[mobilehavoc]

I had T-Mo for a year before Cingular - I'd honestly rather put up with this annoyance with Cingular than go back to T-Mo.

Without a doubt, T-Mo had much better Customer service but their coverage was horrible - reminded me of swiss cheese.

[mezorn26]

Originally Posted by mobilehavoc

I had T-Mo for a year before Cingular - I'd honestly rather put up with this annoyance with Cingular than go back to T-Mo.

Without a doubt, T-Mo had much better Customer service but their coverage was horrible - reminded me of swiss cheese.

That's just my point. I could care less that they are cheaper and offer more in the unlimted package. A Porsche is just a car without the engine. Tmobile is just a car, they seriously lack the engine, service being the engine. If we could somehow meld Tmobiles Features and pricing and couple that with Verizons coverage, that would be one fast super car

[CyberJack]

Originally Posted by Soapm

Your'e right, I check the weather, receive my ramble IM's, emails, rss feeds, sports scores, surf net and make nice clear calls so I probably don't need to know ANY BETTER. I might get charged more to get less. </slaps forehead>

Also, I'm not pushing TMO, there are other carriers. I'm pushing the concept of not paying a company that won't give you what you want.

SOAPM: I read most of your posts with great interests, and enjoy your commentary. I had TMO on a 7100t for more than a year and now just about 2 months on Cingular. TMO was great in the South Bay area of LA (where I live) but go many places outside and coverage was poor to non existent. Going up towards Santa Barabara ZERO and I mean ZERO coverage, that is pretty horrible given this is not the middle of nowhere. So for a weekend getaway not knowing in advance of this issue, I sweat bullets as I have work email go this BB. Stuff that matters. And thankfully it did not become an issue but what if we broke down at night on the road, and NO service. So I agree I have had frustrations with Cingular but at least it works and it works well. The spectrum issue and working inside of buildings can not be overrated. I ALWAYS had to worry about that with TMO. At work TMO said I was almost directly by a tower and still service went in and out in the building all the time. So great that the service on TMO works for you but it is a little unecessary salt in the wounds to other when you say: "I might get charged more to get less." When less might actually include working service. And yes is Cingular acting in a manipulative, calculating greedy way: ABSOLUTELY, and it stinks. Just my 2 cents....

[mezorn26]

Originally Posted by CyberJack

SOAPM: I read most of your posts with great interests, and enjoy your commentary. I had TMO on a 7100t for more than a year and now just about 2 months on Cingular. TMO was great in the South Bay area of LA (where I live) but go many places outside and coverage was poor to non existent. Going up towards Santa Barabara ZERO and I mean ZERO coverage, that is pretty horrible given this is not the middle of nowhere. So for a weekend getaway not knowing in advance of this issue, I sweat bullets as I have work email go this BB. Stuff that matters. And thankfully it did not become an issue but what if we broke down at night on the road, and NO service. So I agree I have had frustrations with Cingular but at least it works and it works well. The spectrum issue and working inside of buildings can not be overrated. I ALWAYS had to worry about that with TMO. At work TMO said I was almost directly by a tower and still service went in and out in the building all the time. So great that the service on TMO works for you but it is a little unecessary salt in the wounds to other when you say: "I might get charged more to get less." When less might actually include working service. And yes is Cingular acting in a manipulative, calculating greedy way: ABSOLUTELY, and it stinks. Just my 2 cents....

I see a pattern here. Fact is, TMO is awful. I have 9 cell phones in front of me right now (IN NYC) 2 Verizon (FULL SERVICE) 2 Sprint (FULL SERVICE) 2 Cingular (FULL SERVICE) 1 Nextel (1 Bar short of full service) 2 TMOBILE (1 has only one bar and the other has no service) Any reason as to why my Tmo phones have no service? I guess there are no cell towers in NYC (as I roll my eyes).....

GAME SET AND MATCH!

[mezorn26]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry7290/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Test

[phillyslickster]

I must say that it is true. I had T-Mobile about 3 years ago and then I switched over to Cingular. I would have patchy coverage in Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New Jersey. The service would go in and out. Well, one day I was travelling on 76 West in Pennsylvania and had lost service on my T-Mobile phone and had to stop to place a call because I had become lost. I just noticed that whenever I travelled to other places that sometimes I'd have great coverage and other times I wouldn't have little to no coverage. According to what I've read, T-Mobile is supposedly widening their spectrum and with roaming agreements with Cingular as long as you have a wireless phone that includes the 850 MHz band, then you should be able to roam. Now whether this is actually so or not, I don't know because I have not tested that theory myself personally. I have some friends who have T-Mobile service and they're saying that they are now getting coverage in areas where they originally had no coverage.

