AT&T Disables VPN Access on Motorola Q9h Global

[Rocco Augusto]

<em>&quot;I am on my 12th windows mobile device (not a novice user, just for context for this rant). I purchased the AT&amp;T Q Global yesterday, being pleased with the specs, form fact etc. Then my disappointment and frustration with AT&amp;T hit an all time high! They disabled, removed and otherwise made unavailable the VPN connection capabilities of the device! Thats right, when I contacted the AT&amp;T biz tech support they pushed me straight into a corporate sales rep to try to sell me an enterprise connectivity solution. Now I admit I am not a true technology professional, but it appears that AT&amp;T has hit a new level of incomprehensible arrogance with this move. Disabiling core WM6 functionality to drive enterprise solution sales?!? I hope I am wrong and I hope to see someone prove me wrong on this! I look forward to reading more about this.&quot;<br /><br /></em>A few days ago one of our readers, Mike Cioce, sent us this email to make us as well as our readers aware of this issue. Since that time I have spent a few hours on the phone with several of my contacts that are still working for AT&amp;T as well as their Business technical support. Unfortunately, no one can give me a straight answer as to whether or not this is the case with AT&amp;T's data network. While I am 100% positive that an account representative gave this information to Mike, from personal experience I have learned that AT&amp;T's customer service representatives tend to be some of the most ill trained &quot;experts&quot; of any carrier... and I was right since no one knew for sure if this is the case or not! As a word of caution to any of our readers that are interested in purchasing this handset, especially for it's VPN abilities, prepare to pay out the nose for the Enterprise Connectivity solutions.<br /><br />Now before anyone starts revolting in outrage, I can for the most part explain why a company such as AT&amp;T might take this approach. When I worked for AT&amp;T (formally Cingualr) it was common knowledge that the individuals that usually used these features did so for their business needs and would usually consume a large portion of data every month. Way more than the the standard consumer could every use. Realistically it would be a horrible business move for AT&amp;T to <em>not</em> charge customers that are using those features an extra data cost! While I understand the frustration of being locked out of a feature your phone supports at the same time I understand that business customers can afford to spend more on their bills every month, especially with the amount of data they consume.

[Mark Larson]

So, charging people $40 or $45 instead of $20 for Smartphone unlimited data because of the QWERTY keyboard is not enough for AT&T?

I'm not surprised though, the crippling had to come to Windows sooner or later. If MS would remove its head from its ass and back its OS a little more, users wouldn't have such a sour impression of its product.

"Oh, we're sure that carriers and ODMs will spend time and money in making our product look and feel good with nice and functional homescreens and extensions, we just supply the tools and the developers will come!"

"Oh, we're sure that the third party developer community will come to users' aid with $30 software to do small things that should have been done right from the outset."

"Oh, that stupid Caller ID screen where you have to scroll down to view the only important bit of information in a missed call, the time and date, that hasn't been fixed for years? I'm sure someone out there will be happy to fix it and charge you $50 for a buggy program. After all, we wouldn't want to take money from our third-party developers' pockets by making a good OS from the get-go, would we now?"

Sorry if this is too negative guys, but MS's attitude towards the Smartphone platform, heck Windows Mobile in general, is pretty irritating.

[heliod]

At least in my country, this can be due to network architecture.

One of our operators, Partner-Orange, has no problem at all with VPN. For what I have noticed, every phone that logs into their data system receives a true DHCP IP address.

The other, Cellcom, does things differently: a regular phone that logs into their APN receives an internal network address and goes out to the internet via NAT. This means all phones have the same IP address and pass through a gateway.

In case you need VPN at Cellcom, you need to call the company and request to receive a true IP address that doesn't go through a NAT gateway. They register your phone number to a different APN and instruct you on how to change the definitions on the phone.

ALL is done for free, so it is not a question of getting more money, just a question of architecture and how to save on IP addresses.

[ksb]

Rocco, I agree with your asserttion that VPN users probably use more data, but I disagree that it should make a difference under the current billing model.

AT&T is nuts with data plans. That there exist multiple plans that call for "unlimited" data is insane; even more so when there's an extra fee if you reveal that you're using a feature which LOWERS your use of data (I mean DirectPush).

