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vinmassaro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 30, 2008
7
0
I plan to get an iPhone 3G in the next few weeks and am seeing a personal data plan and an enterprise data plan. Can someone tell me if you will be able to access Exchange 2007 email over a personal data plan? Thanks! :)
 

daveschroeder

macrumors 6502
Sep 14, 2003
315
13
Madison, WI
I plan to get an iPhone 3G in the next few weeks and am seeing a personal data plan and an enterprise data plan. Can someone tell me if you will be able to access Exchange 2007 email over a personal data plan? Thanks! :)

I saw that too; I don't see any way they can prohibit Exchange and VPN usage on one data plan vs another.

I think the difference may simply be in regard to official support, and the cost of the data plan for a phone on a business account vs an individual account.
 

walnuts

macrumors 6502a
Nov 8, 2007
593
347
Brooklyn, NY
I've been kind of skeptical about this very thing. It seems that it is set up to be EITHER enterprise (exchange) or personal/mobile me.

Its easy to see how an exchange e-mail account is kept separately, but I haven't seen anything that details how one would maintain separation between contacts and calendars. I already have a personal e-mail and a personal set of contacts and calendars synced to my iphone. It would be nice to add my exchange based work contacts and calendars, but I don't want my personal stuff intermingled with my work stuff- is there any way to distinguish?

That's why I think that iPhone 2.0 is set up such that if you have an enterprise plan, your calendar and contacts can only be based on your enterprise exchange account. If you want your own personal subset, then you need another phone (which is the way I think it works now with other smart phones, though I've never tested it). It seems to me that's how the cell phone companies would want it.
 

pavvento

macrumors 6502
Jun 3, 2007
437
0
I've been kind of skeptical about this very thing. It seems that it is set up to be EITHER enterprise (exchange) or personal/mobile me.

Its easy to see how an exchange e-mail account is kept separately, but I haven't seen anything that details how one would maintain separation between contacts and calendars. I already have a personal e-mail and a personal set of contacts and calendars synced to my iphone. It would be nice to add my exchange based work contacts and calendars, but I don't want my personal stuff intermingled with my work stuff- is there any way to distinguish?

That's why I think that iPhone 2.0 is set up such that if you have an enterprise plan, your calendar and contacts can only be based on your enterprise exchange account. If you want your own personal subset, then you need another phone (which is the way I think it works now with other smart phones, though I've never tested it). It seems to me that's how the cell phone companies would want it.


I think this would go against Apple's hope of having the iPhone as the only device you need. Calendar will be color coded so that is a way of making it easier to view. I think that since there is a separate contact app there may be a way to view contacts in their categories, the same way if you click on the mail app you can choose which account to look at.
 

walnuts

macrumors 6502a
Nov 8, 2007
593
347
Brooklyn, NY
I think this would go against Apple's hope of having the iPhone as the only device you need. Calendar will be color coded so that is a way of making it easier to view. I think that since there is a separate contact app there may be a way to view contacts in their categories, the same way if you click on the mail app you can choose which account to look at.

I agree that this would be against apple's philosophy of one device for everything, but, they may be limited by having the time/resources to retool the calendar and contacts apps and by whatever the cell phone companies may want.

For the calendar app specifically, some of the marketing material (esp mobile me stuff) has shown color-coded calendar events, but if they had gone through the trouble of reworking the calendar app for multiple calendars, wouldn't they have advertised that as a new feature of iPhone 2.0? After all, if they went through the trouble of mentioning multiple mail delete as a feature, why not mention multiple calendar support for the calendar. iCal can do it, why not the iphone calendar? I guess what I'm saying is that if it were possible, apple would have made it much more clear to the rest of us. Plus, all of the leaked photos would have shown how multiple calendar or contacts would have worked (they certainly detailed every other minute change in the UI).
 

jsgreen

macrumors 6502
Nov 27, 2007
372
59
NH
Yes, Exchange will work with either plan. The Enterprise plan is only if your iPhone is on a business account.

Are you sure? I was told today by an ATT rep (not the best source, granted) that access to Exchange would not work on the $30 personal plan, that I had to get the $45 Enterprise plan if I wanted to be able to connect to my work's Exchange server.
 

ScottInTheOC

macrumors newbie
Jul 8, 2008
21
0
The OC
I just spoke to AT&T business and then called my business rep at my local Apple store and what I was told that if I want Exchange capabilities with Push services, you need the Enterprise Data plan, which can only be purchased at an AT&T store.

Exchange data has to be processed by different servers located at AT&T to push the data to your iPhone. This is much the same way that BlackBerry services are setup with T-Mobile and Sprint. Both carriers also charge an extra fee over normal data plans to support BlackBerry/Exhange support.
 

ckbook

macrumors member
Aug 16, 2007
32
0
I just spoke to AT&T business and then called my business rep at my local Apple store and what I was told that if I want Exchange capabilities with Push services, you need the Enterprise Data plan, which can only be purchased at an AT&T store.

Exchange data has to be processed by different servers located at AT&T to push the data to your iPhone. This is much the same way that BlackBerry services are setup with T-Mobile and Sprint. Both carriers also charge an extra fee over normal data plans to support BlackBerry/Exhange support.

Actually Activesync does not work like Blackberry there is no middleware server that the email needs to pass through. Email is pulled directly from the exchange servers. Not sure it is possible for them to disable this service on the consumer data plans.

:confused:
 

Spiffyis5150

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
112
23
Tulsa, OK
ScottInTheOC is correct. AT&T's Blackberry services are also setup that way in that you can't do Exchange on the low end plan but you can on the highend one.

ckbook, it is possible. ActiveSync network ports could be blocked on the consumer data plan and not on the enterprise data plan. I suspect that the consumer data plan will use the WAP.CINGULAR APN which will filter ActiveSync connections and users with the Enterprise data plan will use the ISP.CINGULAR APN will allows full access. APNs are basically like network routers. Typically most consumers are setup to use the WAP.CINGULAR APN when connecting to the Internet. Some ports are filtered on it and it does NAT too. The ISP.CINGULAR gateway is more for laptop cards and enterprise users. There's no NAT taking place on the ISP.CINGULAR APN nor are any ports filtered.

**Note: WAP.CINGULAR does not imply that the network traffic is WAP based. It was originally setup for WAP devices, but provides connectivity fir many phones now that are not WAP at all.
 

ckbook

macrumors member
Aug 16, 2007
32
0
ScottInTheOC is correct. AT&T's Blackberry services are also setup that way in that you can't do Exchange on the low end plan but you can on the highend one.

ckbook, it is possible. ActiveSync network ports could be blocked on the consumer data plan and not on the enterprise data plan. I suspect that the consumer data plan will use the WAP.CINGULAR APN which will filter ActiveSync connections and users with the Enterprise data plan will use the ISP.CINGULAR APN will allows full access. APNs are basically like network routers. Typically most consumers are setup to use the WAP.CINGULAR APN when connecting to the Internet. Some ports are filtered on it and it does NAT too. The ISP.CINGULAR gateway is more for laptop cards and enterprise users. There's no NAT taking place on the ISP.CINGULAR APN nor are any ports filtered.

So i am currently a beta tester for the enterprise.... what happens when 2.0 goes live? they change settings to use wap.cingular for all comsumer data plans and exchange support will then stop working for me?
 

mbaran

macrumors regular
Jun 10, 2008
139
15
Active Sync uses port 443. wap.cingular.com cannot possibly block port 443. I see the same flawed arguement all the time.

Any PDA phone at ATT right now works just fine on Exhchange with the personal plan. Except you get people who call and ASK. No rep is going to tell you that "shh, it works if you dont tell anyone" If you mention exchange, you're gonna get told you need business accounts.

The other APN may be faster, and this allows for businesses to be more satisfied.. but thats it.
 