I know that I pay a lot more with Cingular than I would with T-Mobile. The issue is it depends on what the person using the service wants. DO they want service that works when they're home and away from along with a more costly bill? Or do they want patchy coverage depending on where they are and more bang for their buck? Too bad it couldn't be the best of both worlds.

[Soapm]

Originally Posted by CyberJack

SOAPM: So great that the service on TMO works for you but it is a little unecessary salt in the wounds to other when you say: "I might get charged more to get less." When less might actually include working service. And yes is Cingular acting in a manipulative, calculating greedy way: ABSOLUTELY, and it stinks. Just my 2 cents....

Don't blame the mailman because you don't like the truth in the envelope. He just delivered the salt not put it in the wound.

Again, I am not pushing TMO, I am sure there are other carriers in your area. Carriers that will give you what you pay for. You're in Cali so there has to be other carriers. If you have tried them all and Cingular is the best bang for the buck then it sucks, but that's the best you can do. But it still sucks! I wouldn't brag about them??? I would say it sucks but it is the best I can do and as soon as something better comes along I'm gone.

Originally Posted by CyberJack

I see a pattern here. Fact is, TMO is awful. I have 9 cell phones in front of me right now (IN NYC) 2 Verizon (FULL SERVICE) 2 Sprint (FULL SERVICE) 2 Cingular (FULL SERVICE) 1 Nextel (1 Bar short of full service) 2 TMOBILE (1 has only one bar and the other has no service) Any reason as to why my Tmo phones have no service? I guess there are no cell towers in NYC (as I roll my eyes)....

Again, I am not saying TMO is the best for you. With your results sitting in one spot on this BIG BLUE MARBLE I would not choose TMO either. However, I have had full bars and lousy call quality and had no bars and the call was tolerable. I do say, regarding your above results, would you choose the carrier providing you crippled service or one of the other two???

We all know every cell provider has dead spots, if they didn't, Verizon wouldn't pay that guy to tour the country looking for them (can you hear me now?).

[mobilehavoc]

From what I recall - didn't T-Mo try to pull some sort of shady sh*t with their APNs a while back? I thought I remember reading they blocked ports so TCP/IP apps wouldn't work...I assume that's resolved now?

Also, I'm hoping it's fixed now, but receiving VM notification via SMS is a royal pain..esp on the BB since it is hidden with the regular mail. At least by using the handsets VM notification icon, it's hard to miss.

[nb_mitch]

I have been eagerly awaiting this month's bill, as it has been 3 months since I returned my 2-7290 and I was expecting about a $500 credit, but to my surprise I got the opposite. I just spent the last hour plus on the phone with Customer Service and I think it is corrected, except I expect charges to appear again next month :(

First my BB Unlimited charge was split between a $32.99 charge and a $12 charge, but the $12 was there twice. Then there were $51 in "Usage charges" for "Data transfer" which look like a charge for each email or so. Then there was a $359 BWC charge for my 8700, which for some reason never appeared in November when it should have. They claimed they found my first 7290 that I returned and will credit my bill the $299 in the next few days and they can't seem to locate the second 7290 that I returned the first week of December, but are investigating.

For now, it looks like I will end up with a bill of around $120 this month until they find my other returned BB and finally get the credit.
What really bothers me is that every month I get data charges and every month the line description is different and every month I call and they claim to fix it, I am afraid I don't have enough month's to live for Cingular to really get it right :(

This is the 3rd bill in a row and second near $500 :(

[samwtaylor]

Does anyone have experience using the different exhange services available that they would like to share? I've looked at both http://www.exchangemymail.com/planspricing.html and http://www.link2exchange.com/blackberry.htm they both seem to be the same except for a bit more storage on the link2exchange site.

Which one was easier to setup? Which one is easier to maintain? What problems have you had? Are there other services that I didn't find?

Thanks,

Sam

[lgreenberg]

Originally Posted by samwtaylor

Does anyone have experience using the different exhange services available that they would like to share? I've looked at both http://www.exchangemymail.com/planspricing.html and http://www.link2exchange.com/blackberry.htm they both seem to be the same except for a bit more storage on the link2exchange site.

Which one was easier to setup? Which one is easier to maintain? What problems have you had? Are there other services that I didn't find?

Thanks,

Sam

I suggest reading the thread on Exchange My Mail here.

They are simply awesome.

[samwtaylor]

Originally Posted by lgreenberg

I suggest reading the thread on Exchange My Mail here.

They are simply awesome.

Thanks, and you were right they are great. They helped me get everything setup and configured perfectly. Well worth the $20 a month just based on the customer service!!

