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You can find several inexpensive unlocked GSM phones at http://myworldphone.com/

They are a reputable dealer as per a couple of well-known cellphone forums (you might want to poke around the forums a little, and maybe even ask the question there):

http://esato.com/
http://howardforums.com/

As stated in the title, I have no affiliation with any of these sites.

Looks like your mysterious 632 area code is really Manila, probably an outsourced call center in the Philipines.

Your topic is a Dupe, but a simple google search turned up these guys.

I'd like to hack it to un-break Bluetooth, but I'm completely unfamiliar with how I'd go about it.

I only know about resources for RAZRs (since that's the kind of phone I have), but this might be a good starting point. Also, Google is your friend.

Since I'm posting as an AC, I doubt this will get seen, but what the heck:

This is not the fault of Motorola, it is the fault of your wireless company. Motorola allows the phone company to add any features to the phone that they want, and allows them to "lock" several features so they cannot be changed/deleted/etc. There is no way to get around this on the phone itself, however if you connect it to your computer there are several utilities that can fix the problem. Check out http://www.motomodders.net/ or http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/Motorola for details on the fun stuff you can do with a computer link.

There are some java apps that do allow you to specify a proxy server, its just sad that google couldn't add this simple option to two very popular apps that they distribute

For people with Verizon's V3m, V3c, and some other Motorola CDMA cells, you can flash the phone with Alltel's version of the OS.

Hack Your RAZR and you should be able to use bluetooth the way it was intended.

Research your model and I am sure you'll find countless hacks if you want to enable bluetooth. You can even configure most phones for free WAP access. --have fun.

Hey, you know what's even worse than Motorola's UI? Verizon's UI that they hack onto every damn phone! This V3c is hands down the worst phone I've ever owned. I constantly have to reboot it, as it locks up, or gets buggy as hell without it's daily reboots. Bluetooth on it is crackly and fuzzy when it does actually work, other times it decides to just randomly turn the damn bluetooth radio off on the phone for fun, and disconnects my call.

It's so bad that people are actually hacking their Verizon Razr's to run the UI that's on your phone, as it's a vast improvement over Verizon's shit!

On my Verizon phone (Motorola e815), they limit you to only using sound files (mp3 and wav, I believe) that are stored in the phone's memory as ringtones. You can copy sound files to an SD card via a data cable and play them on the phone, but they disable the ability to use them as ringtones (because they are not on the internal memory). Also, they disable the ability to transfer these files from the SD card to the phone's memory, effectively locking out the ability to set them as your ringtone. If you want to use a custom ringtone, you need to purchase it from their "Get It Now" data plan within the phone for some foolish amount of money.

Also, Verizon has disabled the OBEX bluetooth profile on the phone so that you cannot copy to/from the phone via bluetooth. Thanks to some hard work by some intrepid hackers on www.howardforums.com, there are instructions available to enable most of the features that Verizon has disabled such as OBEX, file transfer from SD card to phone memory, dial up networking, etc. There are hacks for other phones and providers listed there as well*. Thanks to the folks on their forums I can transfer files to and from my phone via bluetooth, use my mp3 files as ringtones, use the DUN features of the phone, and sync the phone with Outlook via bluetooth (contacts, calendar, and e-mail).

*Be warned that these hacks will certainly void your warranty and may brickify your phone if done incorrectly.

I would never have guessed.

I asked a similar question on Howard Forums and they do sound like a good idea. My problem turned out to be my phone locking onto a distant tower rather than one of three nearer ones (your phone will tell you the GPS coordinates of the tower it's connected to in its service menu, or some phones at least, see the link). I never did buy a repeater.

This might answer some of your questions..

http://howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=880078

In this world, nothing is certain but death and... cell phone contracts. In addition to dealing with the death of a loved one, this user found out that a death certificate wasn't enough to terminate a contract.

