Wireless Carriers for GPRS/BlueTooth?

[dhoward]

I wanted to pick the brain of the experts here.

I'm looking at the wireless carriers for using GPRS. Thus far, I have researched ATTWS and TMobile.

They both provide GMS/GPRS. I was under the impression the ATTWS had limitations on being able to access any part of the Internet, using a PPC and a GPRS phone. Is that correct?

Any and all experiences using these carriers is welcomed--the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Inquiring minds want to know.

Txs
david

[Janak Parekh]

AT&T GSM/GPRS lets you access any part of the Internet, but you must use GPRS to do it - you can't do a regular dial-up call to an ISP. For many, this is good enough.

T-Mobile lets you do both dial-up and GPRS. I have T-Mobile, it works pretty reliably, but I've not done dial-up in a long time - GPRS is much faster, especially connectionwise.

Cingular is the third choice, btw.

--janak

[dh]

There are three major networks using GSM, ATTWS, T-Mobile and Cingular.
Of these T-M seems to have the best coverage and best rate plans. (in at least some cases, T-M and Cingular customers can also roam on each others networks). ATT is changing to GSM (which uses GPRS as it's data system) although the coverage is far from complete.
Check out www.howardforums.com for discussions on these issues.

[daS]

I wanted to pick the brain of the experts here.

I'm looking at the wireless carriers for using GPRS. Thus far, I have researched ATTWS and TMobile.

They both provide GMS/GPRS. I was under the impression the ATTWS had limitations on being able to access any part of the Internet, using a PPC and a GPRS phone. Is that correct?

Any and all experiences using these carriers is welcomed--the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Inquiring minds want to know.

Txs
david

It would help to know where you are located as well as where you expect to roam.

As others have noted, the three major choices in the USA are AT&T, T-Mobile and Cingular.

All three offer GPRS, but only T-Mobile allows you to also use your voice minutes for circuit-switched (read slow) data connections. AT&T blocks circuit-switched data and Cingular charges you for it - even if you have available minutes.

If you are in the Southern California area let me know and I'll give you a contact at T-Mobile that provides excellent customer support, actually knows what she's talking about, and will match the lowest price on phones and PPC/PE units (such as Amazon's price.)

[dhoward]

It would help to know where you are located as well as where you expect to roam.

Hi, Dave, in CA. Thanks for writing back.

I'm located in the Dallas/Ft Worth area. We have a strong presence of ATT, Cingular, and TMobile. To what extent and penetration level, (compared to TDMA for ATT & Cing), I don't know.

Guess I'm looking to be sure there are no hidden "got-yah's" from the carriers. I don't expect T1 service. On the other hand, I don't want to be restricted or locked out of certain URL locations.

Thanks for your time.

[daS]

Hi, Dave, in CA. Thanks for writing back.

I'm located in the Dallas/Ft Worth area. We have a strong presence of ATT, Cingular, and TMobile. To what extent and penetration level, (compared to TDMA for ATT & Cing), I don't know.

Guess I'm looking to be sure there are no hidden "got-yah's" from the carriers. I don't expect T1 service. On the other hand, I don't want to be restricted or locked out of certain URL locations.

Thanks for your time.

Personally, I would avoid ATT. As others have noted, both ATT and Cingular are switching their nationwide networks from TDMA to GSM, so currently, coverage for either of them might be spotty. However, Cingular and T-Mobile have a network sharing agreement so that you can use either one on the other's network. In fact, T-Mobile entered the GSM market here in California without any of their own towers at the start!

While I've been a Cingular customer since they entered the GSM market here as PacBell, I would recommend T-Mobile as currently having better GPRS rates. Also, T-Mobile uses some data compression technology that can give you better performance on the web.

I don't know of any carrier that is doing any filitering of where you can go on the web, however, you will find that some web pages won't work on the Pocket PC - but that's due to the limitations of the Pocket PC and not because of the carrier blocking a page.