New Sprint PCS data pricing...affordable at last!

[scrinch]

Sprint has just dropped its "Vision" data pricing to levels where the masses can afford it. After 3 free months, it will cost $10 for unlimited usage! And unlimited night and weekend voice minutes, too!
http://www.pcsvision.com/showcase/details.html

Is that affordable, or what!?

Now would you please release the Kyocera 7135 (oops...not a PPC...sorry).

[spaceman]

The unlimited Vision only applies for phones, not PDA or laptops unfornunately. So for heavy data users, the min data plan is 20MB for $40 which is still good compared to other service providers.

[dreampages]

If you need alot of data use a month, their unlimited plan is pretty good too. Through Sprint Business Solution Partners such as us, it's even a better deal. It's $99.99/month, $49.99/month for the 1st 3 months, $50 off the Merlin card, and no activation fee (usually $34.99).

Larry

[doctorc]

if i could just figure out what spcs phones work as a modem for the ipaq I would do the unlimited vision plan on a phone and use it with my ipaq. i think the only spcs phone thar will do this is the lg5350 with a supplynet cable. i dont think any others will due to the usb issue.

[Underwater Mike]

If you need alot of data use a month, their unlimited plan is pretty good too. Through Sprint Business Solution Partners such as us, it's even a better deal. It's $99.99/month, $49.99/month for the 1st 3 months, $50 off the Merlin card, and no activation fee (usually $34.99).

Larry

Larry,

Is the Merlin an "always on" -type connection? Or is that the not-yet-released AirCard? Also, any word yet on the Yiso?

[dreampages]

Yiso is suppose to be early to mid-November. Aircard 550 is suppose to be mid-November to late-November.

All the cards work the same. There's a "connection manager" program which you run to connect. They connect i 2-4 seconds. From that point on it's "always on" unless you disconnect. Pretty much like DSL worlks.

I have customers on both sides of the fence. Some leave their laptops "always on", others prefer to disconnect when done at the end of the day or whatever for security reasons.

Hope this answers your questions.

Larry

[doctorc]

larry again thanks for all of the great info you post here and also the excellent service i received from dreampages the other day.
when the yiso cf 2031 ever finally comes out i will buy through you.
thanks again

[PPC_Ed]

I am a little confused with what you get with Sprints Vision plans. If you sign up for their PCS F&C Plans w/Vision and get their Toshiba Pocket PC phone, won't you be able to get unlimited internet access? Or does Vision limit what you have access to?

The PCS Vision for Laptops and PDA's seems to only apply to "those plans..for customers who purchase PCS Connection Cards". Does it also apply to their own Toshiba PPCPE?

[blackbarby]

I just got off the phone with a sprint rep and yes the new deal with unlimited data usage does apply to their toshiba pocket pc phone. However, there is not a sprint vision enabled phone that has the capabilities to connect to a seperate pda such as ipaq.

blackbarby

[Underwater Mike]

... there is not a sprint vision enabled phone that has the capabilities to connect to a seperate pda such as ipaq.

Actually, that's not quite correct. I'm using a LG 5350 and a cable to connect with my iPAQ at 50-80Kbps. Doesn't surprise me that the Sprint rep wouldn't know that, though. :wink:

[Fitch]

So as far as you all know, the LG 5350 is the only phone that takes a serial connection (like the old phones, you dial #2932, l:web p:web) and you get data? And that's with a Vision plan? I might just be sold then...

[Underwater Mike]

Yes, the 5350 appears to be the only phone that'll work, which is why I traded in my Sanyo 4900. IF someone can rig a PPC-4900 cable (Gomadic, for example) I would recommend the 4900 over the 5350, since the former blows away everything else in terms of signal, which is what you buy a phone for. (Well, some folks might prefer the LG's better polyphonics or screen, but if I want entertainment I'll look somewhere else.) It's also cheaper.

BTW, the #2932 will get you the pokey, circuit-switched connection, topping out at 19.2K (or 14.4, or whatever it was). With a Vision-enabled phone, the number is #777. THAT gets you the zippy connection!

A couple other folks have said that you don't need a uid and password entry in the Connection setup on the PPC, but I couldn't get the connection to work without entering that authentication info. Once I entered my Vision uid and password, things worked fine. My only problem now is frequent connection drops because of poor signal in my area.

