Cingular MediaNet Review
Seems like a lot of people are making it here looking for information on using Cingular’s MediaNet service. I have the MediaNet unlimited package as when I signed up for the service I was very excited about the prospects of using my Nokia 6620 as a mobile modem for my laptop via Bluetooth. While it is very easy to setup your Nokia phone with Windows XP as a mobile gateway device, the MediaNet service and Nokia 6620 are really not ready to act as a high speed gateway. I have used them in certain situations and as a last resort, they can be used in conjunction to provide internet access in many situations. However, the speeds I have seen are not very good. I live in San Francisco and the speeds here are supposed to be some of the best in the country according to what I have read about the local network on line. I have used MediaNet in just about every major city in California and a few around the US. It is really good for browsing Yahoo News when you are sitting in the airport and want to catch up on news quickly (via the Nokia 6620’s large screen, not via the laptop). It is also handy to be able to send some IM messages via Yahoo! Messenger or ICQ. But, this too is slow. If you get a good connection (say around 33Kbps) using your mobile phone as a gateway, you can get a decent experience via a Remote Desktop connection or even use your IM clients on your laptop. But, this is usually like having an unreliable dial-up connection. One second it is fast, then a minute later it is crapping out.
So, would I recommend getting MeidaNet unlimited? It depends on what you are expecting and what you would like to use it for. If you can afford to pay $25 a month for something you are not going to use much and want it as an insurance policy internet connection, then get it. It is handy and if you browse the web on your phone more than once a week, the unlimited package is the only way to go. But, if you are looking at getting rid of one of your internet accounts (dial-up or wifi) then you may want to think twice or try it out first. Coverage is spotty and the days of full G3 standards support are a few years off.
June 25th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
What software are you using to connect the laptop to the phone to get internet access on the laptop?
I can only get the “web” features from the phone directly and cingular told me that they do not allow “teathering” which is what i need if i want to use the phone as a modem.
If you can let me know how to get the laptop to connect to the phone and use the media net service it will be apprechiated.
June 28th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Timur, I am using Windows XP. XP can use a bluetooth device, like the Nokia 6620, as a modem. I guess I need to post exact directions here, but if you are not using Windows XP, then I think you may be out of luck. Not sure on that though.
July 16th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
I get EDGE speeds with my 6620 via Bluetooth (on a mac)
Also, you may want to remove that $25 package, since the MediaNet Unlimited has dropped to $20.
July 18th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Dan, what kind of speeds are you seeing exactly? I don’t know where you are, but I am paying $25 a month for Media Net Unlimited…so I will leave that as is.
July 31st, 2005 at 4:58 pm
I too have an unlocked 6620 that I used on the old AWS system. I could teather by initiating a *99# to initiate a gprs/edge data call while teatheres to my laptop via a Belkin USB dongle.
I moved to Cingular, got the Orange SIM card and the MediaNet service but can not for the life of me get teathering to work. Is there a special number to dial like I used to do with AWS?
Thanks in advance for any details you can offer.
August 5th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
HI, I just went through this same process. Here are the notes I made for myself just in case I needed to do it again:
—
How to set up DUN (Dial Up Networking) on a laptop
1. Setup bluetooth modem (Phone and Modems in Control Panel)
2. Add this to advanced modem config AT+CGDCONT=1, “ip”, “wap.cingular”
3. Use the following login info:
user: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
pass: CINGULAR1
4. Dial: *99***1#
5. in bluetooth settings on the Treo enable dial up networking.
—
Notes: I have a GSM Treo650 with Cingular. I am using the Kensington BlueTooth dongle and I recently upgraded my Treo to the new 1.15 (Updater) or whatever. It took me about 3 hours of messing with the settings to get it right.
