using three billpay sim in smartphone- what works.

mkennedy

Hi.
Just got a hsdpa-enabled HTC p3600 and put a three bill-pay sim in it.
However i'm having a few problems.

First off my pop email (eircom) in outlook seems to be blocked.
This is a major setback. Anyone else have this problem?
And any ideas how to fix it.

Second although i can browse full sites with pocket Internet Explorer I would prefer to resize these sites to suit my pda and to reduce bandwidth.
However three seem to have blocked reformatting proxies like mobileleap and skweezer which reduce bandwidth and give mobile versions of sites.
So now if i want to browse boards.ie say i either get the full version or nothing at all- that's about 300kb per page (this won't last long on the 100mb data add-on).

I tried opera which is meant to reduce bandwidth but TBH pages take ages to load and from what i can see it doesn't reduce bandwidth by much TBH- still about 200kb per page for boards for example.
Also can't seem to post responses to forums with opera at all.

I've also tried google mobile on pocketIE. This seems to be next to useless- e.g searching for boards brings up totally irrelevant results.

Yahoo mobile doesn't seem to optimize sites for pdas either. Boards comes up as the full version again with this.

Anyone know what else three have blocked.
e.g Is it possible to use secure sites and pay for stuff on ebay.
Is it possible to stream radio stations (which would be handy with the unlimited data add-on)

I was under the impression that three bill-pay sims would not be blocked like this (unlike with 3pay).
So can someone tell me if this is the case.
And anyone know what i can use to reduce bandwidth/view pda-optimised content as well.

I know other people have reported no problems at all with unlocked smartphones on three so i'd be interested to hear what your experiences have been.

Any help much appreciated.
Thanks.

Bluefrog

Up until last Thursday everything worked pretty well with Three - then they 'upgraded' - take a look at the problems the usb modem users are having - it's a sticky in the broadband forum

mkennedy

Bluefrog wrote:

Up until last Thursday everything worked pretty well with Three - then they 'upgraded' - take a look at the problems the usb modem users are having - it's a sticky in the broadband forum

Thanks Bluefrog.
Yeah I saw that alright.
Didn't think it was affecting the handset users to the same degree though TBH.


I'm actually getting a connection alright.
It's just the blocking of those services that's annoying me..
outlook pop email, mobileleap and skweezer to be specific.

Now with this "upgrading" malarkey I don't know if these blocking problems are actually a new thing or has this always been the case.


Bluefrog have you been able to use pop mail with them before the "upgrading".
And what specific problems have you noticed after the "upgrading".

Trust me to jump on board when the ship is sinking.
Unfcukingbelievable.

Thanks again.

podgeandrodge

pop email with eircom is taking me a long time to connect - once or twice it worked after about 2 minutes.... again, since last week

Idleater

Can I barge in with a similar relateted question?

I popped into a 3 shop and asked them about bringing a simfree handset with me when I ported to them (I have no problem buying a spare phone from them in order to get the sim card) but she said that "it won't work because the phone will not have the 3 software installed on it".

Now, I have no idea what this blanket "it" referrs to - she did say that calls and txt's would work fine. Does it mean that the "my three" button that normally is on the top right of the screen is not there? And in that case, what does this "normally" point to? an actual application on the phone or a web address on their network.

I would have thought it would be the latter, but maybe someone can enlighten me on what "functionality" I would be losing out on by using the sim free phone over the 3 phone.

Thanks for any advice or info,

L.

ps the phone I have is a e65 which 3 do actually sell.

Bluefrog

Podgeandrodge, I never actually set up a POP3 account on my phone but I would imagine you will run into the same problems the mobile broadband users have been having. Both user sets are basically using the same infrastructure. I do have hotmail set up on my phone, haven't dug into the settings to see how they do that (it was set up for me when I installed the official Symbian Live Messenger client). I doubt it's POP though, I think they used to use some kind of webdav protocol for Outlook access in the past and I'm guessing they've done something similar here.

For my mobile email I've been using the official GMail java client and that has continued to work throughout the debacle.

