Vodafone restricting the use of high end handsets

Owen

I'm a happy Vodafone customer, happy with the call quality, roaming charges, bills, etc. But I'm not happy that if you purchase your own handset, that Vodafone do their best to restrict your access to content, and the Internet. For the record, I've an n93.

When I did have my 3G settings on the phone, I couldn't access any Vodafone Live content at all, and had issues receiving MMS messages.

Now that I have received my handset back from the repair company, I don't have 3G settings anymore. No biggie I thought, I'll get them from the Nokia website. It now turns out Vodafone are blocking service texts from Nokia. Okay I thought, I'll get them from Vodafone's site - which as it turns out, is appauling. Not only do they not have settings for the n93, they don't have online settings for any of the handsets they currently sell, the most recent Nokia 3G phone on their site being the 6600. Don't bother trying to call them either, you'll just get the "We don't support that handset" script from the support drones.

Why oh why do they do this? Surely, those of us with the high end handsets will use our Dataplans more than others? It's in their interests to help us out. Any Vodafone heads on boards willing to shed some light on this?

I long for the days when I worked in Eircell retail, when we could sell any handset we wanted - when the Network limits your choice, the fun is taken away. And I might just have to shelve those plans to buy an iPhone now too, especially if I can't use it with the Network.

playstation

You know thats one of the reasons i switched to 02 because vodafone have **** all help lines:mad: 02 on the other hand have people you can talk to and they support 3g and i-mode . my advice... switch to 02

Urban Weigl

For what it's worth, Vodafone have taken it upon themselves to cripple the version of Symbian Series 60 running on the N95 and strip out the VoIP client. Not that it matters, since this phone is not available in Ireland yet.

That being said, I have the E61 with Vodafone Ireland myself, and apart from having to wait ages for firmware updates, I am very pleased with it.

playstation: that's very true about O2. I'm liking them more and more, and their 3G coverage is getting better every day. It is already blowing away 3's 3G coverage in most small towns I travel to.

Tom Dunne

ned78 wrote:

Why oh why do they do this? Surely, those of us with the high end handsets will use our Dataplans more than others? It's in their interests to help us out. Any Vodafone heads on boards willing to shed some light on this?

I work in IT support. Say we allowed people to bring in their own laptops, it would be all fine and dandy until something goes wrong.

If we supply the laptop/PC at least we know the ins- and outs- of it and would be able to diagnose a problem fairly rapidly. We would also know what software is installed and how it connects to our network.

I would guess the same applies for the phone networks. They don't want untested handsets on their network for the same reasons.

I am not for a minute condoning the practice, I for one have bought my last three smartphones on the 'net and they are not supported by any of the networks I have connected to. I have had to manually configure them myself.

what_car

ned78 wrote:

I'm a happy Vodafone customer, happy with the call quality, roaming charges, bills, etc. But I'm not happy that if you purchase your own handset, that Vodafone do their best to restrict your access to content, and the Internet. For the record, I've an n93.

When I did have my 3G settings on the phone, I couldn't access any Vodafone Live content at all, and had issues receiving MMS messages.

Now that I have received my handset back from the repair company, I don't have 3G settings anymore. No biggie I thought, I'll get them from the Nokia website. It now turns out Vodafone are blocking service texts from Nokia. Okay I thought, I'll get them from Vodafone's site - which as it turns out, is appauling. Not only do they not have settings for the n93, they don't have online settings for any of the handsets they currently sell, the most recent Nokia 3G phone on their site being the 6600. Don't bother trying to call them either, you'll just get the "We don't support that handset" script from the support drones.

Why oh why do they do this? Surely, those of us with the high end handsets will use our Dataplans more than others? It's in their interests to help us out. Any Vodafone heads on boards willing to shed some light on this?

I long for the days when I worked in Eircell retail, when we could sell any handset we wanted - when the Network limits your choice, the fun is taken away. And I might just have to shelve those plans to buy an iPhone now too, especially if I can't use it with the Network.

hi there try a setting from a different nokia phone such as n73 or n70
that should work. vodafone might not have the other handset listed on their systems yet, it should work though with the n73 or n70 settings....

youre right about voda blocking the nokia settings service i tried twice last night to get the settings for a 6680 using nokia settings service...
no message arrived...

if you buy a nokia n95 or any nokia on vodafone if and when they come out, you can change the product code on the phone, then connect to nokia nsu and flash the phone with genuine nokia sim free firmware, thus reverting your phone to a retail sim free model! with all the features it was designed with,, voip etc that voda had removed.

i did this with a 3 nokia 6680 and it works perfectly ...

Santa Claus

You'll find the settings you need here, just select the N70 and they'll be the same (although the menu instructions may vary slightly).

Another thing to be wary of is if you have vodafone handset insurance. I just got a N76 and was told it's not supported and so not covered by my insurance policy (although they'll still happily take your premium).

Owen

Santa Claus wrote:

You'll find the settings you need here, just select the N70 and they'll be the same (although the menu instructions may vary slightly).

Did all that, and it says "Packet Data. Packet Data not available".