If you get the service and have any problems, PM me and I'll try to walk you through it. The Sprint support folks were zero help to me.

[njb42]

Interesting news here, guys....

One of the programmers who works for me has been playing around with PCS Vision. He says that certain ports, like AOL IM and SSH, are being blocked. Apparently these are *not* blocked with the data cards, only with the phone/USB cable.

Now, if only SPCS could get the Vision features of my new LX5350 to work, then maybe I could confirm this.

[blackbarby]

... there is not a sprint vision enabled phone that has the capabilities to connect to a seperate pda such as ipaq.

Actually, that's not quite correct. I'm using a LG 5350 and a cable to connect with my iPAQ at 50-80Kbps. Doesn't surprise me that the Sprint rep wouldn't know that, though. :wink:

where can I get this cable please tell me!!!

[Janak Parekh]

Actually, that's not quite correct. I'm using a LG 5350 and a cable to connect with my iPAQ at 50-80Kbps. Doesn't surprise me that the Sprint rep wouldn't know that, though. :wink:

where can I get this cable please tell me!!!
My guess would be www.thesupplynet.com -- these guys have cell phone-to-computer/PDA cables for nearly everything.

--bdj

[Underwater Mike]

Yes, SupplyNet is where I got my cable, although if you have a 38xx/39xx iPAQ you can also get it from Dreampages.

I read on a couple other boards that non-data card Vision accounts have all ports except 80 blocked. Haven't verified with my own setup (I have lousy coverage here and my signal drops every 10 seconds), but its doesn't suprise me that Sprint resorted to blocking those ports. After all, if they're too lame to define and enforce a standard for "abusing" the unlimited access, they had to figure out some way to continue overselling the capacity of their network! (Can you tell I'm not a happy customer?)

Seriously, I've been with Sprint since late '96 but I would change in a heartbeat if I could take my number with me. :cry:

------- UPDATE -------

I just tried MSN Messenger for PPC with my LG 5350, and it worked fine. Maybe the AOL IM uses different ports? I do know that Vision has FTP ports locked down...

[njb42]

Here's another unpleasant surprise. Forgive me if this was already mentioned.

The small print in the Unlimited PCS Vision contract specifically excludes using the phone with a PDA or laptop. Apparently the "unlimited" usage is for the phone's WAP browser only.

Quoting from the Sprint web site:


Unlimited PCS Vision offer for PCS Free & Clear Plans with Vision is ...
not available with ... phones, smart phones or other devices used with connection kits or similar phone-to-computer/PDA accessories.


You can see the full text at the bottom of the Terms and Conditions page here (http://www1.sprintpcs.com/explore/servicePlansOptions/addonPopups/PopupPrint.jsp).

[Janak Parekh]

Seriously, I've been with Sprint since late '96 but I would change in a heartbeat if I could take my number with me. :cry:
Unfortunately, you'll have to wait awhile for that. I think FCC number portability is mandated for 2007-ish? Of course, by then, Sprint may be the world's #1 carrier ;)

I would guess that the unlimited plan was a marketing idea by Sprint over the techs' protests, and the port blocking or other monitoring techniques are a hack to prevent the obvious. Now, there's ways to tunnel TCP/IP over HTTP... it may be very slow, but you could theoretically run any app over such a connection. Of course, no such tunnel apps exist for a PPC.

--bdj

[michelleb]

so.. are they blocking ports on the sprintvision service, or does anything go? has someone tried pop/smtp e-mail, telnet, ftp, ssh, irc, anything else?

thanks!!!

love this forum!

[njb42]

so.. are they blocking ports on the sprintvision service, or does anything go? has someone tried pop/smtp e-mail, telnet, ftp, ssh, irc, anything else?

Check out my post a few messages back. They're blocking at least AOL IM and SSH, for starters.

[michelleb]

Thanks for the reponse.

I did read your post, njb42, but you never followed up with conclusive word on wether or not it was being blocked. So *you* have tried it, and other services don't work?

Strangely enough, I've read about (no joke) 100 posts on usenet that state everything is working a.o.k., including people on Macs, pc's, and pda's. Only two (yours included) posts that I've seen indicate there is any blocking going on. I think given the large and growing number of people using this data service might make a little more noise if blocking were going on.