I am also now able to use Blackberry's IM, which wouldn't work with Cingular before.

Sam

[lgreenberg]

Originally Posted by samwtaylor

Thanks, and you were right they are great. They helped me get everything setup and configured perfectly. Well worth the $20 a month just based on the customer service!!

I am also now able to use Blackberry's IM, which wouldn't work with Cingular before.

Sam

Glad you got up and running and that it was a positive experience.

[moonbaseone]

I have a question.

Does these APN and WAP fees apply if you are on a BES BB account???

I just got Cingular Jan 2nd and receieved 2 bills so far. One was for $60.83 and I was just told that it was for one day. Second bill was for 223.00. My bill should be roughly $110.00/month. I understand that I am beinng billed twice cause they bill a month in advance.

I have the BB Unlimited on my account and i am now worried about these wap and APN charges. I called CS and she told me that MediaNet was included in my BB Unlimited plan. They seem to think I have a BES account though. I guess cause I work in government and I am getting the 15% dicount for my job.

So, just curious, does BES get WAP and APN included with BB unlimited?

[phillyslickster]

I'm on a government discount plan because of my job, but I'm not on BES either. I had the unlimited media net even with my Treo and my previous BB before the Treo. When I went back to the BB after the Treo, the unlimited media net was removed because I was told that I didn't need the unlimited media net plan. The rep told me that it won't work on the BlackBerry--have been told this by 3 different reps. I don't show any overages on my account, but I don't want to incur any overage fees either. I use Pico News (www.piconews.com) a lot and Verichat and some of the other third party applications periodically.

[lgreenberg]

Originally Posted by moonbaseone

I have a question.

Does these APN and WAP fees apply if you are on a BES BB account???

I just got Cingular Jan 2nd and receieved 2 bills so far. One was for $60.83 and I was just told that it was for one day. Second bill was for 223.00. My bill should be roughly $110.00/month. I understand that I am beinng billed twice cause they bill a month in advance.

I have the BB Unlimited on my account and i am now worried about these wap and APN charges. I called CS and she told me that MediaNet was included in my BB Unlimited plan. They seem to think I have a BES account though. I guess cause I work in government and I am getting the 15% dicount for my job.

So, just curious, does BES get WAP and APN included with BB unlimited?

Cingular shouldn't care if you're on BES or BIS. It makes no difference to them and they don't charge any more or any less if you use one or the other. It has nothing to do with them. It's simply the way you choose to access your e-mail on the Blackberry. Your bill should be the same regardless of which one you use.

BES users don't need access to the wap.cingular APN. They use the MDS proxy instead. This is why Exchange hosting is a great solution for those Cingular customers who want access to third party data apps without having to pay Cingular for them.

[zx6racer]

I went to a Cinuglar store today to find out about a 8700c, 1st they told me I could not have the BB with data only. So I asked about the charge per month and he said $85.00 for ( unlimited email not data ) and 450 anytime min. with 5000 n and w min with role over and m2m Anyway I did some looking around to find some info on there rates and found that what they say is unlimited is not its 25MB and wap data is an extra $4.99 a month.

[Soapm]

Originally Posted by lgreenberg

BES users don't need access to the wap.cingular APN. They use the MDS proxy instead. This is why Exchange hosting is a great solution for those Cingular customers who want access to third party data apps without having to pay Cingular for them.

Igreenberg is right, make sure to remove your APN settings and set all 3rd party apps to use the MDS. If you get or have any data charges above your unlimited plan give Cingular a call. They seem to be good about fixing the bill.

[lgreenberg]

Originally Posted by zx6racer

I went to a Cinuglar store today to find out about a 8700c, 1st they told me I could not have the BB with data only. So I asked about the charge per month and he said $85.00 for ( unlimited email not data ) and 450 anytime min. with 5000 n and w min with role over and m2m Anyway I did some looking around to find some info on there rates and found that what they say is unlimited is not its 25MB and wap data is an extra $4.99 a month.

Cingular's data plans are as follows (data includes e-mail.)

$39.99 per month for 4 MB
$49.99 per month for unlimited use.

If you have a voice plan they take $5 off the above listed charges.

There is no wap plan available for the Blackberry.

[phillyslickster]

Originally Posted by zx6racer

I went to a Cinuglar store today to find out about a 8700c, 1st they told me I could not have the BB with data only. So I asked about the charge per month and he said $85.00 for ( unlimited email not data ) and 450 anytime min. with 5000 n and w min with role over and m2m Anyway I did some looking around to find some info on there rates and found that what they say is unlimited is not its 25MB and wap data is an extra $4.99 a month.

Drum roll please... And the plot thickens....