Wow, thanks for the tip! I did some research and just bought the VK2020 from http://www.wapzon.com/web/prodetail.asp?Pid=8497 . Main improvement over the 2000 is the longer battery life (also it has Bluetooth and MP3 player features, but that doesn't matter to me). I like the idea of having a tiny phone that just works as a phone -- no space wasted on cameras and other rubbish. The main drawback to this phone seems to be that the firmware isn't very refined, so there are occasional random glitches. See http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=87515 6 for details. Samsung has a new thin phone too (t509), but it's still bigger and heavier than the VK with annoying bells and whistles.

For example, I guarantee that if you had bought that K750i through Verizon that the ability to use recorded sounds as a ringtone -- or indeed get them from any other source but VCast -- would have been disabled.

I would have to agree, I use Verizon now, and previously I had been on Tmobile. Verizon to me seemed very much more directed at controlling what one can/can't do with their phone. For instance having to purchase a service just to be able to sync the phonebook to your computer, uhh no thanks. Thankfully BitPim took care of the sync and data limitations (allows one to sync and download ringtones, wallpapers, etc), and HowardForums exists, which informed me how to get the more unusual stuff working (transferring DVD movies to the phone and such). Those two things vastly improved my experience with my current Verizon phone.

Sad thing is when people complain about how the phones in Japan and such are so much better, the issue is not technology or the phone itself, its that our telco's here won't market any phone they can't use to extort money with (via content and/or airtime charges). Blocking bluetooth data because one can circumvent their data/airtime charges when near a LAN, ringtone downloads (with "use" limits), charging to send AND receive txt messages (typically fractions of a kB in size), charging retarded fees per kB of data, or my Verizon favorite - charging per minute when using a web browser even if its not transferring data (!) - all a bunch of subtle or not so subtle methods of extorting cash. The telco's in this country suck, so I highly recommend everybody to: get BitPim and read the forums (because you know THE MAN hates it when people know that stuff)

By the way, if anyone knows how to add additional certificates to a Motorola v551 mobile phone, please let me know...

Check around HoFo -- I'm sure you'll fine information there. It's probably just a matter of downloading the cert in the proper format (DER, PEM, whatever) in the built-in browser. Use openssl to convert formats if needed.

Can you cite a source for this information? I'm guessing no, since it is inaccurate. In fact you have it backwards, US GSM carriers typically have network time sync, while European carriers do not. Please look up NITZ, it stands for Network Identity and Time Zone and is used on GSM networks. According to the NITZ spec:

"As a network option, it shall be possible to send universal time (UT) by the network. Time information shall include:Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second, and Timezone and DST. The expected accuracy of the time information is in the order of minutes."

You can also search Howard's Forum to see that both Cingular and T-Mobile support NITZ. Please check your sources next time.

Go to Howard Forums and search/re-post your question. I'm pretty sure it's been discussed a quadrillion times.

The way it works in the states with T-Mo is that you have SMS which allows you to use SMS or AIM only, at least on my phone. Then there's T-Zones, which comes in two flavors. There's one where you pay an exorbitant amount per megabyte, and only get up to a few megs. Then for $30, you get GPRS (woo hoo, max of ~41kbps) plus access to any T-Mo wifi hotspot, which includes starbucks and kinko's. Unlimited text is $10 on a family plan for everyone on the plan, don't know if that offer has been disco'd or not yet, but I just got it. However I'm on my ex's phone plan right now, so I probably won't have it soon... she's giving me a hard time again. Pretty sure it's $10 on an individual plan, too. 200 messages costs $3 or $4, something like that.

T-Mo used to offer unlimited GPRS for $20, or a data-only plan for $25, but I guess they decided they needed to sell hotspot access, in which I am not particularly interested. If I need to make a high speed download I'm not going to use my phone to locate a T-Mo hotspot and drive there, unless I know I'm close to one anyway. I'm going to fire up netstumbler and find the nearest open AP with parking next, and sit in my car for a bit.

Looks like my info on T-zones is out of date, though i'll double check the site. My phone is telling me $5.99 for some unlimited access "T-MobileWeb" plan, but it's too vague to know exactly what it is. In fact, that's one reason I've not bothered to switch plans... they have clear titles but the descriptions are too vague and what I presently enjoy works.

