T-Mobile

Or Not To Join!

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My tryout trip with Cingular and my HP iPaq phone didn’t go so well for Cingular and the phone. First I should say the phone didn’t even get really used on the trip. By the time I was ready for the trip I had decided that the Windows Mobile phone software was too clunky to use all the time, and that the iPaq was nice as a PDA but was too big to use as a phone. Having it reboot 3 times while I was trying to sync it with my Mac didn’t help it.

With the Windows Mobile woes I figured I might as well try out the Cingular SIM in my Treo and see if the service was better and if the “high speed” data was worth the extra money. In NYC the signal seemed fine for singular. It even worked on the tracks in Penn Station. At my companies upstate office however where I had great service with T-Mobile I had 1 bar or no service with Cingular.

The data plan worked fine with no configuration necessary. But it wasn’t noticeably faster than my T-Mobile data plan that was half the price. Wanting to test that I used my Treo as a DUN modem and connected to the internet on my Powerbook using both Cingular and T-Mobile. The Treo 650 supports Cingular’s EDGE network and should have given me performance somewhere in the 100k range. I ran the CNET speed test and got a response of 26k. I tried my T-Mobile SIM on the same phone and got performance of around 60k +. That was what I expected with T-Mobiles GPRS system. That was the final decision to get out of my Cingular trial. The bad signal at my office was almost a death kneel, but paying double for a data plan that was slower was the final straw.

I will give Cingular credit. They are true to their 30 day money back policy for the service and phone. I had no problems returning the device and canceling the service. I say that before I get the bill for usage I had, but I think everything should be ok. If they improve the data speeds and service in the area I travel to I would look at them again, but for now I am fine with T-Mobile.

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Join An Evil Empire?

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I have pondered switching mobile carriers for a while. I have always ended up staying with T-Mobile. I have had them for almost 4 years and all in all they have been ok. But besides being cheap, and offering GSM they don’t have that much going for them. Well except nice customer service. That is a plus but for the once a year I call is it worth all the other trade offs? They offer the worst phones. Their high speed data plans may be cheap but they are really slow.

I have been eying the HP iPaq 6515 Windows Mobile phone for a while. Cingular offers it. It has a nice size screen and a keyboard. It is larger than my Treo 650 but the larger screen is REALLY nice. I saw it in the store today on my day off of shopping. I was originally not going to switch but I was surprised to find they had the iPaq in stock (they didn’t several other times I went to the store trying to take a look at it). I was impressed with the screen size, and the fact that the whole unit was not much bigger than the Treo even thought it was wider.

To make a long story short I made an semi impulse buy and am on my way to switching mobile carriers to Cingular. Now I have 30 days to see if I like the phone and the service, but for now I am switching. I will pay almost double for the data plan I had, but I am also (in theory) more than doubling the speed of the wireless data. The plan I am moving to is almost identical to what I had. 900 minutes vs the 1000 that T-Mobile gave me for the same price. The advantage is that I get roll over minutes now. Some months I use allot of minutes but others I almost never use any, so now I can roll over unused minutes to the next month.

I am going on a trip tomorrow so I will give the phone and service a real trial. More news later.

Oh and as for the title of the post I think most large telecom companies are evil. I love them, and use them all the time, but when something goes wrong you are at there mercy. You are in a contract that you cannot get out of, they can be very evil. But at least it is an evil you know!

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Off The Grid Vacation

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I actually made it the entire vacation without doing any work! I only used my computer twice. Once when we got to the hotel (and I was waiting for our room to be ready) and once to pull up flight information. No DVD’s, no email, no work. I am almost addicted to email but it does feel nice to go “off the grid” for a while.

I did exactly what I said I would do, nothing. Except for the scuba on Saturday I sat around the hotel, the pool, ocean, etc and did nothing productive. It was almost boring, but I enjoyed every minute of it. My mobile phone didn’t work due to some fluke registration problem. I could see the local wireless network but my phone wouldn’t register with it. It wasn’t worth it for me to call the carrier and T-Mobile (for a fee most likely) and figure out the issue. So I got an unexpected reprieve from stupid people calling my mobile. For $20 a day for wireless internet I decided that my vacation needed less internet and more sun tan lotion. I actually needed more lotion than I used, since I got a bit burned in some places.

Jay and John (mostly John) thought I was lazy or a party popper when I didn’t want to go anywhere, but I gave everyone fare warning what I planned on getting out of this vacation, and I got it. When Jay took his 2 1/2 hour (each way) van ride to the Mayan ruins I slept in, had a massage and relaxed with a book. I felt great. I wanted to see the ruins but not in 100 degree heat and 5 hours of travel. To me the massage was a better use of my money.

We went out of the hotel for dinner twice. once to a decent seafood restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. I had a massive crab cake, and not much else since I wasn’t hungry. We saw a crocodile while we sat eating dinner out on the deck. it was awesome. We also saw the sunset on the Cancun lagoon. that was also very cool. The other night out we went to Jimmy Buffet’s Margeritaville. It was cool. I didn’t realize they actually have good food.