MediaMax Unlimited: $20, unlimited data, no SMS
MediaMax 200: $20, unlimited data, 200 SMS
Smartphone Connect Unlimited: $20, unlimited data, no SMS
Smartphone Connected for DirectPush: $30, unlimited data, no SMS
Smartphone Connect Global: $45, unlimited U.S. data and 20 MB overseas data, no SMS
Smartphone Connect Global for DirectPush: $55, unlimited U.S. data and 20 MB overseas data, no SMS
PDA Connect: $40, unlimited data, no SMS
PDA Connect for DirectPush: $45, unlimited data, no SMS
PDA Connect Global: $65, unlimited U.S. data and 20 MB overseas data, no SMS
PDA Connect Global for DirectPush: $70, unlimited U.S. data and 20 MB overseas data, no SMS

So, excluding the $25 upcharge for global data, a customer can pay between $20 and $45 for the same documented service: "unlimited data." AT&T varies the price based on device category based on the belief that certain types of devices are either used for certain types of high-use features (VPN?) or high-use customers (business folks?). But a non-business user could use way more bandwidth than a business user simply by running a non-business program like SlingPlayer.

Worse yet, you can still get MediaMax 200 or Smarthone Connect on a BlackJack if you're persistent, but you can't get Smartphone Connect Global. Apparently, to AT&T's billing system, BlackJacks become PDA when going overseas (requiring the use of PDA Connect Global) and resume being smartphones (with Smartphone Connect or MediaMax) when they return to the States. This makes no sense from a technical or financial point of view.

The problem and the solution come from the naming convention. Cingular was willing to bet that smartphones wouldn't use much data when they named "MediaMax Unlimited" and now they're afraid that users will use too much, so they're pushing people toward a more expensive "unlimited plan." Isn't the right answer to stop calling these plans unlimited unless they are going to be unlimited? They should offer an unlimited plan, but it should be truly unlimited and thus the device type should matter.

They should also have lesser packages based on usage (20MB chunks?) with automatic one-month bump ups as needed. That is, if I sign up for a 20MB plan and have a crazy month of 30MB, AT&T shouldn't charge me for 10MB at the silly $0.0195/KB rate, but should momentarily bump me up to the 40MB plan, but then drop me back down for the next month. An ISP that I dealt with years ago did this with their plans (which were based on hours of usage).

I could go on and on (and have to our AT&T rep), but I'll stop now to let others comment.

[Rocco Augusto]

I agree, AT&T really needs to sit down and rethink their naming schemes for their data plans but I do not feel this is a matter of amounts of data used but instead how often the data is used. AT&T realizes that realistically they could not handle a large majority of their 55+ million customers being connected to their data network for extensive periods of times. So they disable certain services and require customers to pay more as needed.

[ksb]

AT&T realizes that realistically they could not handle a large majority of their 55+ million customers being connected to their data network for extensive periods of times. So they disable certain services and require customers to pay more as needed.What do you mean by this? In the DirectPush example that I was griping about, what resource is being used while the phone is waiting for the Exchange server to respond to the "has anything changed yet" query? If none, AT&T should encourage DirectPush because it will use fewer resources than logging in every 15 minutes and doing an IMAP or POP query.

However, if there is a use, I could see AT&T selling data in (25MB?) chunks and charging more for persistent sessions (a socket kept open over 5 minutes?). (For the non-networky types here, that persistent session thing would not impact web browsing at all because each web page and image on a page is a separate and isolated session at the HTTP level.) Such a persistence charge, if supportable by actual costs, would let AT&T have the funds and the direction to build the kind of network that is needed to support the kind of usage its customers want.

Of course, some will say that the current billing models average us all together and I agree with that. But it still leaves us with five different prices for the same advertised service.

I'll stop writing now. You can probably tell that this is a pet peeve of mine and not one that we'll have any impact on here. The global thing really gets me because I'm headed to Australia tomorrow and I need to call to turn my smartphone into a PDA for a while...

[Fritzly]

<em>&quot;While I understand the frustration of being locked out of a feature your phone supports at the same time I understand that business customers can afford to spend more on their bills every month, especially with the amount of data they consume.

While I do not agree with your reasoning about AT&T behaviour I admit that mine, as well as your one are subjective opinions; what I find unacceptable at every level is that it seems that AT&T omitted to clearly and exhaustively describe how deeply and severely they castrated the OS. Said that I also sadly have to say that things like this happens because in Capitol Hill seat the the best people that the money funneled by the same corporations that are squeezing Joe Smith was able to send there.

[Jerry Raia]

I went in and bought a Q 9h the other day. No one in the store I talked to had a clue about this issue (no surprise). I bought it anyway as I have no need for that feature. :D

Great phone I must say.

[Mike Temporale]

Jerry - we need some sort of widget that shows us what you're currently using. It changes so fast that it's hard to keep up. ;)

[mseeohsee]

It was my email that started this in an attempt to find a VPN solution, and it is now officially dead. After having several emails and phone conversations with several 2nd tier biz tech support pro's, I was officially notified by att that there is NO VPN ACCESS on the Moto Q Global and that IT CAN NOT BE DONE. They agreed to return the phone for me and allow me to move to one of the other devices that does support VPN. ATT - SHAME ON YOU!:mad: