vB Easy Archive - Data plans on Blackjack

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Data plans on Blackjack
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Posted by: rekkid

(orginally posted on cingular, but probably wont last long)

For the last month or two, my blackjack has been dropping just about every call. Actually my wife gets dropped calls all the time too, so it's just not the Blackjack... its the service.

Anyways... last friday I had 6 calls all dropped, so I was fed up and called customer service (after not getting too much help from the live tech system) and they sent some "network update" to the phone. They told me to restart the phone, and also since I travel between Orlando and Daytona often, I should restart my phone everytime I"m in a new area, so that it will connect to a local tower. Seems like a crazy wasteful workaround, but ok So after rebooting on friday, over the weekend I noticed that my internet connection was down. I was getting "The Remote Party has ended this connection". So... I just chalked it up to network down... busy holiday weekend. I didnt need it too much, but I'll try again on monday. I needed an address out of my gmail and the directions to it from gmaps... no luck getting the phone on. So after the meeting that I was late too, I was able to get online from my laptop and went to the online tech chat. There I was informed that I dont have a data plan. But they would be happy to put on a new plan (which cost 2x as more than what I had). "what happened to the plan I had?" I asked.

them: "Ah yes... you had the media max unlimited plan, it was taken off on friday"
me: "oh strange... ok I'd like it back on please".
them: "I cant, it's not compatible with your phone"
me: "oh... but I've had it for about a month or two"
them: "yes you did have it on"
me: "ok... then I'd like to have it back then"
them: "I cant"

So it was 5 o'clock and I didnt feel like playing a little bit of "who's on first" on the computer, so I log off, pack up, and head out home, and decide to give customer service a call. Well that was actually after dropping a call twice. They told me if I dropped calls to call them and let them know. and I plan on doing that! So after trying to figure out the dropped called problem (which funny thing happened... it dropped while on the phone with them!) so I ask the guy on the line about the media plan.

"yeah let me check.... yes you need the PDA plan. Its twice as much... sorry. Sorry you were lead to believe it would work and had that plan on your phone." Oh you mean your sorry you bait and switched me...

So I go on to look at the PDA plans online and see if I really need unlimited data... and so I go on to add the feature to my account... and its not listed! It shows a Smartphone data plan and then all the other Media Bundles... which I'm told wont work. So I order up the smartphone plan. It is a smartphone, anyways... so maybe this is what they are talking about. So I order it. Wait awhile... and do a reboot, just to make sure its getting updated and open up IE .... "The Remote Party has ended this conection"

So... how can I order this higher price plan if its not even availble on the system? Anyone else get a bait and switch from Cingular? Anyone have so many dropped calls?

Posted by: RF9

Adding smartphone connect online should have worked. I don't get why it's not working. Also try pulling the battery out for 15 seconds and re-inserting it. Make sure it really gets power cycled.
When you log in to OLAM, it's listed as a feature on your service. Correct?

Posted by: allenlikewo

usually "remote party ended connection" is either a provisioning issue or the network thinking it is a provisioning issue

yes smartphone plan should work

and this is easily fixed by us here, but we cant provide you with support if you dont have pda connect

rf9 is on the right track

first we need to assume the feature is actually on your account, if not i would expect this error

second, we need to assume the feature change order has completed in teh switch. this usually happens in less than 1 min but sometimes can take up to a few hours (or error out and has to be fixed)

so if these are good (because out of your control) then my next recomendation would be to pull the battery for several mins. then powerback up, wait for the G/E/3G indicator and try again. Idea here is that it force it to reregister on an SGSN and retireve a new VLR record. leaving off dosent always cause this to happen but commonly can

never hurts to check device settings but i wouldnt suspec this to be the issue.

if still having problem, next step... pull battery, go back on olam, take off the plan all the way (im assuming you can do this), wait a little while (with phone still off) then go back and readd it, wait a little longer and then turn back on

if still cant get it working, probably gonna have to break down and give us a call

Posted by: rekkid

Thanks for the advice... I tried the pull battery option... no luck so far.

I'm now trying the last tip... I've turned off the phone and taken out the battery. I have now taken off the Smartphone connect plan. I'll wait a little bit more and add it back on, then wait and turn the phone on.

Question... the online rep and phone rep wanted me to buy a 39.99 PDA plan (I told them I didnt care about msg'ing just needed unlimited data) They said that was the cheapest. Now the Smartphone connect plan I'm trying is unlimited for 19.99... same that I was paying for the MediaMax plan. I'm fine with getting this plan... its great. Why are the reps trying to upsell me on that other plan thats twice as much?

If I cant get the Smartphone connect plan by myself and I call in... will I just get the upsell from a rep again?

Posted by: rekkid

well... so far so good. I've got onto the internet with my phone! Thanks for the advice.

I just now hope I can get them to fix the dropped calls. Its too frustrating having all calls get dropped. Are other services this bad? I mean Cingular's claim of "Least dropped calls" is it true? My wife is frustrated as well. So is my mother-in-law... we all have cingular... why? used to be good. We've been with them since the mid 90s... the old att, bellsouth days.

I almost laid down my $175 yesterday on the phone with the rep after all the dropped calls and upselling. I'm still on the fence... doing research on the others

Posted by: RF9

Quote:

Originally Posted by rekkid

Why are the reps trying to upsell me on that other plan thats twice as much?

If I cant get the Smartphone connect plan by myself and I call in... will I just get the upsell from a rep again?

Because they consider the BlackJack to be a "PDA" not a "Smartphone"

In any case, regardless of the identical capabilities, they charge you more for a PDA plan on a PDA than a Smartphone plan for Smartphone (or regular phone) because PDAs tend to use more data per capita.
Both are unlimited. But one has a higher expected use rate therefore cost more.
Or the other way of looking at it is market demographics. A consumer with a smartphone is more likely to limit expenses to $20 per month. Whereas a business user with a $40 PDA plan is more likely to pay it and chalk it up as the cost of doing business. Ah... corporate marketing. Also, while they don't tell you this openly. They expect you'll tether once in a while on a PDA plan and therefore the higher cost. Kind of like the RIAA chargin you $2 per CD because they expect you'll pirate it.

Posted by: allenlikewo

glad i could help with the data

as far as the dropping calls goes
try this

connect your device to pc
click explore in activesync
browser to the device's windows dir
locate bandsel.exe create a shortcut and then drop that short cut in the device's windows\programs dir

now you will have the bandselct app in your start menu
use it
and try changing from auto to GSM or WCDMA
see if there is any improvement on either

Posted by: rekkid

allenlikewo: I usually keep it to GSM... so that it stays in E mode... as that saves on battery life. I still get dropped calls then too.

But if I do accidently keep it in AUTO and it goes on the 3G band, I've noticed when it drops, it does it when it's trying to switch from G to E or vice versa. Thats only a few times that I've actually seen it switch. Cant confirm for the others.

My wife is on the 8125. I know that when she first started having problems, when it dropped, there would be a little popup ballon saying it was trying to connect to GPRS network.

Posted by: allenlikewo

i dont know alot about voice troublshooting but if you got multiple devices doing it, its not going to be specific to your hardware, i guess i missed that in your previous post

i would call teir II and push the issue
if you can get them to file a ticket, something can be done about it

Posted by: Rcadden

I didn't see it spelled out here, so I'll expound a bit:

Cingular has 3 data packages for devices other than laptop cards:

MediaMax
Smartphone Connect
PDAConnect

MediaMax and Smartphone Connect are basically the same, price-wise, with Smartphone Connect intended for Smartphones (why they need to delineate is beyond me)

PDAConnect is for "PDA-phones." Cingular, in their lack of being able to truly understand things, decided (seemingly arbitrarily) that any device with a QWERTY-keyboard should be designated a "PDA-phone." Their reasoning is that with a full QWERTY keyboard, users are more likely to visit more webpages, and therefore should be on a higher plan.

Nevermind that the 3125 and Blackjack run the same versions of the same OS and therefore are equally capable in terms of data transfer
Nevermind that the 3G devices (from LG CU400 to SYNC) DON'T have QWERTY keyboards but yet stream data over 3G with Cingular Video, MobiTV, MobiRadio, and others

For some odd reason, they've decided that more actual webpages should be charged more, while more actual data (streaming) is less. So that's why.

According to Cingular's official policies, the BlackJack has a QWERTY keyboard and therefore is only eligible for the PDAConnect plan. If you were able to get it provisioned with the MEdiaMax plan, then lucky you.

So it's not really a bait-and-switch, it's more like you lucked out and then called attention (inadvertently) to it.

Posted by: rekkid

How would I go about calling teir II support? I know supposedly there are networking tickets and all kinds of notes on the account.

I had two drop calls from the same number. I was in E noticed that I had 3 bars. When I answered the call it was clear, but then in the middle it just dropped. After it finally dropped (I get a busy signal and the display says busy) I looked and it was hoping over to the G network for about 2 seconds then back to E... 3-4 bars.

Posted by: rekkid

Thanks for the info RCadden... why wouldnt the plan be availble on my OLAM for me to order then? You'd think since it costs so much more, they would only allow me to order it and not "dangle" all the other plans in front of my face like that

If they try to pull the same thing for my wife's phone... we'll be out of here.

Posted by: allenlikewo

just call in, say you got an open issue youve been working with tier II on

as far as if there is a ticket or not already open i can t comment on
i would have to pull up the account to say
but notes alone do nothing and tickets take a nice amount of time to file, it would envolve them getting approval, filling out a lengthy form, and then you would be given some ticket number that would look like CM20070410_123456789...
or posibly something like TT000001234567
there are a few others but thoose two types would seem most relavient
and would be told some 5-7 days or something like that

if you have some ticket number you should follow up on it

Posted by: rekkid

ahh nope I didnt get any ticket numbers... I was told they would put in one... well I guess that was just to try to appease me?

Posted by: Eagle117

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a change in the data plans to something more like an EDGE plan for $19.99 and a 3G plan for $39.99 and then a Laptop plan at $59.99 for the full data cards. It seems like it would make more sense.... Not that I want it laid out that way mind you.

Posted by: MenTLPiRacY

If it was me i would call and change the phone on the account to a regular phone and add media max and just use the BJ.. i wonder if 3G would still work.. hmm im pretty sure it would.