The other nights we hung out by the hotel. Spent some time in the lounge / bar. We drank, played cards, smoked cigars, and had an all around good time.

I had only like 2 1/2 days of sun. That was plenty for me. I got burned on parts of my legs, feet, and scalp. How do you put lotion on your head if you have hair? The worst is mainly over, so I am not too upset, except for the slight burn line I have right near my hairline. It is starting to peel so it will go away soon. This is why I don’t sun so much. you always miss a spot with the lotion, and when you do it hurts. The lying in the pool was cool though. they had parts of the pool that were only a few inches deep so you can lie in them and cover allot of your body with water and sun. you stayed cool, and still got a tan. it was great. The ocean water and the pool water was so warm it was almost like a bath. You could stay in it almost all day. Pruning was the only factor that limited your stay in the pool. The pool-side bar allowed you to drink while hanging out. Always a favorite of mine.

So to sum it up, my first true vacation in 2+ years was a success. I didn’t think of work, or do anything technical all week. A win for me! Now I need to plan on the next vacation. And to respond to everyone who asks (jay and john for 2) why I travel to other countries and don’t go very far from the hotel, I have one statement to make. Anyone in NY can goto the Jersey shore, or Maine, or any other easter state. Even if I don’t do very much on a tropical island, I am somewhere I have never been, and away from many of the annoying people in NY. By just going to Mexico you get people with a different attitude. Everyone outside of big cities in the US are so much more laid back. For vacation I need that, even if I don’t travel and see the local sites. And lets face it, all the local sites in the hotel zone in Cancun are American chain restaurants. There was McDonalds, Outback, Chillis, Pat Obrian’s, etc. It was like I was at a US strip mall. I didn’t mind, but to get true local culture you had to travel like Jay did, and I wasn’t going to do that. So I enjoyed my perfectly tranquil sheltered vacation.

Bye Bye Treo, Maybe?

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I got fed up with my Treo 650 this weekend, and it may be time for it to hit ebay. I am not sure if my problem is T-Mobile or the Treo but I had problems with people not hearing me yesterday. I heard them but they could not hear me. A phone reboot solved that problem. Today I rebooted the phone for some reason (at 7PM) and I got notification that I had 6 messages from that morning. All of the messages were import work related issues that needed to be addressed quickly. Well needless to say they weren’t.

I have had issues off and on for a while. Rebooting the phone solves lots of issues, but should I have to do that? Jayson thinks I should wipe all the extra software I have (i have allot) and see if the phone works fine then. He is right, and the phone probably will work but the whole point of a palm phone is the ability to use the “SMART” features. If my distinctive ring or other apps wont work, why would I want a big phone like that?

The problem is what to do? I have a Blackberry that I need to carry for work, so I get my realtime email. I have been using my SE T610 off and on for a week. I broke down and started using it tonight full time until I can find a permanent replacement to the Treo, or until I calm down and start using it again. I already ordered a Motorola V3 Razr off of ebay. I have been eyeing it for a while and I figured now was the time to get one. I will continue to use the Treo as a palm for now. When I finally decide to dump it I will need to find a new PDA. The Razr should be able to connect to most new PDA’s via Bluetooth so I hope to keep some of my wireless internet features. I will find out when it arrives later this week.

Sleep

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My sleep habits are all screwed up now that I worked nights two days in a row. Tonight I don’t have to do an overnight. We got allot done yesterday so we didn’t have to go in today. I do have to go back one more time on Thursday night. I got home at 6AM this morning and slept till 2PM. Now it is midnight and I am not tired. I figured I would write a bit and then hopefully sleep would come.

My building’s maintenance crew gave me a new AC unit today. The on in my living room was not cooling. Now I am nice and cold while I sit here and write! When I called they said it would be a while for them to send someone out so I ended up going to the office for a few hours. It was that or goto Starbucks and pay for internet. At work, it is free (for me)!

I went over to Macy’s after work to try and do some shopping, but the lines were really long for the changing room. I decided to try back some other time.

I also went over to the Cingular store. I still think they are an evil company, but I bought a pre-paid SIM card to test out their service. I have been having intermittent reception issues with my T-Mobile phone. So much so that this week I have been using my work Nextel and leaving forwarding calls to that. The pre-paid SIM was cheap, so I will try it for a few days and see if I like it or not.

I also re-organized part of my living room. I had for a while 2 monitors on my desk. They took up allot of space. I had another half of the L of my desk with nothing but piles of crap on it. I cleaned it off, bought a power strip and put my 20″ Apple Cinema display on the other desk. Now I have my powerbook plugged into that and I have more room. I also moved my printer to a shelf out of the way. I still need to clean up my place, but I am lazy since I have been out of it with these weird hours. I keep telling myself I will clean this weekend.

Besides that, I tried to rest allot today. More exciting things this weekend, I hope!

T-Mobile Coverage Maps

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I have found another reason to still be happy with T-Mobile as my mobile provider. They may not be the biggest carrier in the US but they are coming up with nifty things that shouldn’t be innovative, but they are. Check out the street level coverage map. Punch in your address and it tells you how the signal strength should be. The accuracy seems correct for outside coverage. I punched up Jaysons address and it says he should have perfect coverage. he does when he is outside his place, but gets no signal in his apartment. I then punched up my companies office upstate and it accurately showed me where good signal would be and where it won’t. now I understand why there is no good signal at the train station. there is no tower nearby. Like google maps it was very fascinating to just punch up an address and see the coverage.

