Is Cingular MEdia Net fast enuf?

1. Is Cingular MEdia Net fast enuf to use IE6 for Google-ing, etc, or just
for email text? I tried Nextel as a laptop modem a couple years ago - the
speed was abysmal - 3-5 minutes to show my home page. Nowhere near the 19.2
they promised - and that may have been marginally acceptable. It was OK for
email text. And if I remember correctly, I had to use them as my ISP.

2. I live in Irvine, CA, and travel to Las Vegas and Dallas. Will it work
in all 3 places?

On 8/17 John Navas emailed: "MEdia Net Unlimited is $20/month, and works
fine with a laptop -- just add the feature, and *don't* tell Cingular what
you intend to do with it (or you'll be steered to a much more expensive
feature)."

3. So I just connect my V551 to my laptop with my DataPilot USB
data/charging cable, use the USB driver that DataPilot installed, and invoke
Outlook Express?

4. Or can I only get my email via IE6 and my att.net and other ISP's IE
method?

5. Or do I somehow dial up my att.net ISP?

TIA for specific instructions - I'll sign up before my trip to Dallas this
weekend.

Paul

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[POSTED TO alt.cellular.motorola - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <Lq_Ve.97024$Ji4.30661@fed1read03> on Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:59:53 -0700, "P
Hoberg" <[email protected]> wrote:

>1. Is Cingular MEdia Net fast enuf to use IE6 for Google-ing, etc, or just
>for email text?

CSD: Painfully slow.
GPRS: Acceptable
EGPRS(EDGE): Good

For best results, get a GPRS or EGPRS(EDGE) Class 10 device. Note that the
V551 is only EGPRS(EDGE) Class 4, or about 100 Kbps versus the 150 Kbps speed
for Class 10 devices.

>I tried Nextel as a laptop modem a couple years ago - the
>speed was abysmal - 3-5 minutes to show my home page. Nowhere near the 19.2
>they promised - and that may have been marginally acceptable. ...

Cingular GPRS is quite a bit faster, and EGPRS(EDGE) is much faster.

>2. I live in Irvine, CA, and travel to Las Vegas and Dallas. Will it work
>in all 3 places?

Check Cingular coverage maps.

>On 8/17 John Navas emailed: "MEdia Net Unlimited is $20/month, and works
>fine with a laptop -- just add the feature, and *don't* tell Cingular what
>you intend to do with it (or you'll be steered to a much more expensive
>feature)."
>
>3. So I just connect my V551 to my laptop with my DataPilot USB
>data/charging cable, use the USB driver that DataPilot installed, and invoke
>Outlook Express?

Probably, but I don't know for sure -- I personally use Bluetooth.

>4. Or can I only get my email via IE6 and my att.net and other ISP's IE
>method?

You can access regular POP3/SMTP email, just as you can from the V551 itself.

>5. Or do I somehow dial up my att.net ISP?

You don't want to do that: CSD is painfully slow.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

P Hoberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> 1. Is Cingular MEdia Net fast enuf to use IE6 for Google-ing, etc, or just

It works okay for graphic web pages. Plenty fast for email. I've used it
for Remote Desktop Connection and file sharing across VPN.

> for email text? I tried Nextel as a laptop modem a couple years ago - the
> speed was abysmal - 3-5 minutes to show my home page. Nowhere near the 19.2

This isn't a modem in that same sense. The throughput for me in the sticks
is around 30Kbps (GPRS). In the city it's 90Kbps (EDGE or EGPRS). That's
tethered to a V551, which might be slower than a PC card, but I'm not
seeing the listed max speed for the phone, so I'm not sure if a PC card
would be faster, anyway.

For me, the download in the non-EDGE area is about the same as I see with a
56K dialup. EDGE is twice as fast, or better (not knowing if you get 56K
on your dialup. I don't in the sticks).

> 2. I live in Irvine, CA, and travel to Las Vegas and Dallas. Will it work
> in all 3 places?

I would think that the faster EGPRS or EDGE is deployed in all of those
places. The slower GPRS is available almost everywhere that cellular
service is available from your carrier.

> 3. So I just connect my V551 to my laptop with my DataPilot USB
> data/charging cable, use the USB driver that DataPilot installed, and
> invoke Outlook Express?

The V551 and a Bluetooth adapter will give you the drivers you need. To
use a USB cable, you might have the drivers you need if you installed some
software. John says the standard WindowsXP drivers worked, but I didn't
find that to be true on a V220 with the USB cable. I downloaded the free
Cingular Connection Manager, installed it to get the drivers, and then
uninstalled it, which leaves the drivers installed.

The dialup that it will install does not use the WAP connection that John
describes on his web page. Make sure you make those adjustments.

> 4. Or can I only get my email via IE6 and my att.net and other ISP's IE
> method?

Once it is connected, it's just like a WiFi hotspot. You can connect POP3,
or IMAP or via a web email service. It is not restricted to cingular.com.

> 5. Or do I somehow dial up my att.net ISP?

There is no dialup possible without the $3.99 CSD package.
That's not waht you want, anyway, that's back to 9600 baud range.

> TIA for specific instructions - I'll sign up before my trip to Dallas this
> weekend.

Watch the data usage. There used to be an unlimited data "Media Works".
That's now only 5MB per month, which disappears in a hurry. If you are
going to do data, you want MediaNet at an appropriate limit. There is a
promo offer for one month unlimited with any of the MediaNet packages until
September 24th. https://www.cingular.com/media/media_net_purchase

If you have MediaBasic, which was automatically turned on when I bought my
V551, you need to discontinue it in order to get MediaNet. They don't
allow you to combine the two plans. They canceled my "add-on" without
telling me.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.motorola - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:31:55 +0000 (UTC),
[email protected] wrote:

>This isn't a modem in that same sense. The throughput for me in the sticks
>is around 30Kbps (GPRS). In the city it's 90Kbps (EDGE or EGPRS). That's
>tethered to a V551, which might be slower than a PC card, but I'm not
>seeing the listed max speed for the phone, so I'm not sure if a PC card
>would be faster, anyway.

It would be faster. In places where my V551 gets about 100 Kbps, my GC82 PC
Card gets about 150 Kbps.

>Watch the data usage. There used to be an unlimited data "Media Works".
>That's now only 5MB per month, which disappears in a hurry. If you are
>going to do data, you want MediaNet at an appropriate limit. There is a
>promo offer for one month unlimited with any of the MediaNet packages until
>September 24th. https://www.cingular.com/media/media_net_purchase

MEdia Net Unlimited is available (in this area at least) for only $20/month.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>