to be able to do it.
o2 payg gprs
mate, i take it you have an o2 online chip where you get 300 txt and 300 wap minutes.
now to fully exploit the xda2's data capabilities, you need not the o2 wap gprs service but o2 mobile web which is o2's full internet, web and email (pretty much unrestricted) service and only available to o2 contract customers.
i do know earlier o2 online (genie) chips had unrestricted gprs in some shape or form and some folks were even able to exploit full web access on these but these were provided in error chips.
newer online chips though and even regular payg for that matter can only do wap gprs or wap gsm but nothing more.
i know its a hassle but its got something to do with the different access point names and server IP addresses attached to payg gprs and contract sims.
Gbolly, thanks for that, I can acces everything I need over wap using internet explorer, my problem is I cannot get gprs to work even though the sim details say that I have free gprs pages in the bundle. Is the sim always gprs capable or do I have to ask for it to be enabled. If I put the sim in a smartphone spv it shows the "G" constantly so I am assuming it is capable.
Call Customer Services and they will provision GPRS onto the account. The Genie sims are not provisioned out of the packet. I have to call up Online Customer Services multiple times a day for customers who have bought the sims online and cannot access GPRS. In the shop we simply call up Online and provision the sims in large batches upon arrival to the store. Makes it much easier.
Set your APN to payandgo.o2.co.uk
Username to payandgo
Password is password
Once your SIM has been provisioned you will have access to the GPRS side of things.
Re: o2 payg gprs
gbolly said:
o2 mobile web which is o2's full internet, web and email (pretty much unrestricted) service and only available to o2 contract customers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
News to me? Im a monthly contract customer, and as far as i know you pay for the data as you use it. You can bundle about 5MB of data, but you pay about £12 for it a month.
If theres some free access im missing out on, please enlighten me!
gprs only works with wap on the xda and mms
wap works with both except not mms
o2 online can only do wap over gprs and not datagprs (mobile web)
if you want to surf using gprs then you should move onto an contract plan.
i phoned up customer services to ask them about dataplans they say they cannot do them for PAYG customers.
o2online sims you buy now days are already set up for gprs use straight from the packet after topping up £10 (wait 24 hours) then your free texts/wap minutes come into play
for mms you will have to phone them up and ask for it to be enabled.
ive been on o2 genie/online for about 4 years now