August 26th, 2005 at 9:33 am
Just don’t be suprised when Cingular drops your MediaNet service for violating the Terms of Use: http://www.cingular.com/media/terms?id1=rucingular_medianet
MEdia Net
MEdia Net is not equivalent to landline Internet. Only select sites accessible through a mobile connection are available. You are restricted from using a home page other than the Cingular home page. MEdia Net is billed by total volume data sent and received (in kilobytes). Fractions of a kilobyte MEdia Net sessions are rounded up to whole kilobytes. Kilobyte totals may include network overhead. If you switch your phone connection from GPRS to a Circuit-Switch Data connection, you will be billed airtime in one-minute increments as provided by your rate plan. Caller ID blocking is not available when using MEdia Net, and your wireless number is transmitted to Internet sites you visit. Cingular provides connectivity for access to MEdia Net. Information is provided by unaffiliated content providers and is subject to change at any time without notice. MEdia Net packages are not available on PDAs, RIM devices, or PC card modems. MEdia Net packages are not intended for tethering. Cingular reserves the right to remove customers from MEdia Net packages for the use of a wireless device as an interface to other devices or networks, as determined by Cingular, including but not limited to device tethering.
February 10th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Jason, regarding the medianet unlimited plan, did it work for you in Mexico, or were you charged data roaming fees? I would appreciate some info.(see my other post on your cabos san lucas page)
Thanks,
Kris
April 20th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Hi Jason, all,
My 12 yr old son racked up > $50 in MediaNet charges in the first 6 weeks of having his phone. On the bill we observed many of the charges are well after his bed time (12:30 am, 1:30 am, 3am), and were mostly small 2-4 Kb. In addition there were Medianet charges while he was at school and didn’t have his phone with him. I spent a long time questioning Cingular about the charges given he insists he wasn’t secretly using his cell phone to go to the internet to for short times during school or in the middle of the night. In addition, there are no phone calls at those strange times. We have no reason to think he was lying since I don’t even know what would be so compelling on MediaNet that he would wake up in the middle of the night or secretly access MediaNet at school. Cingular wouldn’t budge, and they insisted they were all legit (they did give me some credit only because I complated).
My question for you or anyone is have you heard of this before? Is there anyway a MediaNet connection could be made on its own simply by the phone being “on”?
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks,
Steve
April 24th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Steve, I would think it would be possible if your son installed some sort of software on his phone that required it to check email or something like that periodically. Was there some kind of pattern as far as times it checked or interval between connections? At first I was thinking your son might have simply been text messaging but, I realized they charge separately for that. But, if he installed some kind of third party Instant Messaging software (IM), then that could be the culprit too. I doubt Cingular is the one to blame here, as much as I would like to blame them.
May 27th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Steve,
I had the exact same thing. For several months, I accused my daughter of using her phone for internet and she insisted she had not. Well, this month, I got my bill and had 6 pages of data transfer changes - on MY phone. I have never used my phone for internet or ringtones, and have never sent a text message in my life. These charges were for crazy times - middle of the night and during my work hours. No one else has had access to my phone. Cingular was extremely rude. Tried to give me the standard “reduce the charge by half” that I have seen others state that they have been offered when making a complaint. I refused it and told them I would not pay ANY of it because I have NEVER used the internet, or data transfer, on my phone. Went round and round with them for almost 45 minutes. Asked to speak with a supervisor several times and was never allowed to. I finally countered with “if these charges are for using the internet, you should have a record somewhere that shows what sites I visited. I would like a copy of that.” At that point, I was told that the charges would be removed in exchange for setting up a “block” for the internet on my phone. I told them to go right ahead. The service rep told me I would be blocked and that I “was not allowed” to call back and remove the block in the future, at which time I lost it. I refuse to be treated like a 10 year old. Now I feel horrible that I accused my 18 year old of using the internet on her phone. She told me she did not and now I believe her. I will be quitting Cingular when my contract is up in a couple of months. Don’t be too quick to accuse your son. I am investigating filing a complaint to FTC, or whoever it should go to.