Santa Claus

I got same error. Turns out I had the web connection pointing to the wrong Access point.

bugler

When I bought my SE W550i I had to go through the settings manually to get it set up for Vodafone Live and MMS. Put simply, if they don't sell the phone then they don't have the settings for you. They're not exactly restricting you from using Live etc, they are just not supporting it. I'm not sure how difficult it is, and maybe it's very simple, but it doesn't surprise me that if they are not carrying a handset that they don't make the effort to get this handset set up on their network for these services.

I agree the blocking of Nokia settings being sent is bad form though.

What I'd try is calling Customer Support and say you have an N70. Tell them the error you're getting. I remember that error from a lot of 3G phones a year and a half ago, it often involved something on the network side.

Owen

I've only one access point defined though, so it can't be a mistake.

Santa Claus

ned78 wrote:

I've only one access point defined though, so it can't be a mistake.

You should have one for MMS, one for Email and one for Web so that's 3.
I suggest you go through the N70 instructions and set up the other access points !

Owen

Well, all I want to do is browse the web, so once I have that access point set up, there can't be a mistake.

Santa Claus

ned78 wrote:

Well, all I want to do is browse the web, so once I have that access point set up, there can't be a mistake.

Well I had the same problem you had, followed the set-up for the N70 and hey presto I don't have the problem anymore !

Owen

I understand, however, it hasn't fixed my problem, and Vodafone are up to their usual tricks of placing trained monkeys with no technical abilities following scripts on the phone lines as per usual, and when you ask to speak to a tech rep, they're all busy.

God be with the days when I could quote my agent number, and get straight through to Agent IT.

jesus_thats_gre

I think the title of this thread is very poor. They are noy restricting high end handsets specifically. They are only allowing handset that they officiailly suppport to access their Live! service.

If you want to use the Web Browser to connect to the internet proper, just configure an access point to connect to ISP.Vodafone.ie and you should have little or no problems. There is very little input required to access tis AP.

Simple fact of the matter is, you N93 is not going to connect to Vodafone Live! until Vodafone Ireland officially support the phone. You can take it out on the customer service agents all you want but it is not their problem. AFAIK, this is standard practise amoung all Vodafone operators across Europe.

It is also something that will likely became more popular as operators move towards a standard OS across all handsets regardless of manufacturer.

foobar

I bought a N95 from the net and it works perferctly with Vodafone MMS and there live service ... not that there any thing good on it:D

Owen

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

I think the title of this thread is very poor. They are restricting high end handsets specifically.

Isn't that what the title says?

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

If you want to use the Web Browser to connect to the internet proper, just configure an access point to connect to ISP.Vodafone.ie and you should have little or no problems. There is very little input required to access tis AP.

I couldn't give a toss about getting access to Vodafone Live! content, but would love just plain and simple access to the net. I've worked in phone retail, and know how to configure a phone, but the simple fact of the matter is that they're blocking my handset from even going online.

foobar

ned78 wrote:

I couldn't give a toss about getting access to Vodafone Live! content, but would love just plain and simple access to the net. I've worked in phone retail, and know how to configure a phone, but the simple fact of the matter is that they're blocking my handset from even going online.

Sorry Ned but did you configure an access point to connect to ISP.Vodafone.ie like jesus_thats_gre suggested ? Like i said eariler i have a
N95 which is not supported by vodafone and i can access the net using those setting... its seems strange that vodafone whould block the n93 and allow the n95 ?

Owen

Yes, as stated earlier in the thread, I have that done. Thanks for trying though.

Dankoozy

Vodafone is a terrible company. but i think there is a thing you can get to change the user agent so you can look at their stupid Vodafone Live!!! pages. I don't know why anyone would want to but it should be possible

Santa Claus

ned78 wrote:

I've worked in phone retail, and know how to configure a phone, but the simple fact of the matter is that they're blocking my handset from even going online.

Could it be a problem with the phone ? I'm sure we'd have heard if vodafone were restricting access to web for particular models (seeing as how we all use the same access point), so it sounds to me like the web feature on your phone is borked.....get onto the repair company and tell them something ain't right since they sent it back to you !

foobar

Might be worth trying a O2 sim to see if you can access the net via there proxy setting ... if that worked you could rule out any thing been wrong with the phone.

Owen

Got a mate who works in retail still to use a contact of his, and it turns out they had the service turned off at their end. Why oh why couldn't the drones on Customer Support just check that? Still no access to Vodafone Live itself, but who cares, I've got my net access back now.

Thank you to everyone who tried to help on this thread, greatly appreciated!

TheBlackShoe

Santa Claus wrote:

You'll find the settings you need here, just select the N70 and they'll be the same (although the menu instructions may vary slightly).

Another thing to be wary of is if you have vodafone handset insurance. I just got a N76 and was told it's not supported and so not covered by my insurance policy (although they'll still happily take your premium).

its not supported because if Vodafone do not supply the handset, how the hell do you expect them to replace it on your insurance if you lose / or it gets stolen?? the insurnace company will go as far as to provide you with a similar handset or the one you registered when you took out insurance? would you expect your car insurance to cover you for a model that you replaced your original car with???

quintron

something to try if you get "packet data not available" message thru symbian browser is to fire up another browser (opera mini for example) see if it loads web pages thru proxy, then, if it does, go back to reg browser and all should be well.
Fluke maybe-surely-don't know, but it has worked for me on 3 handsets in the past.