Rogers AT&T - WAP/Internet Settings

Could some kind soul please send me the WAP and Internet setting for the Rogers AT&T service in Canada?
Thanks very much,
senmc said:
Could some kind soul please send me the WAP and Internet setting for the Rogers AT&T service in Canada?
Thanks very much,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go.
internet.com
wapuser1
wap
Good luck.
Do not forget, that you have to subscribe to data services (it will not work with WAP)
thanks
Okay thanks everyone.
I've got the settings as:
Cellular line (GPRS)
Access point name: internet.com
user name: wapuser1
password: wap
domain: (blank)
under advanced: Use server-assigned IP address, software compression off, IP header compression off. Server tab: use server-assigned addresses
Under GPRS settings i have
CHAP authentication (note i also tried PAP without sucess); and class 10 (which shouldn't matter).
Now mys CSD line type settings (not sure how much this matters because I don't know what CSD is):
Data rate: 9600 (v.32)
Connection element: non-transparent
Any other settings that might be configured wrong?
As for having to have a WAP account - my understanding is that all phone accounts are on a pay-per-use basis unless a specific plan is purchased.
Thanks again everyone,
Sean
oh.
I see what you mean now - sorry, I read it wrong the first time. I have to subscribe to a data service plan - the phone will not do WAP on its own. Do you know why that is? The cost on Rogers is very high for a data plan while it is much more reasonable for WAP phones. I really only need the WAP - not the rest of the internet. Is there no way of getting just WAP?
YES, we all now about Rogers prices
I actually switched to Fido, but still maintaining Rogers account for other purposes.
I am not sure about using I-Mate with WAP, but I think by using special WAP browser it should be possible. Sorry cannot be more help for you.
ARRRGGGGHHHHH
I've just spent a ton of time researching whether it was possible to use my XDAII to dial-in to my work. I mean the phone is a modem/phone/computer so it has all the hardware present.... At work there is a RAS that would allow me to pick-up my e-mail and surf the internet. I do it with my laptop connected through a land-line all the time. while connecting over a GSM line would be slower than a GPRS connection it would be a heck-of-a-lot cheaper and it would be more mobile than my laptop and no need for a landline!!! Anyway, turns out that beautiful ROGERS AT&T service does not allow CSD on their system (if anyone knows a way around this please please please share it with me!!). I guess, the idea is to force people to subscribe to their expensive GPRS data plans.
i would love to get all I can out of my XDAII but I'm not sure at this point if I can justify the extra $25 month for 3mb of data with Rogers or the $25 month for the 5mb of data from FIDO... both of these providers are crazy expensive (plus, add the cost of the $6.95/mth access fee I'd be required to pay for FIDO). Now, if I had a normal phone which only did WAP then it would cost me about $7 for 1mb - not a lot of data but a more reasonable rate.
So, that's where I'm at.... if anyone out there knows of a good plan for data usage - or better yet a way to do CSD on Rogers please let me know. Noviur, or anyone, if you know of a WAP browser program that would allow me to use WAP on Rogers please point me in that direction.
Thanks,
Sean
PS. Just a little disappointed that after all the money spent on this beautifull phone I'm now limited in its use so that Rogers can continue to make more money on me besides what they make for my high-speed internet, digital cable and 2 mobile phone plans.
you can not bit 50CAD unlimited from Fido. In states it is the same amount of money, may be jsut little bit less and only from T-Mobile (based on references from my friends )
5Mb will not make you happy, sorry to tell you... my avarage is about 17Mb per month....
If i can help you in anything with solving this - let me know.
Thanks Noviur,
Do you know if FIDO allows CSD? If they do I'd consider switching. How do you find the FIDO reception - I've heard that it can be problematic and they don't have as large a coverage area as Rogers.
Where in Canada are you?
Toronto
me too
in some places Fido even beter than Rogers..., such as Steeles & Leslie
In some places the same s...t, such as Bayview & 16th, or Weldrick between Bayview & Spadina...
Let's put this way - the quality of service is better, the service is almost the same, bu limited to the geographic areas... for example i am stil using my Rogers, when going for a weekend up north...
Downtown is very good receiption...
Tell me if you need me more specific...
BUT do not forget, that is is very difficult to bit 45 unlimited+50 unlimited itnernet...
The quality of service must be better with Fido - Nothing could be worse than Rogers.
I too head up north frequently (just about every weekend) but my phone doesn't get reception up there anyway - Neither Rogers or Fido (now Bell gets perfect reception).
Right now I'm on a $20/mth plan that gives me adequate telephone minutes - I get 150 minutes during the day and unlimited evenings and weekends starting at 7pm... that seems to work for me. Jumping to $95/mth would be a big increase that I'm not sure I could/should pay.
Noviur,
Do you know if FIDO has CSD? If they do then you can dial-in to any ISP or RAS server - while it would be much slower than GPRS it would only use your telephone minutes and you wouldn't have to pay the GPRS fees. For me it would be amazing because then I could collect my e-mails, messages, etc. from my work just like i do with my laptop.
I am not sure about it... I think a raised this question some time ago with CSR because of the KSE Fax soft, and was told that Fido does not support CSD... But the best place to check that would be www.howardchui.com forum....

Downgraded from Contract to pay as you go.

