Cingular having GPRS problems?

[Goattee]

For most of yesterday (March 10, 2005), I was unable to pick up email or web browse.

I called the Cingular product support line this morning. After yet another ridiculously long wait, the CSR told me to power cycle my phone.

Immediately after powering back up, I was able to access the Internet again. I asked whether he had reset something on my account. He mumbled something that I interpreted as meaning "basically yes." I asked if this was a regional problem and when it occurred. He simply said it was yesterday and that it was happening pretty broadly across the Cingular network.

Within 30 minutes I was back to the same problem. The "Connecting..." legend appearing without ever making a successful connection.

Anyone else here experiencing this as well?

(And have you noticed that now that Cingular has consolidated market share, the customer service availability has gotten even worse?)

[Torque]

I've noticed that GPRS Service is spotty today in Atlanta (you'd figure it would be best in Cingular's back yard). I haven't called customer service because, since I joined the Orange side (Originally an ATT Wireless customer) basically to get a plan with rollover minutes, the service and customer service has been crap from the start. I don't even have a smart phone yet. Still on my T637. Media NET has to be the least compelling Wireless web service I've ever seen. There is hardly any decent content. MMODE blew this away.

[jeff]

don't bank on cingular helping with this, the problem is the phone. We've all seen it and are all coming up with our own ways to get around it. For me (in CT) i have had best results when setting the idle disconnect time to "none" (this is located in the settings sub menu, then dta connections, menu, choose options, "idle disconnect after" option). Its still unclear why this happens, but i have found that setting this option has cleared my problem entirely with one exception. If i enter a building where a lose reception (like a concrete building) then i have to power cycle to regain access. I had to do this before so this is nothing new.

There are also posts about the lowmem setting in the registry, I changed mine according to those posts and the problem of accidentally having two instances of the same program (like agile messenger) running has gone away. This too was known to cause gprs connection issues.

finally, i also fared much better when i did a hard reset of my phone after playing with new apps for a month - i reset it, installed only what i used, and changed my settings like i mentioned. Voila.

It should also be mentioned that the known issue with the internal email prog. automatically checking email has been fixed too. Again, the email app. checks like it supposed to until i enter a building where the connection dies.


So until mot. releases a firmware upgrade that fixes this issue (which may be a WM issue, i dont know) i'm sticking to this method. Hope it helps. I wouldnt hang around for that Mot. upgrade either...something tells me 1.3 is all we're getting. But one can dream :D

[Goattee]

di have had best results when setting the idle disconnect time to "none" ... i have found that setting this option has cleared my problem entirely with one exception. If i enter a building where a lose reception (like a concrete building) then i have to power cycle to regain access. I had to do this before so this is nothing new.


Thanks! I just changed that setting. Lo and behold, it's picking up mail again.

It's pretty obvious that this phone is ALMOST ready for prime time. I love the functionality when it works right. But it's way too expensive to throw away a phone when the next generation comes along. Of course the cell phone industry is thriving on getting us to toss our $300 phones regularly. Reminds me of the days when gasoline in the US was $0.50 / gallon and many folks changed cars every year or two or three.

[Jerry Raia]

I have been having some problems too. I called Cingular yesterday and they confirmed they were having problems. Today I have have still had trouble connecting at various times.

[skibee]

Did they say why this was happening?? I find that issues like this often happen w/ Cingular.

[Jerry Raia]

No explanation. Just said it would be fixed within the hour :lol:

[bsilver]

I have also been having the problem of inability to connect to the internet with my MPX220. I have the phone and service with Cingular since November. Up until this past month all has been great. In the past 4 weeks or so I have been having intermittent connection problems. The phone just says "connecting" and nothing happens. I have spent hours with Cing tech support with no help. I have a new phone coming tomorrow but I have had doubts as to my phone actually being bad. I do have a ton of software on my phone. I will give the suggestions posted above a try. Maybe even a Hard Reset since moving to a new phone will cause the same work. My phone has been great otherwise so I don't want to swap it out if Ib can avoid it. I'll report back on the findings.

[Jerry Raia]

Well since this all started I have tried just turning the phone off and on when I have problems connecting. It seems to cure the problem every time.

[HalM]

Well since this all started I have tried just turning the phone off and on when I have problems connecting. It seems to cure the problem every time.
Agreed. Since I started treating mine like a Windows 98 system and rebooted every day, its performance has dramatically improved. It must have cooperative memory management so it gets confused from time to time.

Would I rather have preemptive memory management like XP? Absolutely. But once you know what the problems is, you can deal with it.

[bsilver]

Well I made the adjustment to "idle disconnect after" option setting it to none and everything is working fine. After a month of problems it is working consistently again.

Now the question is after 4 months of operation why this problem occured at all. I made no changes to my phone in the last month.

[Jerry Raia]

Out of curiosity what did you change the setting to?

[jeff]

Jerry, check out my previous post - set the idle disconnect setting to none, and so long as you dont enter an area where the cingular signal cant penetrate the connection wont die on you. Not perfect, but definitely a step in the right direction. I am much happier with my mpx since i started doing this. The automatic email check function even works pretty consistently now.

[Jerry Raia]

Thanks! I will give that a try :)