T-Mobile data offer in the UK

[gemini]

Hello,

Has anybody successfully used T-Mobile's 1£ per a day offer? In T-Mobile store they told me this offer was only valid for WAP use and not working with a laptop GPRS/EDGE/UMTS modem. Is this true?

Please advise...

Thomas

[sakr]

I should be able to check this out in about 3 weeks, mainly for standard internet connections using laptop and a mobile phone supporting at least GPRS.
Be patient please .

[KPO'M]

Originally Posted by gemini

Hello,

Has anybody successfully used T-Mobile's 1£ per a day offer? In T-Mobile store they told me this offer was only valid for WAP use and not working with a laptop GPRS/EDGE/UMTS modem. Is this true?

Please advise...

Thomas

I wouldn't be surprised by that. Orange claims to offer PAYG data plans for £4 for 4MB. Elsewhere on in their web site, they say that all you need to access 3G is a 3G phone, and that it is available with Pay Monthly and Pay as you go. Has anyone tried that?

I'm going to be in the UK for 5 days later this summer, and would like 3G access so I can put the Euro-only 3G band on my phone to good use, while at the same time avoiding my roaming charge of $15 per MB. If Orange works, it would be about 1/8 the price.

If not Orange, what about other plans? I'm looking for a SIM only, and I want 3G.

[Stu]

I did it January. I plugged it in an E61 and did just about everything with it.

[gemini]

Originally Posted by Stu

I did it January. I plugged it in an E61 and did just about everything with it.

But did you connect E61 to a laptop to work as a modem? Or did you just use E61 mobile browser?

[Stu]

Yes I tethered (see point 2), but it really doesn't matter for reasons outlined in point 1.

First, the E61 is not really a Wap browser. It is full html. It also pulls e-mail off the same tunnel to an Exchange Server that MS-Outlook uses. The reason I'm saying this is that with modern PDA phones, it is not that easy to tell whether a person is using a notebook or a PDA. For example, the Opera Browser for Windows Mobile 5 can be told to identify itself to a server Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, you can stream video, stream sound, or even watch your Slingbox off a PocketPC.

Second, yes I tethered. I avoided massive downloads, but I did connect up. My hotel charged 10 quid a night for internet (cheap by London standards) so I didn't buy it. I left my notebook tethered for hours at a time, but I mostly checked e-mail and browsed. The one time I had a large download, I took my notebook to my buddy's place and did it over his DSL connection.

Stu

[KPO'M]

Originally Posted by Stu

I did it January. I plugged it in an E61 and did just about everything with it.

Did you do Orange or T-Mobile? Were you getting 3G speeds, or GPRS/EDGE speeds?

[Stu]

I used TMobile's Walk N' Web. I actually have an Orange OVP Virgin contract SIM but I didn't want to give up that tariff by changing so I just purchased a TMobile SIM for my E61 and used another handset for voice.

I was pulling 3g and the connection speed was great. I only wish that the unit did HSDPA in the US as well. (In North America, it is limited ot EDGE).

[gemini]

I have tested it yesterday and can confirm that T-mobile's Pay-As-You-Go prepaid SIM indeed works in my laptop with UMTS modem. I don't do any high volume downloads so cannot comment on the speed and volume limitations.

My UMTS modem indicates the connection type is 3G. It works really good so it probably is 3G in practice as well...

The only issue is with pictures/images on the web pages, it seems like T-mobile is reducing their size so they have degraded quality. Perhaps there is some way to prevent this?

Cheers,
Thomas

[Stu]

Gemini, as an experiment, try sending your connection through the DNS servers at OpenDNS.com, viz:
* 208.67.222.222
* 208.67.220.220