Feature Phone Data: So let me get this straight...

[Foxfire]

I did a bit of digging around and the more I find, the more bewildered I get.

So we have "T-MobileWeb" and "T-Mobile Total Internet" data add-ons for most devices (as opposed to Blackberry/Sidekick/whatnot). From t-mo's site I gather that T-MobileWeb is for regular featurephones while Total Internet is for smartphones and laptop users. This notion is reinforced by the fact that Total Internet isn't even an option when setting up an order for a regular featurephone on the web site.

Okay, sounds good. I don't need to go all out with a smart phone and they make cool midlets for any regular phone that can run J2ME junk.

So I look into things like Opera Mini, Google Maps mobile, etc and I see a LOT of complaining that T-Mobile actually blocks these apps from accessing the internet regardless of having a data plan... which kind of defeats the point of a data plan if you ask me. Throughout various posts and blogs I've read about various individuals having varying levels of success just installing and using internet-enabled midlets on any given T-Mobile phone. Sometimes it just works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes you just have to unlock the phone, sometimes you have to flash the phone with unbranded firmware.

Okay.. wth?

So today I decided to go to a few different T-Mobile stores to see if I can get any info. One store told me that if I wanted to install and run any third party apps, I'd have to get a smartphone. A couple of other stores said that Total Internet was the data plan for any of their phones at all. One store didn't even know what "T-MobileWeb" was, but told me that t-zones was the $5.99 service that happens to be the same t-zones that comes free with every T-Mobile branded phone. This, along with their total ignorance of the Samsung Blast's ability to treat e-mail as text messages really makes me wonder...

Do the T-Mobile store reps even know what they are talking about? I see no reason to sign up for wifi just so I can run Opera Mini.

So this is what I gather:
1) T-MobileWeb only reliably works if you stick with their crappy browser.
2) Total Internet does indeed only work with smartphones and the store reps are just silly.
3) There is *no* legitimate way to run web-aware midlets on a feature phone on T-Mobile.
By "legitimate" I mean no unlocking, flashing or engaging any other "sorcery" (;)) just to get the service you pay for to function. Seriously, I've heard of people setting up a home server and having their phone SSH tunnel to get google maps to work. It should just work...

If this notion is not accurate, somebody PLEASE let me know where I'm mistaken. I want to be sure that this is actually a huge gap in the services T-Mo provides or if it's just me who's totally off of their rocker.

[Lok]

Do the T-Mobile store reps even know what they are talking about?

So this is what I gather:
1) T-MobileWeb only reliably works if you stick with their crappy browser.
2) Total Internet does indeed only work with smartphones and the store reps are just silly.
3) There is *no* legitimate way to run web-aware midlets on a feature phone on T-Mobile.
By "legitimate" I mean no unlocking, flashing or engaging any other "sorcery" (;)) just to get the service you pay for to function. Seriously, I've heard of people setting up a home server and having their phone SSH tunnel to get google maps to work. It should just work...

If this notion is not accurate, somebody PLEASE let me know where I'm mistaken. I want to be sure that this is actually a huge gap in the services T-Mo provides or if it's just me who's totally off of their rocker.

First and foremost, as with *any* customer service industry, the answer to your first question (not the 1, 2, 3 list) is yes AND no. I generally know what I'm talking about, but perhaps you went to my store and asked me that very same question; being only 3 weeks into my T-Mobile career, I'd not be able to answer with 100% certainty. Add to the fact that we have a highly fluid industry that brings about a tremendous amount of questions that deal with subjects that our corporate provided training could never possibly address in any realistic time manor (ex: "If I buy a T-Mobile pre-paid phone in the US, go to Canada, call my friend from the UK who is in Australia on his [some other provider] pre-paid phone, how much is my per-minute charge to make and receive calls, and can I text him if he's in Afghanistan?" ((this question was asked to me on Friday!!)).

The short answer is, we're trying. If it's that important to you, ask if they're 100% certain and then call customer care to validate the information and notate your account that you called to verify the information.

1) To my knowledge, yes. TmobileWeb only works w/ the built in phones browser (but I have read of some people being able to get Opera Mini to work).
2) Total Internet add-on is for smart phones only (this excludes Sidekicks and BlackBerrys, they have their own plans).
3) To my knowledge, that statement is correct because of the word "legitimate".

Hope that helps! And if you want to validate those answers, 611 from your T-Mobile phone is toll free; or 1-800-973-8997 from a land line. Good luck!

[Foxfire]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply!
First and foremost, as with *any* customer service industry, the answer to your first question (not the 1, 2, 3 list) is yes AND no. I generally know what I'm talking about, but perhaps you went to my store and asked me that very same question; being only 3 weeks into my T-Mobile career, I'd not be able to answer with 100% certainty.
I hear ya. For the most part I did try to keep my questions generic just to see what they say. I mainly asked "What data plans are there for any of these regular phones?" and they just told me "Total Internet" though one store (out of three) told me only smartphones can get data. Granted the other two were a mall store and a mall kiosk.

