Page 1 of 2 1 2
Reply
Thread Tools
freeman is offline freeman
2006-12-22 , 09:05
Posts: 152 | Thanked: 6 times | Joined on Dec 2006
#1
Well, this is my first post, as I just own the n770, but have to put it back in the shop, but will get it back soon(hopefully). I also plan on getting a data plan on my cell phone. Currently I have a Nokia 6620 w/ Cingular and no data plan. I do have some knowledge of how the internet work. But I can't seem to understand how would the carrier know if you tether your data or not. My Nokia 6620 is happened to be s60, aka symbian linux phone. So, if they just exam the packet, there is absolutely no way they would know if the data was requested from my 6620 or 770.
Can somebody tell me how this work?
 
Arjun's Avatar
Arjun is offline Arjun
2006-12-22 , 13:57
Posts: 242 | Thanked: 8 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ USA & BharatVarsh ( INDIA - Kerala ).
#2
Originally Posted by freeman
Well, this is my first post, as I just own the n770, but have to put it back in the shop, but will get it back soon(hopefully). I also plan on getting a data plan on my cell phone. Currently I have a Nokia 6620 w/ Cingular and no data plan. I do have some knowledge of how the internet work. But I can't seem to understand how would the carrier know if you tether your data or not. My Nokia 6620 is happened to be s60, aka symbian linux phone. So, if they just exam the packet, there is absolutely no way they would know if the data was requested from my 6620 or 770.
Can somebody tell me how this work?
From my meager knowledge of this I think the way a Carrier would know whether you are using the Phone itself or the Nokia 770 is by the way of the websites accessed. I have a Nokia 3650 Phone and a Nokia 770. Till about a few months back I could Bluetooth into the Phone using the Nokia 770 and surf the Web as I pleased. Then last month or so I found that I could not access the Internet using the Nokia 770 + Nokia 3650 any which way. I also found that T-Mobile (the Carrier I use) has a new Data Plan for $ 29.99 that would allow the Internet access. This would obviously mean that T-mobile found out that some people use their Symbian Phones together with a Handheld to access the Internet and decided to sell such service and make money instead of allowing such access freely. But this along with a Phone Plan is expensive.

I am miffed at the fact that T-Mobile stopped such access yet the charge of my plan did not decrease any which way. My logic for saying this is that, before (when I just had the phone and no Nokia 770) there were no issues. Now that they found that I access the Internet via the Nokia 770 using the phone they blocked it. So essentially they took of an option from my total Phone Service. But it is my phone time and is paid for. It is not as if T-Mobile says ohh this customer is only accessing the Internet and that too using his own Phone Plan and Time, so we have no problem.

Also the fact that using the phone and its Internet capability alone I think one can only access specific websites, normally the Carrier supported ones. When the Nokia 770 is used to access random websites in a random/ specific order, the Carrier finds this out by the activity on and of the Network.
Last edited by Arjun; 2006-12-26 at 16:58.
 
brendan's Avatar
brendan is offline brendan
2006-12-22 , 14:07
Posts: 531 | Thanked: 79 times | Joined on Oct 2006 @ This side of insane, that side of genius
#3
i would imagine the request headers are what the provider is reading in order to determine the device/browser that is making the request. i could only guess that having a NAT/MANGLE proxy on the phone would disguise the source requester so as to hide the fact that one is using a different device to cruise the web.

another reason open source phones will be harder to find in the anti-consumer markets perpetuated by BigBusiness...
__________________
Nokia n800
OS 2008
Pharos iGPS 360-BT
ElmScan 5 BlueTooth
BlackBerry Bold (9000)
AT&T Wireless
 
Karel Jansens's Avatar
Karel Jansens is offline Karel Jansens
2006-12-22 , 14:17
Posts: 3,220 | Thanked: 326 times | Joined on Oct 2005 @ "Almost there!" (Monte Christo, Count of)
#4
BTW, Symbian Series 60 has bugger all to do with Linux.

Just being pedantic, that's all...
 
fpp's Avatar
fpp is offline fpp
2006-12-22 , 16:21
Posts: 2,853 | Thanked: 968 times | Joined on Nov 2005
#5
In the cases I know of (Imode and WAP) you must go through a proxy operated by the carrier, and that proxy essentially looks at the user-agent presented by the phone's browser to determine if it's allowed through. If you tether the 770 and change Opera's user-agent by way of a local proxy (like Privoxy), things generally work.
 