I have recently lost my job so as funds are low, decided to get a pay as you go sim for my XDA2 and cancel my contract.
Now I find that I can't get full Internet access over GPRS. Shame but not the end of the world. Before realising this, i have changed and deleted most of my connection settings.
Therefore, I need the connection settings so that I can send & receive my pop3 mail. (is this possible over GPRS on pay as you go?)
I called O2 but they were no help.
Also, if I were to unlock the XDA2, does Orange or any other network give FULL Internet via GPRS?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
xda2 payg
I've cancelled my contract and am using an orange payg sim. GPRS is free till end of april in the UK. GPRS is generally free on O2 PAYG if you can trick them into enabling it. I used the cab files available here to set up everything.
I am afraid you will not get FULL internet including POP3 email on O2 UK's PAYG GPRS, you only get WAP as most other ports are blocked.
If you have an ISP with a dialup number you could use standard GSM and dial in to get full access but then you are charged by the minute and only have a speed of 9600. If your emails are small then it is quite quick to do it this way.
If your sim is an O2 Online PAYG card and you change to the new Talkalot Calls & Messages tarif for your free allowance then you can use some of your 100 free minutes/text. Your ISP must have a standard localised dialup number though as 0845 etc are not covered by free minutes AFAIK.
However if you text a lot then it would be best to stay with Talkalot Messages. After all if you use more than 3 minutes a day then your only paying 5p a minute weekdays and 2p a minute weekends anyway.
Regardig your wap access though there are sites that will log into your email account and display your emails on wap pages for you. This may be ok but remember anything over your free wap allowance costs £2.35 per MB.
http://mail2web.com from pc
http://mail2web.com/pda from PDA
you may have to change the http to wsp on the PDA depending on how you are configured.
Hope this helps.
FULL GPRS on PAYG O2
I can browse the web on my new O2 PAYG sim, it can be enabled, but needs a bit of guile and effort. Having worked at O2 previously helped.

Cingular 8125 Questions! What's GPRS?

My phone was connected to GPRS for 30 mins... Is that the medianet connection? I only have the 5mb Medianet program. Could I go online whenever I want without extra charge?
I'm not with Cingular, but i'm assuming that Medianet is what the GPRS connection is called.
And depending what type of usage you will be doing with your 8125 and what programs you have installed that automatically connect, 5mb might not be enough and you'll end up with additional charges on your bill.
If you plan on surfing the web via Medianet?gprs, get your emails sent to your device etc...i recommend getting more than 5 mb.
There are some registry hacks that would allow you to disble GPRS connecting at all...but to be able to do that, you will need to do some research and get to know your phone a lil better before you go and try to play around with Registry settings
Cingular MediaNet
GPRS and Edge are Cingular's MediaNet
I'm just planning to surf the internet with my 5mb. So it wouldn't be enough? What about the MMS. I have unlimted but in order to open them I have to get on medianet when I'm on wifi I can't download them.
I feel your pain... I have Cingular too and well 5MB is enough for a smartphone web-browser, but for a PDA-phone like the Wizard (8125) even with VERY light browsing and e-mail you're going to pass that by in about 2 weeks. I recommend going with one of Cingular's PDA connect plans the 20MB should be enough. I have the unlimited plan because 1: they gave me a phone discount for having it and 2: because I've gon over 100MB already and I've only had the phone for a week and a half ^_^ By the way about that MMS issue. I don't think that you get charged for the raw data transfer on MMS they just charge per message and since you have the unlimited MMS plan you shouldn't be charged at all for them. I used to have a Motorola Mpx220 witht the exact same plan that you have and I don't think that's changed at all. Hope that helps ^_^
medianet
unless you need vpn, just upgrade your medianet to unlimited and don't breathe a word about pda connect or they may switch you without your asking (and medianet unlimited is 20 cheaper than pda unlimited)
ask for a Media Net Unlimited plan which is 19.99 and add a text message plan of your likeing. I have 1000 for 9.99. Media Net is for smartphones, but if you get the *right* representative that wont know any better
I have the Cingular 2125 (smartphone) now with the unlimited data plan for it ($19.99). I just purchased a 8125 PPC, will I still be able to have unlimited internet acces on the 8125 for my current $19.99?