I don’t understand why Cingular and Verizon don’t stop treating their customers (in my opinion) like criminals and give them information like this? or allow unlocked phones, or changing price plans without signing new contracts, etc. Kudos to T-Mobile for another reason why I am still a customer even if they don’t have plans for a faster data network for a few years.

Hotspots

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Yesterday Jayson, Danny, & I took off to Starbucks to study (tech books), talk about work, etc. We have wanted to try that for a while but have been busy. We finally made it out. James joined us for a bit, but was busy and had to go. First, the starbucks in Union Square was noisy. Yes there are actually 2 Starbucks in Union Square but I assume the other one was as noisy as this one. Jayson says the one by his house is not as bad and he has gone to read and drink coffee for hours without problems. I felt like I was back in High School with two tables of extremly loud high school girls sitting rite by us. The place was packed. 4 of us sat at a table made for 2. Totally not the laid back experience we were looking for. not sure if I will suggest that again.

We did make productive use of our time while we were there. I tried out the T-Mobile Hotspots. I used it in Delta crown rooms before but I wanted to give it a shot at Starbucks. There were 3 free networks in range (or so the laptop said), but I couldn’t connect to any of them. So I paid. it is not cheap, but it works great. We ended up shopping for an LCD TV online. as I said in my post yesterday the specs I want are just too pricey right now.

Road Trip & Softball Games

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Went upstate on a road trip with Dan today. I had a bunch of things to take care of. Dan wanted to leave to head back to NYC by 3:30PM to make our first softball game. Being the realist I am I said we would never leave on time, and we would never make a 5:45PM game. I was right on both accounts. We didn’t leave until around 4PM. We missed all but 2 innings of the game.

We ended up getting lost getting to Roosevelt Island. Yahoo maps gave us the wrong exit name, and the stupid exit was not numbered. once we drove past it we knew we missed it, but it took tons of time to turn around. The rest of the directions were good though. Thanks to David for emailing them to me, and thanks to the Treo 650 and T-Mobile wireless data for bringing up the directions on my phone and actually working! Tech that works is priceless!

We lost by 1 run. It was tied until the last inning. At least it was not a blow out! Went out for a drink after the game and then headed to J & G’s for dinner.

All in all it was a good but busy and travel filled day.

Freedom Day

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Today is the day I have been waiting for. It is the day that my mobile phone contract is up. I rely on my mobile all the time so since february I have been thinking what I would do when this day came. My issue was I have 2 phones on the same plan. One line was under contract and the other one has not had a contract in years. The one without the contract I wanted to keep, and drop the other one that the contract just ended on. The issue is you have to change price plans when you switch off the family share plan to a single phone plan with T-Mobile. I didn’t want to change the plan type on the phone I wanted to keep and then have to get into a contract since I was making a change. I am so against contracts for crap like a cell phone that I would have switched from T-Mobile and switched providers just to prove a point that a long time customer should not have to sign contracts!

Turns out T-Mobile was super cool with my situation. They offered me a regular 1000 minute plan with no contract, but I couldn’t get unlimited nights. For the price, and the fact that I still got unlimited weekends I took it. I can always get rid of it later if I have a problem.

So after my billing cycle changes (sometime this weekend I think) I will be down to one phone and no contract! Lets just hope that when I get my bill next month they didn’t f–k anything up.

The Treo On The Road

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I had mixed results with the Treo 650 on the road over the 2 day period I traveled this week. One problem I had was not related to the Treo but with T-Mobile. For some reason I could not receive calls for almost 16 hours. Not sure why. Fiddling with the phone, an extra phone and a different #’s sim card got my number to start working again. not sure what I did. Probably several phone reboots and swapping sim’s did the trick.

Other issues I had was with bluetooth and connecting with my laptop. PDANet didn’t even work with bluetooth. I kept having conflicts with the HotSync software. Even after I turned the hotsync off. Not sure what is wrong, but I think it is related to the 3com bluetooth card more than it is related to the Treo. I just can’t get it to work right consistently.

The screen rocks. I cannot mention that enough. The battery life was good also. I only charged it for like an hour in 2 days and I still have almost 50% charge. That was with bluetooth on most of the daytime hours.

My Sony Ericsson Headset works great with the Treo. That bluetooth accessory works as advertised (for now). I used it allot. it is great to have wireless hands free.

I need to get beyond contacts back on the Treo. I don’t like the trial of agendus. I just cannot get used to its UI. it is supposed to be good, but it is too different.

Jayson is enjoying my old 600. he got a bunch of apps on it already. We were beaming contacts while waiting for the train Wednesday. Yes we are geeks.

I am also almost out of memory in the phone. That dam memory issue is really affecting me. Avantgo, snapper mail, agendus, and vindigo are taking up almost all of my memory. I am trying to free up space any way I can.