Vodafone UMTS settings

[donschmidto]

Hello!

I am using a Windows Mobile 5 PDA (FSC Pocket Loox T830) to connect to the internet. Therefore I bought a PAYG Sim on ebay which offers the standard 15 MB per 1£ access. Unfortunetaly I encounter some problems and questions when using mobile internet access:

1. Although the T830 is UMTS phone I am not able to connect at higher speeds than GPRS.

2. I downloaded some 100KB but was charged more than the 1£. I am very sure that I downloaded not more than the 15MB allowance as I visited only two mobile-internet-newspapers and accessed my mails (only headers +1KB content). Before testing I had a 10£ balance, afterwards only 7,80£ were left over. I haven't visited or used any peer2peer, messanger or whatever such programs/sites so I don't have a clue why I got charged that much. I tried it again today and again I paid more than 1£.

3. It seems to be pretty hard to find the correct Vodafone 3G UMTS settings. I googled hours and hours to find the APN. Maybe this is part of my problems as described?

Currently I am using the pp.vodafone.co.uk apn - what other ways are there to connect to vodafone using UMTS? Which setting do you use on your WM5 PDAs to access the net?

Many thanks ind advance for any ideas provided. I am sick of googling :)

cheers,
Sebastian

[DaveC]

The settings for UTMS are the same as for standard GSM

With Vodafone you must make sure that 3G is enabled on your SIM - A call to CS will sort that out.

Whilst on to them check also that the £1 a day is enabled - I have known cases where this does not happen automatically even though they say it does

The APN is correct for PAYG

[donschmidto]

OK, thanks for the quick reply. I called CS half an hour ago and they told me that I downloaded more than 15MB yesterday (but they were not willing to tell me in detail how many MB that might have been! I bet my annual salary that no one sorted out anything while they put me on hold and I bet another 10£ that my CS representative just grabed herself a coffee during these 7 Minutes). From my point of view this is nothing but a lie as it is simply not possible to download more than 15 MB within a few minutes using a GPRS connection.

But talking to CS is a bit like talking to your own hands, they listen but it won't help anything. Ahh, and they gave me the very helpful hint to request a detailed statement for only 10£ to figure out where my 2,20£ are actually gone.

Thanks... grml...

cheers,
Sebastian

[DaveC]

Seeing you have a windows mobile device have a look at this http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/gprsmonitor/??en

You can download a trial

[Jethro]

DaveC just as a note 3G cannot be enabled or disabled as such from your SIM. With VF UK you either have a 2.1Ghz trx/rx and are in coverage or you don't.

If you handset is UMTS capable and your within coverage no network setting can be put in place to stop you accessing the bearer. Bar's etc. can block services over the bearer but in term's of actually getting resources this is not possible.

[DaveC]

DaveC just as a note 3G cannot be enabled or disabled as such from your SIM. With VF UK you either have a 2.1Ghz trx/rx and are in coverage or you don't.


Interesting. Because I have a Voda PAYG SIM which a year or so back did not work on 3G. I rang CS who simply said "Certainly Sir" and 10 minutes later it worked.

Maybe because it was an old SIM

[Jethro]

Obviously 2G and 3G use different BSS but generally the core network is not bothered too much about this, so in essence you should be able to use either bearer regardless of services you’re subscribed.

If the SIM and attached number were old (and we're talking VF network being slightly older at the time) I suppose there is a chance some elements did not have an up to date view of your number and as such couldn’t route from the UTRAN. A SIM swap would have loaded the new IMSI onto the required element's.