Tmobile tzones stopped working on 3g iphone

[whitemp5seattle]

Hey all,

I recently switched from a Tmobile Sidekick Slide to a new 3g iPhone, and "downgraded" my account with Tmobile from the Sidekick data plan to the $5.99 tzones plan. I set the APN to epc.tmobile.com and everything was working great for a few days. I was even able to use youtube via EDGE.

However, a few days ago EDGE stopped working altogether. I've tried resetting the APN, different APNs, restarting the phone and toggling EDGE on and off and nothing seems to get the E back on the top of the phone. I thought it may have been because I was traveling and there wasn't good service where I was, but I'm currently in Birmingham, AL and I'm still not getting the EDGE connection.

I just got off the phone with Tmobile customer care and the representative I spoke with said that I needed the $19.99 total internet plan for the iPhone, not the $5.99 tzones plan. Even after I told him that others are using the tzones plan, he insisted that I needed the $19.99 total internet plan and that the tzones plan wasn't made for a "high KB transfer" so when Tmobile sees all the data going through they shut it off. I told him I'd "think about it" and maybe switch the plan later.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? I've been doing a lot of research and it seems like tzones is working fine for everybody out there, so I'm wondering why it's not working for me. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Jeffrey

 

[aristobrat]

The rep was correct. The reason t-zones is only $5.99 (and not $19.99) is because it's meant for "dumb"phones that can't use a lot of bandwidth because their screens are so small and their browsers are so limited.

If you do get this figured out, you'd be best to keep your t-zones data usage as low as possible so that your acct's data usage doesn't stick out on some T-Mobile report somewhere. I'd imagine that just one or two YouTube videos on your iPhone would generate more data usage than a regular phone meant for t-zones would do in a whole month!

If you check your T-Mobile account online, is t-zones still listed as one of the features that you're paying for?

 

[lambo]

T-Zones just stopped working for me, too! I've had it working for over two months now and it just stopped yesterday.

What can I do without paying the $19.99?

 

[whitemp5seattle]

The rep was correct. The reason t-zones is only $5.99 (and not $19.99) is because it's meant for "dumb"phones that can't use a lot of bandwidth because their screens are so small and their browsers are so limited.

If you do get this figured out, you'd be best to keep your t-zones data usage as low as possible so that your acct's data usage doesn't stick out on some T-Mobile report somewhere. I'd imagine that just one or two YouTube videos on your iPhone would generate more data usage than a regular phone meant for t-zones would do in a whole month!

If you check your T-Mobile account online, is t-zones still listed as one of the features that you're paying for?

Yup, TmobileWeb is still listed on the account. (That's the Tmobile term for the $5.99 tzones plan.)

I might end up switching to the $19.99 plan if this becomes a lasting issue. The whole idea of having a data plan on this phone is so I DON'T have to watch my data usage! Plus, the iPhone is such a data-rich phone, if I weren't going to use all the features I might as well have stuck to my sidekick. The keyboard on that thing kicked the iPhone keyboard's ass!

 

[aristobrat]

Have you checked out the T-Mobile forum over at HowardForums? (HowardForums is like the MacRumors for the cell phone industry)

Looks like t-zones is working on some iPhones but not others:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1457375

Some are guessing it might be because of t-zones switching to the Web2Go...