Milhouse is offline Milhouse
2006-12-22 , 16:31
Posts: 3,401 | Thanked: 1,255 times | Joined on Nov 2005 @ London, UK
#6
In the UK, T-mobile terms and conditions make it clear that you can't use the phone as a modem unless you sign up to a more expensive tarriff. If the T's & C's have changed since you began your contract, T-mobile should have contacted you - if not you may have been violating the T's&C's and now they've caught you and restricted your access?
 
Arjun's Avatar
Arjun is offline Arjun
2006-12-22 , 17:09
Posts: 242 | Thanked: 8 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ USA & BharatVarsh ( INDIA - Kerala ).
#7
Originally Posted by Milhouse
In the UK, T-mobile terms and conditions make it clear that you can't use the phone as a modem unless you sign up to a more expensive tarriff. If the T's & C's have changed since you began your contract, T-mobile should have contacted you - if not you may have been violating the T's&C's and now they've caught you and restricted your access?

The fact that the T's & C's have indeed changed is the truth. T-Mobile never cared (and still does not ) to inform me about this. I know this because 2-3 months before (if I am correct ) I am positive that there was no " T-Mobile Internet " ( the $ 29.99 Data Plan) idea. It was when T-Mobile found that too many people were using the Phone as a Modem that they introduced this plan and at the same time blocked Access. I still have access to T-Mobile Website when I use the GPRS option within the phone. If I tether the phone and use it as a GPRS Modem, no Website can be accessed.

I am willing to believe that they caught on to the idea that I was using the phone as a Modem, but if I had this plan for last 3 years and was paying the same amount of money, should it not mean that by restricting the access now, I have been gypped ? I say this because now also I have the same Phone Plan and am paying the same amount of money for a plan in which the option of use has been restricted further. This then has to mean that now, I am paying more for lesser Service/Access.

Not that I really care, it is simply the principles involved.

Whenever I try to access a website (using the The Nokia 770 to bluetooth into the Nokia 3650 Phone ) I get the following.

ERROR

The requested URL coul not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve ther URL: http://www.accuweather.com/

The following error was encountered:

Access Denied.

Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time.
Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.
Your cache administrator is root

Generated Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:26:52 GMT by svtatl10(squid/2.5 STABLE3)


On a better ( happier ?) note, take a look at the following website. It gives some good insights about various carriers and their Data plans in USA.

twelveblackcodemonkeys.com/mobile_data_plan_comparisons_for_smartphones.htm
Last edited by Arjun; 2006-12-22 at 19:49.
 
freeman is offline freeman
2006-12-22 , 18:01
Posts: 152 | Thanked: 6 times | Joined on Dec 2006
#8
From what I heard, It seem like what brendan said. They have a big proxy server and look at all the request header, and try to determined if it's the phone or not. Does anyone have experience accessing internet other than web browsing? like FTP, telnet, ssh, VPN? I think we all know that web browsing alone isn't the internet, but I have a feeling that the carrier don't know that. From my point of view, I have problem with the fact they determined what application they allow to use online rather rather than if I tether or not. What if I have some weird software or apps that I wrote myself on my s60. Maybe I should look if there is a proxy server app for my s60.
 
fpp's Avatar
fpp is offline fpp
2006-12-22 , 18:31
Posts: 2,853 | Thanked: 968 times | Joined on Nov 2005
#9
Making the Web work is the easy, 770-only step. For the other protocols you need OpenVPN, which can also chain through a proxy while changing the user-agent. It's quite something else though, and you also need an endpoint for your VPN tunnel, eg a private box on a home DSL line or such...
 
c_legaspi is offline c_legaspi
2006-12-22 , 19:20
Posts: 137 | Thanked: 8 times | Joined on Apr 2006
#10
i think it is more of how much data is accessed. the phone browsing dont use that much data to transmit and receive, however using a full browser, it passes and receives several megs or more.
 
Reply
Page 1 of 2 1 2

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 22:13.

Contact Us - Home - Archive - Top