Regarding AIM only though... I lost my cheepo Nokia and replaced it with another which wasn't pre-set for MSN/ICQ/Yahoo, but lucky for me I can plop in the GPRS address and the text bearer ID number and poof, feature enabled.

MSN settings don't seem to work for me, but yahoo and icq on the other hand work just fine.

I'm using a Verizon e815 that has been "hacked" to allow more bluetooth functions. It works great as a bluetooth modem when I'm on the road.

Howard Forums is a *great* resource when it comes to stuff like this.

You're right about the V903SH. I have one, and it takes spectacular photos for the size. I actually bought it (sort of a hack unlock job though) because the camera's decent enough I don't need to travel with anything else. Look at this thread for examples.

I used to work for VZW, both as customer service and Tier 1/2 tech support. It was my experience that VZW doesnt care that you get misdials or the inconvenience you might experience from them. VZW is a company that has its entire business process focused entirely upon their profit motive and nothing else, customer service really is secondary to everything else. A perfect example of this would be a cell tower "upgrade" that removes or severely inhibits the ability for analog phones to get a signal, thereby forcing all the residents nearby with older phones to get new ones and 9 times out of 10 get them back on contract again. To specifically answer your question about blocking incoming calls:
a) This would be seen as tampering with the equipment and void warranties of any kind
b) Almost every phone supported by VZW has been altered in some way by the manufacturer to accomodate VZW's business goals. This includes locking phones so you cant change the software in any way. If the system sees that your phone is not operating within the specifications that it expects it to, your service is liable to be "interrupted".
c) The few phones that are not completely locked up by the manufacturer for VZW only allow very minor edits to the software. http://www.howardforums.com/ HowardForums is a nice place to visit. Lots and lots of useful information is posted there. You may be able to find something useful to your particular phone. Be advised the site loads very slowly due to a large amount of traffic and a /. effect wont help any :)

Just keep in mind that the $15 a month is for Verizon charges you is for their VCast service and CANNOT be used to "tether" other devices such as your laptop. If you get caught doing this, Verizon will shut down your account. Only recently has Verizon granted the use of DUN on their phones, in which data plans start at $59.99 - not so cheap. Howard's Forum is a really great site to get acclimated with the various plans and phones.

You might not use those "useless features" on your phones, but we most certainly do. Entire message boards exist solely to compare the picture quality and associated features of the various camera phones, which is a serious deciding factor for some people when buying a new phone...

Oh, really? You have message boards for cellular phones! Wow! It's not like HowardForums has 6.54 million posts or anything.

Also, the statistics are wrong. CITA claims that 7.3 billion messages were sent in the US in October 2005, about 235 million per day or 1/2 as much per capita as the UK.

Yep. I have a Nokia 6236i from Verizon, they DRM'd the crap out of it but if you can find a copy of Nokia's Diego (v3.xx) program and buy a DKU-2 cable on eBay ($5) you can reset everything back to the defaults. Now I can upload my own MP3 ringtones, screensavers, and backgrounds, download pics from the phone to the pc, run any java J2ME apps / games I want, and get on the internet for free (uses regular minutes, free nights & weekends).

http://www.howardforums.com/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=6236i+%2B site%3Ahowardforums.com&btnG=Search

As stated above, there are plenty of uploaders out there that will allow you to upload your own programs. http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint/ is an uploader that will allow you to upload your own code (works with the A900...I've got one too). http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/ is the forum mentioned above that have a lot of Sprint phone user geeks...I'm sure a lot of people on there could help answer your questions. Here's a link to their page for alternate uploaders too: http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t= 83030

Additionally, http://www.howardforums.com/ has a lot of good information too. Here's an actual http://sprintdevelopers.com/ Sprint-centric development site too.

Although, most of this may be useless, because I see in this post http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t= 52772&page=1&pp=15 what you are talking about regarding the Verisign cert. You can run your own code, but to access the GPS stuff you are restricted. Hopefully someone in the above forums can help you out to bypass it. I'll keep an eye out, because that sounds like some pretty cool hacking to do.