I wouldn't dooubt you if you told me it is blocked for you. My next question would be, which city are you in, how many people in that city are experiencing the same thing, and is it possible they're turning it off for individual users they suspect of using a PC?

[njb42]

I did read your post, njb42, but you never followed up with conclusive word on wether or not it was being blocked. So *you* have tried it, and other services don't work?

Not yet. At the time I wrote the original post, my LG5350 wasn't able to access Vision and the Connection Kit wouldn't work either. That was based on some research one of my programmers did with an A500. Now that my LG is working, I will try it myself and see what happens.

I doubt that SPCS is blocking me individually, since I've barely used the cable yet. But I am on a dealer plan ($15/month for 1500 minutes and unlimited Vision), so maybe the rules *are* different for me.

[dreampages]

I can use AOL IM both on my iPAQ and my laptop with the Merlin C201 so they aren't blocking the AIM ports.

[Underwater Mike]

I can use AOL IM both on my iPAQ and my laptop with the Merlin C201 so they aren't blocking the AIM ports.

Dunno if the blocking is real or not, but the gist of the story is that it's only for folks on voice plans w/Vision, NOT for those on data plans. So, if the Merlin card was functioning okay on both PDA and PC, that just means that data customers are indeed in the clear.

FWIW, I was able to connect with my iPAQ last week and use MSN Messenger. The acid test would be FTP...

[michelleb]

I can confirm that Sprint has some measures in place against heavy users of tethered phones + sprintvision. It works for a while, but they must have some sort of algorithm in place that detects extended heavy usage, because the rate slowly drops, then the connection starts to get rather flackey, and evtl. you're just redialing. I'd have to say it's not worth it at this point. Too bad.

Just to reiterate here, this is for people with tethered phones, not the data cards. I'm sure those work as advertised.

michelleb

[arebelspy]

Has anyone confirmed about Sprint blocking certain ports? I know from talking to Mike Donatello that before he sold his iPAQ he could access MSN messenger, but he didn't test AIM or FTP. Does anyone know what ports are blocked, if any are?

As for Sprint PCS blocking certain ports (like the port that AIM uses), how about using Port Forwarder (freeware for Windows CE) to get around that?

Here is the link: http://www.fuji-climb.org/pf/index.shtml

I sent my iPAQ off to pocketpctechs.com to get a battery upgrade, so I'll test it when I get back (hopefully before Christmas, but if not it might be a week or two before they get to it), but does anyone want to test Port Forwarder with their LG 5350 and Pocket PC right now? Or with their Laptop? Mabe a test using FTP or AIM or something.

-arebelspy

[arebelspy]

Well my ComCube (the cables I am using to connect my LG5350 to my iPAQ and Laptop - from www.gomadic.com) arrived in the mail a few minutes after I made my last post. I've been using it on my laptop for the past few hours.

As for the question of port blocking, I don't know about on the Pocket PC, but it doesn't seem that any are blocked on my Laptop. I can sign onto AIM just fine, and as for FTP I tried logging onto Tripod, here were my results (important part in bold):

~ Connecting...
~ Connected to ftp.tripod.com, waiting for response...
< 220 Welcome to Tripod FTP.
> USER m.waller
< 331 Username set to m.waller. Now enter your password.
> PASS *****

...

< 230 User 'm.waller' logged on.
> REST 1
< 502 Command 'REST' not implemented
> SYST
< 215 UNIX Type: L8
> PWD
< 257 "/" is current directory.
~ Login completed.
> PORT 68,24,109,53,5,82
< 200 Port command succeeded.
> TYPE A
< 200 Type set to 'A' (ASCII).
> LIST
< 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for LIST.
< 226 Transfer complete.

I guess I'll test the LG5350 connection using PPC AIM once I get my iPAQ back from www.pocketpctechs.com to see if there are ports blocked like some people claim, but so far I haven't seen any.

*one happy camper*

-arebelspy

[GQ19]

well what about when the Sony Ericsson T608 comes out for the sprint network.. it has bluetooth and could potentially allow any PPC with BT to access Sprint's 1xRTT network.. with the unlimited plan that Spint offers.. thats a good deal.. but in terms of the point of this thread.. could sprint restrict data usage for the BT phone or what?