Last week I was trying to help a reader get an unlocked, non-T-Mobile LG phone configured for data and MMS on T-Mobile USA. This should have been easy, T-Mobile, like almost every mobile operator in the world, has an online data configurator. It's a simple web form where you enter your phone number and seconds later a special provisioning message arrives in your phone's inbox. Open the message, choose "Apply" and your phone is all set up and ready to connect to the Web and send picture messages to your friends.
T-Mobile's configurator is documented on the operator's help pages, complete with a handy link labeled "Begin using the T-Mobile Wireless Configurator". I've used the configurator several times in the past and it worked great.
However it doesn't seem to work anymore, redirecting to the corporate home page of WDSGlobal, which is apparently the company that operated the configurator for T-Mobile. Nowhere on that page is there any hint of how to have settings sent to your phone.
Digging around a bit on the WDSGlobal site, I found a press release touting a new WDSGlobal service called configuremyphone which does exactly what the old T-Mobile Configurator did. Except that it costs $3 per setting message sent! Whew, and you thought 20 cents a message for SMS was bad, how about 15 times as much for essentially the same thing. Plus the settings for the browser, email , MMS and Java apps are all separate, so you can end up paying $12 for what has traditionally been free.
I tried using configuremyphone to send settings to my Nokia N95 which is using a T-Mobile prepaid SIM. The settings never arrived, probably because T-Mobile blocks premium messaging on prepaid. Surprisingly, I was able to complete the process of sending the settings to my phone with no advance indication of what the costs will be. The pricing information is buried several clicks away from the actual configuration tool in a FAQ document. Aren't services using operator billing required tell the customer up front what the costs are and give them an option to decline the service at that point?
It looks like Nokia USA's configurator, which was also operated by WDSGlobal, is gone too, as is AT&T's. I wonder what happened? Did the operators and Nokia all suddenly decide that customers with unbranded, unlocked phones were no longer worth supporting? Probably not, more likely WDSGobal decided that they could make more money by terminating their operator relationships and going direct to consumers.
So how do you get settings sent to your phone if you are on T-Mobile prepaid or don't feel like paying $3 to $12 dollars to WDSGobal?
One option is to have the settings sent by the manufacturer of your phone. Both Motorola and Sony Ericsson still offer this service and can send settings to their devices on hundreds of networks around the world:
Even if you don't have a Motorola or Sony Ericsson phone you may still be able to use these configurators. The provising file format used to setup phones over the air is an Open Mobile Alliance standard
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posted by Dennis Bournique
October 12, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
7 View Comments