At any rate, that was very helpful. :D

I guess the question now is why doesn't T-Mobile offer a data plan for feature-phones to fill this gap? That would encourage me to subscribe because I have nothing to gain from getting off of pre-paid otherwise since I don't burn a whole lot of minutes and a smartphone is overkill in my case as of yet.

From what I've read, the only reason T-MobileWeb doesn't work with other apps is because they "untrust" foreign apps on their phones with no user control over that. That service is cheap, but I'm not going bother with it if I can't use midlets. :acry2:

I wonder if T-Mobile has a plan for these things...

[Telyx]

Foxfire, the rep at that one store was mistaken. The "T-Mobile Web" add-on is NOT the "T-Zones" that comes with every plan; "T-Zones" is very limited WAP access to T-Mobile's wallpaper/ringtone/game "store" and a few other WAP sites. T-Mobile Web gives you access to a lot more WAP sites and allows e-mail access via T-Mobile's My Email. It also allows tethering a PDA for POP e-mail access.

Getting other apps (Opera Mini, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.) to work and access the 'net is fairly easy with Motorola phones, but difficult with Nokias and maybe impossible with Samsungs.

I'm a little curious about the "Beta Apps" section of the T-Mobile Web menu... I wonder if maybe they're writing some "approved" substitutes/equivalents for the untrusted Java apps, which might work on any T-Mobile phone.

[dsigma6]

T-Mobile $5.99 internet with proxy works the same as the $19.99 plan, minus a few unnecessary extras.

[clock3687]

I have a t-mo branded KRZR and the $5.99 t-zones plan. I Google Maps and Opera Mini on it all the time without hitches. My only problem is the fact that the KRZR asks permission to access the data network everytime something changes, it gets annoying, but at least I can use it. I think it more has to do with java permissions than t-mobile actually filtering traffic.

[Foxfire]

The "T-Mobile Web" add-on is NOT the "T-Zones" that comes with every plan; "T-Zones" is very limited WAP access to T-Mobile's wallpaper/ringtone/game "store" and a few other WAP sites. T-Mobile Web gives you access to a lot more WAP sites and allows e-mail access via T-Mobile's My Email. It also allows tethering a PDA for POP e-mail access.
So the T-MobileWeb plan is designated *only* to provide WAP access beyond the extra t-zones stuff? This support page (http://support.t-mobile.com/knowbase/root/public/tm22793.htm?A2L.SERVICE=T-MobileWeb) I stumbled upon seems to support that. If this is the case then that would mean the support for running programs to view real HTML sites on this plan was a happy accident for some consumers?

T-Mobile $5.99 internet with proxy works the same as the $19.99 plan, minus a few unnecessary extras
That would mean the $19.99 plan actually does work on feature phones w/o proxy? *boggle*

So if Motorola's actually work, even with a bit of nagging, perhaps I should start considering one of those W490's if the call quality is better than their CDMA brethren... that is if I'm willing to forgo any form of qwerty. :/

[armadill09]

The above reply sums everything up to the best of my knowledge. The only thing i'd add would be that the only reason to use Total Internet on a non-smartphone would be for tethering purposes, but that would be phone specific as well.

and i think TMobileWeb 5.99 used to be called TZones 5.99. this is where some of the store reps may be confused.

[stejhu]

there are clever ways to browse the internet with the 5.99 plan; however, you have to continually stay ahead of the game it seems. maybe someone else on here can give you details on the 8080 port junk to get it to work. i personally have a really crappy razr; however, i have the total internet add-on because i use hotspots alot AND you can tether your crappy non smartphone to your laptop to get internet anywhere. i installed the driver from motodev.com for my razr and hook it up to my laptop via usb (also keeps it powered)...made a quick launch button to establish the connection, and get internet on my laptop (albeit quite slow internet at this point as i don't have edge class 10 or 3G-obviously). if you just want to be able to access email and possibly use a couple small midlets like gmaps, i think the 5.99 plan should work fine. some of the real experts on here will definitely let me know if i'm wrong...

[greenblood]

currently I have $19.99 VPN total, which is essential for Nokia S60
generally, total is the best option for tethering, but VPN is not the best for tethering due to security concern
however, if you have total, APN wap=internet2, both are NAT'd, while VPN is DMZ'd
T-MobileWeb is included with NO restriction with either total, however, proxy and wap APN is required to access T-Zones portal

[Foxfire]

Hmm... well from one perspective the Total Internet plan is still massively cheaper than unlimited data plans from other carriers (except for maybe Sprint). The thing is I still don't know if Total Internet would actually allow MIDlets on a regular phone to connect - like what a couple of the store reps have suggested. :confused:

So how does the T-MobileWeb plan actually, technically work? Does it simply open a couple of extra ports for your handset to allow their WAP browser to access the world outside of t-zones?