The thing that's really bugging me at the moment now is streaming of Realplayer content. That worked for me before the upgrade, now it doesn't and I'm not alone - there's a recent thread here on that problem. Oddly some people seem to be able to now, some not. I'm going to get my phone reprovisioned at the weekend and see if that sorts it.

The main issue here is that it seems impossible to find out what they intend to support and what they don't going into the future.

Nereid, The Planet 3 button is a link to a web page - do a search here and you'll find it easily enough. It's not a big deal to set it up as a bookmark.

I think I would advise anyone who is thinking of moving to Three to take their time until Three firm up their commitments on what users can access and what they can't.

Idleater

Bluefrog wrote:

Nereid, The Planet 3 button is a link to a web page - do a search here and you'll find it easily enough. It's not a big deal to set it up as a bookmark.

I think I would advise anyone who is thinking of moving to Three to take their time until Three firm up their commitments on what users can access and what they can't.

Thanks a million, I pretty much figured as much.

+1 for the customer service people :rolleyes:

L.

Bluefrog

Just spoken to Three in India. Have found that it is important they understand what you mean as they are very focussed on website access and the first two representatives didn't understand that the issue I was having was with Real streams.

Anyway, finally I got to speak to a guy who identified himself as Jimmy. He took a look at their configuration there and found an issue with the provision of services on my account that would cause me to stop having access to streams and he has undertaken to repair it in 24 hours. They are due to call me back tomorrow afternoon to confirm that the issue is resolved.

As I suspected, given that other users were able to stream, this does seem to be an account related problem and I would advise anyone else having these issues to contact customer service and ask for that guy - he's one of the call centre managers apparently and his English is excellent - better than mine

Will post back tomorrow evening with an update.

culabula

Am pleased to note that 3 are aware of the recent issues and are actually doing something about it: a service update has just been posted on their website.

Service update
Following reported issues with access to certain sites like Gmail via 3's mobile broadband service, 3 can report that these issues have been identified and fixed. Some customers have reported other issues in certain circumstances such as access to FTP sites, VPN, NetMeeting and certain streaming sites - 3 is working to resolve these residual issues as quickly as possible and apologises to its customers for any inconvenience.

Bluefrog

See, there it is again, they don't talk about the streaming protocol, they talk about the sites - now I'm getting suspicous about what I was told today about it being an issue specific to my account - sigh

culabula

Maybe they are just avoiding being verbose and getting on with tackling the problems?

Bluefrog

But I just spent a half hour this afternoon trying to explain the difference between being able to access a website and being able to access a stream to 2 different CS people so I think I've earned my right to be skeptical.

culabula

I don't doubt it for a second but equally i would believe that those who put up the service update are far removed from those you were speaking to both in terms of land mass and knowledge......

Bluefrog

In any case I'll keep my powder dry until I see how things go tomorrow.

mkennedy

Lads.. what about my pop email problem??

Is pop email meant to work with three.
I'm using pocket outlook on my device.

culabula

mkennedy wrote:

Lads.. what about my pop email problem??

Is pop email meant to work with three.
I'm using pocket outlook on my device.

I have never had any problems with pop email and 3; however I've either been at home or in Spain for months now and not used the broadband modem much in recent weeks so I can't comment with any authority on recent events. I shall return to the fold presently.

Bluefrog

Check the usb modem thread - some say it's coming back for them...

mkennedy

Thanks.
No unfortunately I still can't access my eircom email in pocket outlook on my phone with three.

However I can access my pop versions of yahoo and gmail no problem in pocket outlook.

So obviously for some reason it's eircom and three that aren't playing nice.

Incidentally my eircom account on my pc is again able to receive mail as you say- albeit with some delay. Still no dice with SENDING mail though. I'm guessing this is impossible with an eircom account.

So anyone know how to make the eircom account on my phone work with three?

Bluefrog

With Eircom you can't send or recieve. I was just thinking that throughout this debacle tjat tje ossie jas beem with the smtp servers rather than the pop3 so what I was thinking was that you could grab your email using the pop3 eircom server but use an smtp server that is working instead of the troublesome Eircom smtp. Just a thought.