I was among those that bought one of the early Motorola Linux EZX phones.. the E680. It was a pretty cool device, with lots of features, and pretty decent speed. There was a growing user community based around it, who even went to some lengths to find the correct modem and bluetooth drivers to let us open a shell in the OS. It was unfortunate that Motorola never released a SDK for the Linux platform, as even a simple procedure such as changing the phone's icons took alot of hacking. Much of the early enthusiasm for the phone was lost when it was found that there wasnt much we could do could get apps to run on the platform (not sure if this is still true...). It would have been great to see the platform take off, but unfortunately Motorola decided to keep it closed. Since then, I've only used Microsoft Pocket PC based phones because its one of the few mobile platforms that meet most of my needs.

1. unlimited in network calling
2. network coverage
3. Ringtones, Picture Transfer, (partial) Bluetooth easily enabled.

So the crippled Java is a drawback still, but hopefully this answers you.

I've been using express network once in awhile over bluetooth for over a year now.
The thing that kind of bugs me with this new service they offer is that it's $60 a month. I really appreciate having the connection available when needed, but I use it only once every few months at most. No way I'm going to fork over $60 for this. Wondering if they will now clamp down on my occasional usage.
more info
http://howardforums.com/ is a very active cellular forum
http://www.nuclearelephant.com/papers/v710.html has lots of specific info on v710 and e815

I have been accessing google and other wap sites for a long time, including my school email, gmail, weather, mapquest, yahoo and more. With verizon, WAP / wireless web only uses minutes (free on nights/weekends), as long as you use your own proxy server (or a free one). What you pay verizon $5/month for is use of their proxy server. Note that there are exceptions to this: some of the newest phones require a data plan and wireless web may not be charged as minutes.

I run my own proxy server on my PC and log on to that with my phone. I set up a free WAP homepage, with links to a bunch of useful sites. If you set up or find a reliable proxy server, it is just a matter of doing some very basic on-phone "hacking", which usually just consists of accessing hidden menus. More information than you would ever need about phone hacking is available at Howard Forums. Mail2Web is a site that lets you check virtually any email through WAP.

Noob note: if you are going to run your own proxy, make sure to password it, especially if you are on a network. Slashdot may not let you post if you are running a proxy.

"C|Net is reporting that an unpatched exploit in Firefox 1.5 has been made public, making it very easy for ne'er-do-well-sites to cause your browser to crash on startup with a single visit.

Would that explain why all of a sudden firefox would hang every time I try to visit Howard Forums.

I use Bitpim formy current Verizon/LG phone. Have another app that I use for the Nextel work phone. I think my two previous phones I didn't bother with apps and just dropped stuff on my webserver with a tiny menu and downloaded from there.
Generally for every phone out there someone has figured out a way around any built-in protection. The thing that always pisses me off is that the phones are perfectly capable of being hooked up to a data cable, it's just that in many cases they are neutered (the nextel phone needed a nextel subnet in the hosts file and a specific web address with SSL that responded as if it was Nextel).

My second to last sprint phone was the one that annoyed me the worst. I was sold a data cable specifically because I planned on trying to write some small java apps for the phone. Then I found out that the data cable was just about useless and that I had to upload the program over the air every time I wanted to ty to run it. In fact it pissed me off enough that I ended up not even mesing with it.

In any case, there are a couple good sites out there that outline what you need for particular phone models/vendors. HowardForums is one I end up at quite frequently. Generally you will probably be able to find a forum or site specifically for your phone model or model family as well.

I respectfully have to ask if you have had any extensive use with Palm and Windows Mobile devices to draw the conclusion that "they both suck".

I have an Audiovox SMT-5600 Windows Mobile smartphone and it has replaced all of my portable devices.

Here's a link to a review I wrote about my experiences using only a Windows Mobile smartphone for a week.

Review - SMT-5600 as a notebook replacement

Go on over to http://www.howardforums.com/ for all the information you need. Assuming you have a Cingular branded Moto 551 or similar, or any of the bluetooth Nokias it should be pretty easy to find the info you need.

64kbps is the technical limit of vanilla GPRS. However, T-Mobile is pretty far along with their EDGE rollout in most metro areas - here in Atlanta I have to go outside the perimeter before I lose EDGE coverage. Real-world transfer rates are in the 80-100kbps range almost everywhere I've checked where I have more than one bar. Check this forum for user's reports.