Spiffyis5150

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
112
23
Tulsa, OK
I really don't know. I should probably add that what I wrote is speculation at the moment. Although I am a network engineer, I haven't had to deal with ActiveSync before(we run Blackberries here) so I can't say how exactly they would implement it(or block it in this case). Maybe they won't do that at all(or can't depending upon the network ports used by ActiveSync) and instead will monitor users for usage which would indicate an enterprise type connection. AT&T doesn't tell us any of this stuff. A lot of what I have learned about how AT&T is setup is from my days of using my Blackberry to tether and do VPN back to my corporate network.
 

mbaran

macrumors regular
Jun 10, 2008
139
15
VPN I could totally see being blockable.. they would just shut the ports down... they only do one thing..

but SSL Exchange ONLY uses 443. There are no other ports to be opened.. it helps keep AS / Exchange secure.

Unlike BB, there is no middle server, or license fee paid to BB. Exchange is fully self controlled.
 

Spiffyis5150

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
112
23
Tulsa, OK
Active Sync uses port 443. wap.cingular.com cannot possibly block port 443. I see the same flawed arguement all the time.

Any PDA phone at ATT right now works just fine on Exhchange with the personal plan. Except you get people who call and ASK. No rep is going to tell you that "shh, it works if you dont tell anyone" If you mention exchange, you're gonna get told you need business accounts.

The other APN may be faster, and this allows for businesses to be more satisfied.. but thats it.

Ok, so that would be difficult to filter since it's a very common network port. The other APN isn't faster, just more open than the WAP.CINGULAR APN. I was merely speculating on how it could be filtered. I don't think it's a flawed argument though unless you've pulled out a network sniffer and confirmed that ActiveSync only ever uses port 443.
 

Spiffyis5150

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
112
23
Tulsa, OK
VPN I could totally see being blockable.. they would just shut the ports down... they only do one thing..

but SSL Exchange ONLY uses 443. There are no other ports to be opened.. it helps keep AS / Exchange secure.

Unlike BB, there is no middle server, or license fee paid to BB. Exchange is fully self controlled.

Can you post a link to a document from Microsoft that says that ActiveSync ONLY ever uses port 443 during the sync process?
 

mbaran

macrumors regular
Jun 10, 2008
139
15
I run my own personal exchange server at home. I only have three exceptions in my firewall, and all ports above 1000 are closed.

They are 80 inbound, 443 bidirectional, and 8080 for an admin console.

If you went to myexchange.com/owa, you'd be using the same 443 secure.

All my other ports are closed both via the routing and remote access snapin on w2k3 and my router for security.

see:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/archive/2005/12/03/499714.aspx
and
#
Enterprise administrators will laugh at us if we ask them to open inbound ports on their networks other than 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). Some of them laugh at us, anyway.
 

ViperrepiV

macrumors regular
Jan 25, 2008
197
26
I heard that you only need the business plan if your business pays your phone bill. i.e. if you use the businesspayer taxpayer ID instead of your SS# on the bill
 

mbaran

macrumors regular
Jun 10, 2008
139
15
They may have a short timeout on the heartbeat of 443.. but this would only mean slighly larger battery drain..but again.. this sounds like something that would affect other users of the wap.cingular system.
 

chuckiej

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2003
133
0
OK, I'm going personal. After reading this thread it seems ridiculous that they would prevent Exchange access. We'll see tomorrow I guess. Thanks all.
 

kenelbow

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2008
9
0
Indianapolis
Great news! No need for an Enterprise data plan to access ActiveSync. I have gotten it working on my iPhone 3g with only a personal data plan!

VPN is another story. I thought it was working at first, but that was when I was on Wifi. As soon as I switched to 3g, VPN stopped working. They must be blocking it for non Enterprise customers.

Hmm, okay now it looks like VPN IS working on 3g. so perhaps it was just my low signal in this building (2 bars) that caused the confusion?
 

alexboy45

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2007
152
0
I saw that too; I don't see any way they can prohibit Exchange and VPN usage on one data plan vs another.

I think the difference may simply be in regard to official support, and the cost of the data plan for a phone on a business account vs an individual account.


with the VPN they could restrict the ports that are allowed over the 3g network. with email it could be the same but i am sure it uses https so in that case they couldent
 
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