WAP V Internet pages on Orange- the definative answer

[Guest AFCChris]

After months of big bills for data access from Orange and hours and hours of trying to find out an answer to a query from Orange's so called "technical specialists" I am hoping someone on here can answer this question once and for all.

The main question is the difference between WAP pages and Internet pages on my SPVE100 phone. When I used to have a Nokia 6310i I used to access the Orange WAP pages thru GPRS and was on a GPRS bundle where I got 4mb for £4 a month. Since changing to the SPV my bills have been bigger and I need to understand why. I don't download e-mail so my assumption was that I was accessing Internet pages as opposed to WAP pages. Going back to when I first spoke to Orange about this they told me that any pages you access on the phone where the page doesn't fit into the phone screen would be internet pages, and I took that as pages that I would access through my PC. They said that if the page fits into the phone screen then that is a WAP pages so I took it that these are the pages where I should be able to access approx 1000 pages per 1mb of data. I never access pages where it doesn't fit on the phone screen, and use pages like Orange World, the MODACO page and BBCi pages all the time on the phone.

I believe that Orange are wrong and these pages are in fact internet pages (but formatted to be viewed on mobile phones/PDA's) and my use of these is causing the high charges for data as you should only be able to view about 20 pages for 1mb of data. Can anyone confirm this? I think that the Orange wap pages are the basic, mostly text only pages that are similar to what I accessed on my 6310i, but enhanced with a bit of colour for the SPV.

I would appreciate if someone could let me know some basic rules for working out if a page is Internet or WAP when I am in the pages and also maybe confirm the settings on the SPVE100 to access WAP pages through GPRS and the orange homepage for WAP which is supposed to be wsp://orange.multimedia but this never seems to work.

Help please, so I can save some money. I trust the people on here more than the useless people at Orange.

[Guest cadburys man]

After months of big bills for data access from Orange and hours and hours of trying to find out an answer to a query from Orange's so called "technical specialists" I am hoping someone on here can answer this question once and for all.

The main question is the difference between WAP pages and Internet pages on my SPVE100 phone. When I used to have a Nokia 6310i I used to access the Orange WAP pages thru GPRS and was on a GPRS bundle where I got 4mb for £4 a month. Since changing to the SPV my bills have been bigger and I need to understand why. I don't download e-mail so my assumption was that I was accessing Internet pages as opposed to WAP pages. Going back to when I first spoke to Orange about this they told me that any pages you access on the phone where the page doesn't fit into the phone screen would be internet pages, and I took that as pages that I would access through my PC. They said that if the page fits into the phone screen then that is a WAP pages so I took it that these are the pages where I should be able to access approx 1000 pages per 1mb of data. I never access pages where it doesn't fit on the phone screen, and use pages like Orange World, the MoDaCo page and BBCi pages all the time on the phone. 

I believe that Orange are wrong and these pages are in fact internet pages (but formatted to be viewed on mobile phones/PDA's) and my use of these is causing the high charges for data as you should only be able to view about 20 pages for 1mb of data. Can anyone confirm this? I think that the Orange wap pages are the basic, mostly text only pages that are similar to what I accessed on my 6310i, but enhanced with a bit of colour for the SPV. 

I would appreciate if someone could let me know some basic rules for working out if a page is Internet or WAP when I am in the pages and also maybe confirm the settings on the SPVE100 to access WAP pages through GPRS and the  orange homepage for WAP which is supposed to be wsp://orange.multimedia but this never seems to work. 

Help please, so I can save some money. I trust the people on here more than the useless people at Orange.

Hi,

"They said that if the page fits into the phone screen then that is a WAP pages so I took it that these are the pages where I should be able to access approx 1000 pages per 1mb of data. "

I can't see this being right as you can change the settings so you can view the pages to fit the screen.

AFAIK to view WAP only pages through Pocket Internet Explorer you have to go into Settings>Data Connections> and change the settings to Orange WAP and this forces WAP over GPRS.

If i'm wrong then someone please correct me.

Hope this is of some help

Daz.

[Guest cadburys man]

Hi again,

go to IE, untick 'Auto detect settings' and change Select network to WAP network'.

Daz.

[Guest scott2eyes]

I would appreciate if someone could let me know some basic rules for working out if a page is Internet or WAP when I am in the pages

The only sure-fire way I know if is to check the address of the page (use the Properties option)- if it's a WAP page, then the address will be along the lines of "wap.orange.blah blah blah"

The difference between WAP and "internet" (ie. full HTML) is more down to the content of the pages than anything- it's possible for an HTML page to be smaller than a WAP page.

The best way to cut costs (and connection times) is to disable pictures and sounds in Explorer. Also, install something like iMeter, which keeps a log of all your GPRS (and voice) calls so you can see where your GPRS bundle is going.

[Guest martin]

AFAIK (and thats not a lot)

When I used to have a Nokia 6310i I used to access the Orange WAP pages thru GPRS and was on a GPRS bundle where I got 4mb for £4 a month

What GPRS bundle are you on now ? For example the Orange World Access 3 pack includes 3MB of data transfer but is then £3 per Mb which can add up to quite a bit if you are using GPRS often. Maybe you should consider changing your GPRS bundle ?