AFAIK T-Mobile is waiting for the deployment to be completed before they begin marketing the service, but there's not going to be any additional charges for it beyond what they charge for GPRS today. They have just begun to sell the v330, which has EDGE support (I use an unlocked v551).

As far as T-Mobile's coverage, I will note that the higher-frequency band (they're on 1800 or 1900MHz in the US, Cingular uses 850) does cause the signal to drop out sooner inside buildings than Cingular's - for some reason it happens a lot in supermarkets - due to faster attenuation of higher-frequency signals. But other than that, I don't have problems in metro areas. Rural/suburban areas are a different story, I've heard...

Howard forums are MUCH larger than modaco, re: smartphones. See for yourself.

http://smartphone.modaco.com/index.php

has:

414 user(s) active in the past 30 minutes
  379 guests, 35 members 0 anonymous members

while

http://howardforums.com/

has:
Currently Active Users: 3410 (1128 members and 2282 guests)

This 7+ minute wait between replys is excessive. I'll contact my councilwoman... when she gets back from her vacation.

http://www.howardforums.com/ is also worth a mention, particulary the motorola section.

... unlimited data use through the apps provided by T-Mobile, that is (i.e. their cruddy web browser and e-mail client).

Try to load up your own apps like Opera Mobile, Agile Messenger, etc. and you find that the dirt-cheap all you can eat plan blocks your service. You have to shell out $20/month to be able to bring your own apps.

Not that they document this anywhere you might see it before you buy a plan -- it's just "unlimited data!!! unlimited Mobile Web!!! " with the caveats buried deep in the fine print.

(Yes, I'm a bitter T-Mobile customer :-) )

There are currently 3548 active users on http://www.howardforums.com/ "Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource." The forums are massive...Everything from provider to area is there so check it out.

Hi guys,

I've been using wireless internet on my cell phone for years because I'm too cheap to pay what I think is an obscene amount for broadband.

The performance, in my experience is highly variable, primarily based on the congestion of where you are connecting from and the quality of the phone or card.

I've set up a friend of mine on the $80 AYCE plan and he enjoys it a great deal, although the latency is pretty bad regardless of what incarnation of the verizon technology you use.

For detailed information and a community which specializes in this sort of thing, please check out

http://www.howardforums.com/

That is where I learned everything I know about wireless internet, in particular about Verizon's service

FYI, the max speeds I've obtained are around 16k/second (i.e. ~120-130 kps) with latency of, at best, 300 ms. The 16k/second speeds I've obtained are typical in low congestion areas or at low congestion times and they are sustained speeds, not just a spike.

I hope I've been of assistance

Don't think it's been mentioned, a great resource for pretty much anything to do with cellular / device / carrier discussion is http://www.howardforums.com/

You could likely find someone in/near your area that's tried different provider's services.

Rob

Trying to infect Prius with a Symbian "virus" is like trying to infect a tree with a choc chip cookie . Hey I can come up with a better one - it's like trying to infect shampoo with a book on eating disorders (now go picture that in your head for a second). But this is so sweet - it takes one dumb kid with too much time on their hands and one even dumber kid to moderate at voila! you get slashdot "news".

Whenever thousands of Prius owners and millions of concerned drivers hear a rumor about some virus that can infect cars, it is always cause for concern. I had heard about this before, and was actually relieved (not that much, but still) when I read this story. And, even if I had read the post you referenced, I would still be glad that a statement made by ArrayIndexOutOfBound on a tech news site was validated by F-Secure, a company that _knows_ viruses.

Still, I (a reasonably intelligent and informed /. user) personally have no knowledge of how the bluetooth virus everyone has been talking about works. I know nothing of what OS the Prius uses and how it compares with certain cell phones. I thought this was news.

Lighten up, jerk.

Considering AT&T is now owned by Cingular, they may be distributing the same replacment phones. What's your firmware version? (press *#9999#, it's listed as "S/W Version")

Seriously, a lot of phones in Japan have the capability to work in the US with Cingular and T-Mobile (not so much Spring, Nextel, or Verizon).

