I
arrived in Seattle yesterday for this year's Möbius conference and there are
some exciting changes and improvements since I was here last month: AT&T has
added an unlimited data option to its MEdiaNet service for its
GoPhone pay as you go plan.
I
wrote about all this mobile data tragedy for inbound roamers last month when
I was here for the MVP Global Summit and when I was hunting for a reasonable way
to go online from my Notebook and Windows Mobile smartphone and the only option
I found was AT&T's GoPhone prepaid service which, however, costs me around US$
10 per MB (without using any dedicated data options).
While this might be good enough for checking E-Mails during holidays, it was
far to expensive for using AT&T's HSDPA network for regular work like web
surfing, photo uploads to the::unwired and not to think about streaming my home
TV via my Slingbox.
Anyway, fellow the:unwired reader Barrett W. dropped me an E-Mail yesterday
where he made me aware of AT&T's new MEdiaNet offer which is called "MEdiaNet
Unlimited" but which is even not yet listed on
AT&T's prepaid feature pack page. The bottom line is that you can buy a US$
19.99 unlimited data plan for your pay as you go plan to get real unlimited
high-speed Internet access for 30 days from the day you bought the package. And
you can pay this MEdiaNet package from your GoPhone balance.
So last month I bought this US$ 100 GoPhone plan where US$ 50 were left when
I left Seattle. Yesterday, by simply calling the 611 from my mobile phone, I
opted in for the unlimited MEdiaNet and the 20 bucks where taken from my
balance.
Just in case you are travelling to the U.S. soon as well and you need the
settings, it's:
APN: wap.cingular
User: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM (case sensetive)
Pwd: CINGULAR1 (case sensetive)
That's it, with the above settings you can use AT&T's 2.5G and 3G/3.5G
network with your smartphone as well. I've even tested it with my Option
GlobeTrotter GT MAX HSUPA and HTC Shift UMPC and it worked well with both.
Now the biggest disappointment is that my Samsung i600, the European version
of the AT&T BlackJack, is triband GSM and singleband UMTS only which means,
since AT&T seems to not operate EDGE base stations in 1900 MHz in this area
here, that I have GPRS access from my smartphone only. That's too bad,
especially because I know that both - the network and the device can do it
better.
Cheers ~ Arne
