Best Cell Phone Service for GPRS?

hojo asks: "I have a Palm Tungsten T and I'd like to start using it for (limited) wireless web browsing. It has Bluetooth support and will work with GPRS cell service. Alltel, my current cell provider, doesn't support GPRS so I want to switch to another plan. What cell phone service plans are there that you have used or know about that will work to allow me to use my Palm and preferably a Bluetooth phone for some on-the-road lookup? My only other issue is I'm trying to keep the cost less than $100/month."

Comments

Costs:

[BrokenHalo]

I'm trying to keep the cost less than $100/month.

The whole point of GPRS is that you pay for the traffic you use (rather than connect time), so if you want to keep costs down, you simply have to keep traffic down. As for the best service, it will depend on what performs well in your area. Here in Western Australia, Vodafone is pretty good, but it your mileage may (will) vary. It shouldn't make any difference what hardware you use: that's just a matter of preference.

U.S. Options

[Jenova_Sidekick]

In the U.S., your options are T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile is the only U.S. provider that has a nationwide GSM/GPRS network, so they're the best bet for coverage. They're the best bet for price, too. Recently. they changed all their GPRS plans to unlimited usage. with at least a $29 voice plan, you get unlimited GPRS for $19/month. By itself, it's $29/month. I had a Sidekick/Hiptop device for several months, and recently traded for a Pocket PC Phone Edition. I average about 20-30 Kbps download, with occasional peaks around 50 Kbps. I love that tbe connection is "always-on", too. In fact. I read this article. and posted this reply on my Pocket PC phone Edition. :-) I love being a gadget geek! W?BIC!

Traffic

[fm6]

The whole point of GPRS is that you pay for the traffic you use (rather than connect time)...

That's the theory. And it does appear that nobody's charging for GPRS connect time. (I'm not even sure it's possible.) But the big GSM/GPRS provider in my area (TMobile, California) seems to have had trouble selling GPRS on per-packet basis, and now offers a monthly rate with unlimited usage. I suspect people found the per-packet plan too expensive. Might be different in the U.S. than in countries where almost everybody uses GSM (such as Australia), and they can recover their capital costs from a larger consumer base.

Here's a little background for people in GSM-only land. Outside the U.S. In the U.S., providers refused to standardize their technology, claiming that GSM wasted too much bandwidth. If I remember correctly, CDMA is the leading technology, with TDMA second, and various forms of GSM (not all of them compatibile with international GSM systems) a distant third.

Re:Traffic

[The Mayor]

The GSM used in the US is compatible with Europe. There are 3 bands commonly used by GSM. Only 2 of these are used in the US, since the third is in the unlicensed 900MHz spectrum (a licensed spectrum in most of the world).

Dual-band GSM phones work fine in the US, but may be more succeptible to bandwidth crowding. But international GSM phones work fine in the US, and US GSM phones work fine outside the US (just about every country outside the US uses GSM).

Re:Traffic

[Andy Dodd]

Just a minor comment:

The TDMA you refer to is officially called D-AMPS I believe. It uses TDMA as its modulation scheme - But so does GSM.

Most CDMA providers (Basically all for now, this will change with UMTS) use cdmaOne or CDMA2000. CDMA2000 is a seamless upgrade from cdmaOne. (cdmaOne phones work on CDMA2000 networks and vice versa, unlike UMTS and GSM, which are completely incompatible with each other.) UMTS (3G GSM) also uses CDMA for modulation.

Of the providers in the U.S.
Verizon - cdmaOne, rolling out CDMA2000 gradually

Sprint PCS - Small CDMA2000 network. They rolled out CDMA2000 to all their towers at once.

AT&T - Formerly D-AMPS. Their D-AMPS network was #1 in coverage, even better than VZW. AT&T shot themselves in the foot by upgrading to GSM. Not only did they negate their coverage advantage, but they rolled out a dead-end technology with no upgrade path. (UMTS requires new base stations, new phones, and new RF heads network-wide. A partial UMTS rollout is not possible.)

Cingular - Another D-AMPS gone GSM provider.

VoiceStream (now T-Mobile) - Has been GSM since Day 1. Worst coverage and service of any provider in the nation. GSM can't seem handle multiple providers gracefully, so many T-Mobile customers started getting "Service Unavailable" the day that AT&T or Cingular put a GSM tower on-air in their area. (See an above comment about AT&T's "No Service Weekends" plans.)

Nextel - Uses Motorola's iDEN system. Completely proprietary, but is firmly entrenched in the construction/contractor business due to their direct-connect functionality.

There are also a few smaller CDMA providers, such as Alltel. Note that Verizon seems to have roaming agreements with all of the other CDMA providers, very often "one-way" ones. (Verizon customers can use Sprint towers as part of their plan, but Sprint customers can't use VZW towers. Of course, VZW customers are paying more per minute for that privilege. As a VZW customer - It's worth it. I hear people with other providers complain about their cell service routinely - My service is great.)

Another vote for AT&T (sorta)

[jakedata]

Off grid, off the coast of Maine on an island with an external directional antenna plugged into one end of my Nokia 6310i and a solar panel plugged into the other end, I enjoyed uninterrupted data service via AT&Ts GPRS service.
I used the infrared port on the phone to link to my laptop. Didn't want to spend the $$$ for a Bluetooth adapter.

Caveat 1 - No unlimited data service plan yet.

Caveat 2 - You get a NAT address 10.x.x.x rather than a routable IP address - so have that VPN ready on your cable modem.

Caveat 3 - Windows based AT&T software that filters ads, compresses graphics and manages dialup. You don't absolutely need it, but it is a big help.

Caveat 4 - Pro-rating of the monthly service charge also pro-rated my data allotment. I went over and was charged much extra $$$.

All that being said, It worked quite well.

-j