Seriously - get these phones unlocked, and eBay them to Americans.

I just spent $500 on a brand new Sony Ericsson S710a that isn't even available in this part of the country yet. It's got all sorts of cool features, including a 1.3 MP camera (pretty damned nice, for a phone). But I still can't help but to feel like an ass for spending the money knowing that, for instance, Samsung has a phone of nearly identical size out in South Korea with a 3MP camera and significantly more memory.

Second-hand phones in the Asian market are still better than cutting edge in the US. Given that most high-end phones can work with the majority of service providers in the world, I'm amazed there isn't a sort of cottage industry around, selling second-hand phones to the US market for discount prices.

Believe me - take a look at sites like Howard Forums - there are a lot of cell phone/gadget enthusiasts out there that would be plenty happy to not have to buy the overpriced, under-performing phones marketed in the US.

ugh hate to respond to my own thread but the sendo-x link is broken. something about reffered links from slashdot.
anyway, this should work for the sendo x forum and a review can be found here

Thank god. The crappy html browser in the windows smartphone platform (bastardized internet explorer) was the only thing holding me back from getting one of the smartphones out there today. Symbian is still a hot contender but most symbian phones are way too bulky for my use. For some reason the windows smartphones seem to be much slimmer. Sendo has a nice proprietary smartphone setup with their Sendo X but they still haven't worked all the bugs out. The ability to use a "real" browser with a smartphone just tipped the scales, goodbye Ericsson P910!
Link to minimo project
--Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

It's possible to buy an inexpensive data cable for a lot of Verizon camera phones; with such a cable, you can copy pics, ring tones, etc. to and from your computer using BitPim. I've got an LG VX6100 and that setup works like a charm.

More info at the Howard cellphone forums.

You need the SuperDave 1.02 firmware over at HoFo. http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=513683

Enables xferring ringtones, pix via BT, better camera quality, I now have signal/battery strength on the HUB in my Acura TL, other fixes as well.

Moto really screwed up giving the MPx only 32MB; in real-world use, that leaves less than 10 MB free for other applications (the standard built-in stuff, especially the BT stack and the magic that switches between GPRS and WiFi, takes a shitload of RAM).

That decision has really pissed off at least one community of power users who'd been anxiously awaiting the MPx for many months.

I use a Samsun a530s from Verizon and it uses the standard ACM drivers under linux just fine. If you can find a verizon phone with the 1x icon on it, you should be able to do 240kbps over their 1xRTT network (look at their National Access map).

I got my cable from Radio Shack, see http://www.howardforums.com/ for more info on the phones that are compatable.

You can get unlimited email and port 80 access with T-Mobile for $5/month through their "Unlimited T-Zones" service... although they only advertize it as "WAP Access". Some people report that T-Mobile is cracking down and preventing non-WAP use of port 80, but it still works for me. Check the T-Mobile board at HowardForums for more up to date info.

Worst case scenario is that you might have to subscribe to their "Unlimited Internet" service for $20/month.

If you need DSL-like speeds, go with someone else. T-Mobile's GPRS access is usually slower than dial-up.

How you hook up the phone depends on the phone. All the Nokia symbian phones can hook up to a linux computer wirelessly using bluetooth. Others use cables. Here's one guide I just found using Google... there are many other's out there.

I don't see the point of getting a dedicated pcmcia card for the connection. Even if you don't intend to use the phone, it will probably be cheaper than a PC card.

For T-Mobile customers: all T-Mobile accounts -- including prepaid EasySpeak customers -- have free WAP access available. T-Mobile doesn't charge minutes usage or bandwidth used for GPRS internet access. If your cell phone can connect to your laptop via Bluetooth, IR or with a cable, this means free internet access via GPRS from your laptop. The speeds aren't great, about that of a 56K modem, but definitely useable for the convenience it offers. Check out T-Mobile.HowardForums.com for more details and discussion. If you're interested, more information on my experience with T-Mobile GPRS internet access and a Nokia 6610 here and here.