T-Mobile Data Plans Suddenly Stop Working

[jimmie geddes]

This happened to me last week. I called T-Mobile and told them that I could no longer access the internet. I have the $5 plan, and was told that their servers have started checking out what people's phones were doing, and that if you were getting internet on the $5 plan, especially with the Dash that they were turning it off. The rep said that I would have to pay the $29.99 for internet access since the $5 "should" not work on the Dash. I told them that I was never told that when I bought the Dash and was not going to pay $30 bucks a month for EDGE. I told the rep I would cancel my account, she said that she could try adding the $5 internet back to my plan, but she wasn't sure if it would work. It did, and I'm back to having internet on my Dash at $5 a month. If they do this to you call and complain.

[jimmie geddes]

This happened to me last week. I called T-Mobile and told them that I could no longer access the internet. I have the $5 plan, and was told that their servers have started checking out what people's phones were doing, and that if you were getting internet on the $5 plan, especially with the Dash that they were turning it off. The rep said that I would have to pay the $29.99 for internet access since the $5 "should" not work on the Dash. I told them that I was never told that when I bought the Dash and was not going to pay $30 bucks a month for EDGE. I told the rep I would cancel my account, she said that she could try adding the $5 internet back to my plan, but she wasn't sure if it would work. It did, and I'm back to having internet on my Dash at $5 a month. If they do this to you call and complain.

[AdamaDBrown]

Originally Posted by Mike Temporale

Wait a second - Kris is using the right plan for the job, and you're saying he should have signed up for the cheaper plan and stole access instead? And because he didn't do that, he's foolish? :roll:

Okay, it's time to clear up a few things here. For starters, anybody who's thinking of the $6 T-MobileWeb package as "stealing" access needs to go back to school. Internet access has ALWAYS been one of the selling points of T-MobileWeb. That's not an accident on T-Mo's part, nor stealing on the part of the customer. It's the whole point of the plan, as advertised on their website.

Further, I fail to see how someone is "abusing" T-Mobile's data plans when only T-Mobile can control how you access the internet, as well as what services you have on your phone. They were the ones who dropped the limitation on downloading large files through the T-MoWeb proxy; they control whether or not there are port restrictions on the service. Now, T-Mo may or may not be trying to encourage users of T-MobileWeb on smartphones to trade up to the full $30 plan, but I doubt that they will or could go that far with it, since with a GSM carrier they don't know what phone you're using.

Oh, and no, this "crackdown" has not affected at all my own T-MobileWeb service--I still have tethering, and I still have full unlimited ports. Personally, I would tend to take T-Mobile's statement at face value: that when they're targeting unauthorized data connections, they mean really unauthorized data connections, a classification which doesn't apply to T-MobileWeb.

[bshpmark]

I had the Blackberry unlimited data plan on my account for my Dash and it got cut off as well. When I called about it the Tech support person told me there was no way the Blackberry plan would work on my Dash because the plan went through Blackberry servers and the Dash would not work on Blackberry servers. I told him he should do some research because it did in fact work perfectly. I told him that since I did not use T-Mobile hot spots, there was no reason for me to pay $10 extra per month for something I did not use. So I had to back to the $29.99 plan. I am going to try going back to the Blackberry plan to see if it will work again.

Data plan costs charged by cellular providers are a complete rip off. My Comcast plan at home only runs me $41 a month. There is no reason to have to pay $30 a month for cellphone internet access to occasionally check my email, weather, and occasionally browse a couple of favorite web sites.

[jimmie geddes]

The T-Zones $5, 0r $6 plan is what I'm on and it works fine. I also had a BlackBerry pearl for a week to try out and put in the SIM card and installed BlackBerry Connect for Smartphone and it worked fine. T-Mobile is just trying to get more $$ out of us.

[supbro]

I'm in San Diego, and have the Total Internet service. My web browser wasn't working this morning (but email was), until I power cycled my phone. Then it worked.

[Kris Kumar]

Originally Posted by bshpmark

... there was no reason for me to pay $10 extra per month for something I did not use. ...

Someone else also has mentioned this and I agree it is bad strategy on part of T-Mobile to force Dash and other Wi-Fi enabled customers to buy the $30 plan with Internet+HotSpot. There should be an Internet (EDGE) only plan. :evil:

[Mark Larson]

Originally Posted by bshpmark

I had the Blackberry unlimited data plan on my account for my Dash and it got cut off as well. When I called about it the Tech support person told me there was no way the Blackberry plan would work on my Dash because the plan went through Blackberry servers and the Dash would not work on Blackberry servers.

Data plan costs charged by cellular providers are a complete rip off. My Comcast plan at home only runs me $41 a month. There is no reason to have to pay $30 a month for cellphone internet access to occasionally check my email, weather, and occasionally browse a couple of favorite web sites.

See, this is why I don't buy the apologists' explanation - that the Blackberry plan works fine. It would be a grave disservice for someone to sign a 2yr contract thinking that the $20 plan is expensive enough for T-Mobile's tastes, only to find their access restricted 2 months in because T-MO needs to meet some ARPU goal.

Data is a scam everywhere and I thought T-Mobile USA was a breath of fresh air. Its no surprise that many people with Smartphones and PDA devices are on T-Mobile, since they were the only carrier with a reasonable data plan (unlimited for $5 - and yes, this is how much I value my Internet on the phone. I won't be paying $40 to Cingular to use a Blackjack anytime soon, even for 3G)

I first got started with Smartphones precisely because I thought my T610 couldn't do justice to the Net, not even WAP - that is why I bought an Audiovox SMT-5600 and was hooked.

[Pete Paxton]

Tmobile can charge whatever they want for their plans. The $5.99 plan was not implemented by tmo to be an unlimited total internet plan. Also, Sprint charges $15 per month for unlimited data and Cingular charges $20. And while I understand tmo is edge, cingy is edge only in my neighborhood and they don't offer a discount for having the slower speed. My tmo phone plan is 1000 minutes for $39.99 per month with nights and weekends and $30 for my data plan which is $70 total. Cingy is $60 per month for 900 minutes and $20 for data so I would actually be paying $10 more to get edge only speeds. Also, Tmobile is the only one who offers a smartphone with wifi. So at least I can surf at work and at home at good speeds. What I'm really trying to say here is that if you add the data plans with the phone plans and include the fact that my phone has wifi capabilities, I think it all the phone companies come out in the wash pricewise.

[spacehippie2k]

I think the T-Mobile reps people are speaking with don't know what they're talking about. I've found most of the people I speak with at customer service friendly enough, but not very knowledgeable, particularly with regards to mobile internet access.

I seem to remember another thread mentioning a loophole where some customers (myself included) were getting unlimited internet access without being charged. When I bought my Dash in January, I thought I had signed up for the $30 plan, and I was getting the access. But when I called a couple of weeks later to cancel the plan, I was told I didn't have one. Nevertheless, I continued to get full data access for no charge. I have a feeling THIS is the "loophole" T-Mobile was teferring to. They have closed it, as I'm no longer getting free access. But, I just switched to the $5.99 T-Zones plan, configured all my data apps (email, IE, Google Maps, etc.) to work with the WAP server, and everything's been honky dory since. In fact, I'm using it to post this message right now - no matter what the T-Mo reps say.

[spacehippie2k]

Other folks on another forum having similar experiences:

http://forum.dashsmartzone.com/index...topic=569&st=0

The first post has really good instructions on how to configure your Dash to work with the WAP server as a proxy server. The posts related to this topic start on Feb 27.