August 5th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I had the same situation happen to me. I had $32.20 in internet charges on my bill and on July 12, 2006 I called Cingular at 1-800-331-0500. I told the rep, Jason Longoria, that I was not using the internet at all. He said he’d refund the $32.20 but he’d have to place an internet block on my phone. I asked him to tell me what websites I was supposed to have been visiting and he said they didn’t have that information. I was extremely annoyed that they couldn’t give me any answers and ended up telling him he could block the internet. Today I received my next bill. There were more internet charges that supposedly took place from the cutoff of the last statement until the block was placed. There were 65 internet data transfers in two and a half weeks. Today I called and spoke with a rep named Brisia Avarto and went through all of this again. This time, though, she said they would not refund the charges of $27.41 because the last refund was a courtesy. I told her I did NOT use the internet! Her response was, “I don’t know what to tell you”. I asked for her supervisor and she let me speak to floor supervisor George Lopez. I explained to him that I was not using the internet on my phone. He told me the same thing, the refund was a one time courtesy and they won’t be able to do any more. I asked for his supervisor. He said his supervisor, manager Jesse Bruce, would call me on Monday, because their call center had closed while we were on the phone. What service! Does anyone have any suggestions on what authorities I should contact? This is robbery.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Thanks for the posts…I was really hell bent on Media Net minimal service, at least to get Google Maps with traffic alerts, now it looks like it was a bad idea, reading their T&C.
Any ideas on how to get Google Maps on a cingular service without media net ?
Thanks !
August 7th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
RR,
you need to send and receive data to use an application like Google Maps…you need a data plan.
August 15th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Most people don’t know this, but you guys with data tranfer problems might want to check to make sure your bluetooth is turned off! There are plenty of easilly downloadable programs that allow other people within range to “search” for available bluetooth connections just like you do with WiFi and use them to do a multitude of things…on your dime. Things such as connect to the internet, download your address book and calendar, even evesdrop on your calls if you’re using the speaker phone. It pays to be cautious and shut off the bluetooth when not in use.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:28 am
My first posting here… I have Cingular Unlimited MediaNet, and have used it succesfully for over a year with my Moto V3 Razr and Palm Tungten T3 to connect with my ISP POP3 account and browse the net. I also got the European roaming plan from Cingular since I travel there on business once a month or so. No problems with the GPRS until this July - suddenly I am being hit with $0.0195/kb “INTLROAM PPU DATA” “GPRS ANYTIME” charges, to the tune of about $73… anyone else experience this? I had thought (and it seemed to be the case up until now) that roaming wasn’t being charged for GPRS.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Update: spoke with Cingular International Provisioning Center. Apparently ‘Unlimited’ MediaNet is now ONLY unlimited for domestic GPRS usage. International GPRS is charged at $0.02/kb, and an unlimited international GPRS data plan is currenly ONLY offered for the Blackberry phone, and not for any other Cingular equipment. Customer Care did at least credit me for the usage I had been charged for, but going forward I will need to unlock my V3 and purchase a SIM card for use in the countries I travel to, assuming they have a suitable GPRS plan.
September 16th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Does anyone know when cingular started charging for international roaming on medianet unlimited. I am sure that it said international roaming was included when I signed up (beginning of 2006), but I can’t find the web reference anymore.
October 1st, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I went all around asia this passed 2 months. I came back to the states and got raped with a 500 something dollar on internet usage.
. There is no international roaming and i got shafted 
.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
OMG! I have had the same problem with my bill and the internet usage! I felt like I was reading my own blog~I too called, they took 1/2 off (not even) and then said they would block me……..well, a month later, I got another charge……….so???? What am I supposed to do? I didn’t use this feature at all–I made sure I didn’t do anything but make phone calls–and I didn’t do many of those! They are stealing from people……..literally STEALING money……..I am not going to resign with them……….NO WAY……..does anyone know what it costs to stop the service immediately?
October 16th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
I had weird data transfer charges on my phone as well, at odd hours like 3:37AM. It seems the culprit was the news ticker on my phone, which claims to be free, but is actually not. If you are nice to the sad non-policy-writing cingular employee, they will probably credit back all your data transfer charges. They did so for me. I turned off my news ticker completely and all charges ceased.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:58 am
I can’t believe Cingular. I’m having the same problem with unknown data transfer charges. I have the media net basic package and was told that when you send a picture mail that it is included in the message usage and you don’t get charged for the kb used. This month I received my bill with $104 of overages from data transfer charges. I spoke to the Cingular rep and he says looking at my account that I was surfing the internet. I told him I have never used the internet on the phone and only use the text and picture mail option. He insisted that I was browsing the internet. I managed to get him to credit back all the charges and I told him I wanted this problem escalated because there is obviously a technical problem on there end. I don’t want to have to call everymonth to get them to take charges off due to a problem in there system. I also don’t use the Bluetooth on my phone so that is turned off. I added a post yesterday to a forum that was started on Cingular’s Customer Forums page. The Cingular forum was started on 11/2/06 and had a couple dozen posts about this exact same problem. I received emails telling me I had replies to the post that I added. I went to read them and as of this morning Cingular has deleted the forum about this problem. Thanks to Google Caching web pages I was able to get a copy of it forum. I’ve only had Cingular for 2 months now and have had nothing but problems. I plan to file a complaint with the BBB and see if I can get out of this contract.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:26 am
This just happened to me. I am being charged$232 for data transfer I never used. Just like the other guy it started in the middle of the night and went on for four days. Customer Rp wont bulge. I dont intend to pay for this. If there is any class action lawsuit sign me up.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Im glad to see that I am not alone.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
$175 to get out of contract / You agree to not hold them accountable in a class action suit.
