Ufone & Mobilink GPRS Service Test
September 20, 2007
As soon as I received my T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone, I wanted to test different GPRS services. After getting to know that Ufone and Mobilink offer unlimited GPRS service, I thought it would be a better alternate for Telephone Line Internet Dialup Service.
First of all, I want to clearly say that Ufone Customer Service Sucks. Not just because they don’t have the correct information. I asked them to give me the dialup number for GPRS and they said “We don’t know. Whatever is written in PowerPoint Slide must be correct. So use it.” This is not the first time I have received such reply from Ufone Customer Care. Do they really care about customers? Because last time when I called them, I was having a problem receiving spam email to SMS on my 0333xxxxxxx@ufone.com account, they told me there was no way they could stop it. They can’t even launch complain for their customers. Can you believe it because I can’t?
Anyhow, I ended up finding the correct GPRS connection number myself. It is actually *99#. While they have made a bulky 22 slide PowerPoint presentation showing you how to configure GPRS modem on computer, they gave a wrong dial-up number *99***1#. It is actually wrong because I was never able to establish a connection on that number.
So here are few things I have concluded after research which might be of your use.
Dialup Number: *99#
Access Point Name for Prepaid User: ufone.pkinternet (Notice ‘k’ after ufone.p is for Karachi. I think it is ufone.piinternet for Islamabad and ufone.plinternet for lahore)
You can just use this connection string in your modem settings.
AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”ufone.pkinternet“
Although Ufone’s Customer Service was pathetic but surprisingly their GPRS service was good and stable. I consistently got 4 KB (Kilobytes per second) download speed which is just a little less than my Telephone Line Dialup ISP.
Ufone offers unlimited GPRS service in their Umail package which costs 650Rs + Tax (Umail Personal). On the other hand Mobilink offers unlimited GPRS service for 500 Rupees + Tax (575 Rs inclusive of taxes I guess)
I also tried Mobilink but their GPRS service was pathetic. I got around 0.9 KB – 3.0 KB which was continuously fluctuating up and down like hell. However, I received very good Customer Support. One thing which I didn’t like was their GPRS Configuration Email. It was not surely a Step-by-Step Guide. They even don’t know how to spell Laptop (Lop Top). It’s funny; a large cellular service provider like Mobilink recruits such people in its Public Relations Department.
T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone
September 20, 2007
Yay! Finally I have got T-Mobile SDA (US) Smart Phone which has Wi-Fi and EDGE support. I am really enjoying this smart phone. The phone is already unlocked, so I don’t have to bother about unlocking it.
It has Windows Mobile 5 in it which is kind of sluggish. I have tried to establish a peer to peer Wi-Fi connection with my Laptop but I guess I did something wrong which couldn’t keep the connection stable.
I have tried GPRS service from Ufone and Mobilink which I am going to discuss about in a segregate post. I wanted to connect my phone with my computer which was pretty easily done by connecting USB cable and using Microsoft Active Sync 4.5.
However, Microsoft Active Sync didn’t support SMS messages. After a lot of search, I found a software which could integrate into Outlook and send/receive SMS messages. But my cheers didn’t last long enough. As I installed Microsoft Outlook SMS Add-in (MOSA) ,I found that it was not working.
I got the following error and found no relevant help or solution while searching the web.
Microsoft Office Outlook Add-in : A required property is missing from the SMS form. Please reinstall Microsoft Office Outlook Add-in.
Even reinstalling doesn’t help. After a lot of disappointment, I searched the web to find any program that could allow me to send/receive SMS from my Computer by using my T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone.
Finally, after a lot of google-ing around I found Jeyo Mobile Communicator and unexpectedly it worked fine. However, Jeyo Mobile Communicator could only send SMS (no way to receive SMS from it).
I was happy with just sending when I suddenly come across an application that could do both and this application also belonged to Jeyo software family. It’s Jeyo Mobile Extender for Outlook 2.5, it worked great and I am loving it.
Even though, I am loving it. There is one bug in the application which has a workaround. The error is
Access violation at address 0331B79E in module ‘ jComm_WM.dll read of address 00000000
Luckily I found a link to solution at google cache because the direct link was not opening. I am pasting from their site, in case anyone is encountering the same problem and their original link is not working.
| rasmuspJoined: 17 Aug 2007Posts: 3Location: Viborg, DK |
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| tedrevisJoined: 23 Aug 2007Posts: 2 |
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| tedrevisJoined: 23 Aug 2007Posts: 2 |
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