GPRS in China

Hi, I have a jasjar in the UK using the o2 network, i will be going to China in june and would like to use the gprs nextwork there. Could someone tell me what i need to do to set it up? The help desk here keep insisting that my set up should just work, but I've been to China 3 times already and 3 times the gprs network was unavailable to me. What do I need to do?
Thanks
It all depends if O2 has a GPRS roaming agreement with the operator in China. You need to ask O2 this as they may not have GPRS agreements with every operator which they have a voice roaming agreement.
But when you find out what their roaming data charges are I think you'll find it will be far more economic to get a local prepaid SIM if the operator in the region that you are going to has prepaid GPRS. A quick google shows that E-Tong in Shanghai provide this http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030707_use_gprs_in_shanghai.htm
That's easy. But firstly , would you like to use sim card produced by China?
If you use chinese sim card, the settings are easy.And what's more, it costs only 2$ for a month . Such phone number start with '136.........'.
The roaming will be extremely expensive. So it's better to forget about it.
The best way is buy one local prepaid card. But it's not easy just like saying.
China has two operators, China Mobile and China Unicom. China Unicom doesn't provide the GPRS service but CDMA. So if you want to use GPRS connection, you have to choose China Mobile. And China Mobile has three kinds of branded service, Go-Tone, M-Zone and Shenzhou Xing. The 1st one is only for registered users, so you won't be able to apply it. M-Zone is the prepaid and for sure with GPRS service, the last one may not be able to use GPRS depends on the different region.
But one thing you must pay attention. All prepaid card provided GPRS service is only able to use http connection with proxy. If you just want to browsing the web pages, it should be no problem. But if you want to receive/send email, there is no way.
Settings:
1: Web browsing
APN: CMWAP
Proxy: 10.0.0.172 port:80
2: MMS
APN: CMWAP
Gateway: 10.0.0.172 port:9201
Server address: http://mmsc.monternet.com
Enjoy it.
To use GPRS roaming in China check out http://www.o2.co.uk/business/produc...ices/travelling/using/gprsnets/0,,600,00.html
Seems its only China Mobile. And the charges are (gulp)
http://www.o2.co.uk/business/productsservices/mobileservices/travelling/using/gprs/0,,606,00.html
dahuzi said:
The best way is buy one local prepaid card. But it's not easy just like saying.
China has two operators, China Mobile and China Unicom. China Unicom doesn't provide the GPRS service but CDMA. So if you want to use GPRS connection, you have to choose China Mobile. And China Mobile has three kinds of branded service, Go-Tone, M-Zone and Shenzhou Xing. The 1st one is only for registered users, so you won't be able to apply it. M-Zone is the prepaid and for sure with GPRS service, the last one may not be able to use GPRS depends on the different region.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi dahuzi... thanks for your reply. Is the Go-Tone a contract service with a monthly service charge?...
May I make some amendments to what dahuzi said:
I'm using both Go-zone and M-zone, and both can browse websites and check email. They are 2 types of connection; one is so called cmwap, and one is cmnet. You should use cmnet, which is the normal GPRS connection used worldwide.
The charge is different in different regions. Let's say in Beijing, the charge is RMB 20 (approx. Eur 2.00) for 50Mbs, RMB 100 for 800Mbs.
1: Web browsing
APN: CMWAP
Proxy: 10.0.0.172 port:80
2: MMS
APN: CMWAP
Gateway: 10.0.0.172 port:9201
Server address: http://mmsc.monternet.com
The above settings is for mobile handset only. You will not be able to use for full intenet usage.
If you intend to use your PDA or PC to access the internet using GPRS. You will require cwnet for full interenet access, and this service only available for locals pay monthly account package only. The service is not available for pay as go customer.
Internet on the move for foreign visitors in China may be confine to Starbucks or some WiFi hotspots.
Anyone who knows the China Mobile CEOs please pass this message to them, we are frustrated with their GPRS services unable to give full interent access for us foreigners.
Well, I was in China during my easter holidays and was very happy to find, after getting my bill, that O2 did not charge a penny for GPRS roaming in China with China mobile. Furthermore there is no need for additional settings on Exec so that everything worked fine and, freely. The GPRS roaming was really perfect; there was no need to buy a SIM from Chinese operators.
I am with an O2 data tariff which accounts for 200M data per month (29.8 pounds inc. tax).
I'm however not sure if it is the same case with Orange but I guess, from my past experience with China Mobile (I used the GPRS service since its open day in CM), it is highly possible to be a free roaming. HOWEVER I AM NOT LIABLE TO ANY MIS-GUESSES so please don't accuse me if I was wrong ..
My service provider is Mobilinkgsm in Pakistan. Last week I visited China. My GPRS worked perfectly there in China. I also sent and received MMS messages without any problem.
I was not required to change any settings for either the GPRS access point nor the MMS settings as my connection with MobilinkGSM Pakistan is set to International Roaming. I have an i-mate Jasjar.
GPRS international roaming rates for Mobilinkgsm Pakistan though are quite high. They charge US$ 0.02 per KB which means almost US$ 20.50 for a MB of Upload + Download data.
Just wanted to share my experience.
Regards

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