I actually read the agreement this time.
I just got a data package, but I’m sure I’ll be getting reamed this first month. Maybe I can get a one-time credit…???
June 1st, 2007 at 10:21 am
I had received a bill which had $475 in internet useage charges. My stepdaughter swore up and down that she has not been using the internet. I wanted to believe her at the time however the evidence on the bill was so compelling. Now that I read these articles and have more information, I see that she was most likely right. Cingular cut my bill in half as well, though they did sell me an unlimited internet package.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Hi everyone, I have been researching trying to locate a website where I can find individuals who experienced a similar situation which Cingular as I have. Cathy, Robert and Jim, - I can relate because I too have experienced a similar situation with Cingular. However, my bill with data usage totaled over $10,000 and I know for a fact that I never utilzed the Internet feature but Cingular is unwilling to credit back the charges because Im thinking they feel that will get paid if they press the issue enough. The difference between my bill and yours is that my is associated with my employer (a well-known company) which I would rather not say and I feel that Cingular feels that they can get the funds through the company. However, they are unaware that their inaccurate claims might be affecting my job.
However, did anyone on this forum seek legal representation and if so, what was the outcome. I am considering asking my employer to turn the account over to me since it is in my name as well as theirs and allow me to seek legal representation; but I would like to know what are my chances.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you can provide. Thanks!
Cherelyn
July 21st, 2007 at 5:24 am
Well I’m an attorney and Cingular screwed me too. I even asked the rep specifically if the GPRS international was included and he said yes. No where on the contract does it mention international roaming charges in fact on my list of services it says international roaming no charge. Checked my email regularly in Europe and have gotten a monster bill.
Are their any other sites regarding this issue?
September 4th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Friends,
I see that many of you have had problems with Cingular’s MEDIAnet service charging you money. Well, I have had the same problem and I guess I was lucky. I purchased a “family plan” from Cingular in June and had my wife and son on a MEDIAnet bundle in order to get free RAZR phones (The promotion at the time). I figured the bundle only cost $10 and the phone would have cost $50 otherwise. I noticed on the website about midmonth that my son’s phone was showing 20 megabytes of usage and I did the quick math to figure I’d been had for about $200. I immediately upgraded his MEDIAnet to “Unlimited” and told him to stop using the phone for data access which he did. True to my expectation I received a bill with about $200 in data charges for his line. I called customer service and was treated rudely by my initial contact. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it) I called back about a half hour later and asked to speak directly to a floor supervisor without explaining my problem to the initial contact and was nicely transferred to a gentleman who listened courteously and offered to look up the information while I was online. When he saw the “Unlimited MEDIAnet” on the account and the charges he said “That doesn’t seem right” and promptly removed it. Yes, It did cost me $20 for the unlimited package but I think that saved my bacon. I would definitely never buy a MEDIAnet package other than the Unlimited variety. In addition to the above I have put “Parental Lock” on all my phones now to make sure that no data services get used. I canceled the MEDIAnet portion of the subscription at the end of the month. Cingular is to be watched very carefully!
October 14th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I am going on a cruise line to the carribean and i have the mediamax unlimited package and i was wondering if i would get charged international data roaming if i am texting while out of the country??
February 16th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Why dont all you guys with kids just have the date permenatly blocked from the phones. That way you dont have to worry about undesired charges.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I like the theme of your blog! Job well done