Most recent phones have larger screens with colour capability so this is why we are seeing improvements in WAP sites containing text, colour, pictures and so on. I imagine that the days of the text only WML pages are numbered :wink: As scott2eyes said you always have the option to disable the pictures.

The main question is the difference between WAP pages and Internet pages on my SPVE100 phone.

The answer to this at one time would be simple: Internet pages were large HTML coded pages which required an Internet browser and WAP pages were WML coded pages which required a WAP 1.0 micro browser. Fortunately phones have improved and some contain both Internet and WAP browsers and as far as I can tell most phones last year contained WAP 1.2.1 software (including the SPV/E100 & Nokia 6310i) while newer phones have WAP 2.0. These versions of WAP are backwards compatible and can still display the text only WML pages that we are accustomed to.

Large Internet pages are not very welcome for either the phone display or your GPRS bill as they contain a considerable amount of data so it is best to stick with internet sites that are optimised for mobiles and PDA's. WAP sites require even less data to be transferred but these don't look as good.

Since you mentioned BBC earlier try this as an example

www.bbc.co.uk/mobile which is a website optimised for mobile/PDA and then the WAP (WML) version wsp://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/wap/default/home/index.wml

And as said earlier you can check the page sizes using Menu-properties and/or install i-meter to monitor GPRS.

The issue is moving towards page size and associated data transfer rather than its requirement for Internet or WAP browsers.

[Guest AFCChris]

Funnily enough I connected to the BBCi mobile wap site before reading this and it worked fine. The orange.multimedia wap site isn't working and I get an error message which Orange have been looking into for me for nearly 2 weeks now (Their customer service is appaling, but that's for another thread!)

I am getting a good idea now about how it all works, but just to comment on something that Daz said earlier, I have selected the option to fit to screen and still have sites that don't. Funnily enough the Modaco site is one that doesn't fit.

Thanks for all the comments.

[Guest martin]

The Orange World site is accessed using http://orange.multimedia or http://smartphone.orange.co.uk/today or http://wap.orange.co.uk.

You can't access Orange World on the SPV using the WAP proxy server (ie wsp://orange.multimedia).

The site www.modaco.com should automatically direct you to the mobile version when accessed using the SPV. The only time i've seen this fail is when the program WebWapSelect is not set to SPV.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest londonlad]

i think you can set it to wap only is the way cadbury man set out above, test it, try a web page, it should say not found, but then there arent many wap pages left these days and modaco didnt work on mine but its still cheap to download

[Guest wilky]

Sorry but long thread so apols if already covered.

Don`t forget to double check all your settings.

WAP you are charged by the minute and GPRS you are charged by the page. If you have your settings wrong and stay connected you`ll be charged for it.

[Guest martin]

Remember that you can also access the Internet using APN orangewap.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest nvkid909]

orange world is wap i do believe, you can get email & web via wap or go thru' int.explorer. I.E is fine for me as it is "stop - go". when "stop" is displayed & the flag is waving, page is loading, it's not costing you when that prompt has changed to "favourites" or when scrolling the page.

google is lethal it's the trial & error of finding ok sites thats costing me atm. think i'll do that at home & paste into my phone favourites.

sites home pages should display a logo for "wap friendly" or "pocketpc friendly" or "smartphone friendly" at the top to save some hassle

[Guest AFCChris]

Having read all the latest posts I wanted to give a considered response to some of the things I have read here.

Firstly, contrary to what was said you can access the Orange World page via wsp://orange.multimedia page on the SPV as I have done it before. Secondly, I want to get value for money (ie. approx 1000 pages per megabyte) and be able to read the text on sites rather than fancy pictures and text (like you get on internet WAP pages for approx 20 pager per megabyte) so to be able to access sites like the BBC wap page and the Orange World text only WML page is my no.1 requirement.

I can understand people with no internet access wanting to see better pages on their Smartphones as this is the only way they can do it, but as someone who has internet access I would rather look at pages on there, than trying to see the tiny pictures that show on WAP internet pages on my phone. It's personal choice I suppose but in my view why pay 1mb for 20 pages when I can view 1000 text only and find out what I need to find out. Also, there is a limited choice of these sorts of pages but they give me what I want (news, sport, travel info, showbiz stuff etc.) so Orange World and BBCi are good enough - again, personal choice.

I have been on to Orange again and had more worthless long conversations and still I can't access the wsp://orange.multimedia page due to the following error message

"alert, the character '>' was expected

Line 31, position 3

- typical usage:"

I tried a "sim swap" as directed by Orange which meant I tried my SIM in my old Nokia 6310 which can't show internet pages and I instantly connected to the wap service. The homepage on there was http://orange.multimedia which I know Martin mentioned earlier so when I put it back in my SPV I changed to this page and tried it and it worked but this loaded a page which was mostly the same as I normally see when using http://wap.orange.co.uk and had pictures so I assume again that this was the more expensive version of the pages. I will be getting a GPRS counter as recommended on here and that will tell me a lot I hope and meanwhile Orange will continue to look into it and maybe I will get a solution one day! Anyone on here recognize this error message?

Cheers

Chris

[Guest Coucou]

Orange world has a browser detection system, this will automatically direct you to the web version when you're on the spv. Wap isn't properly implemented on the SPV so if you try using it you will often find pages hanging rather than doing anything. I never bother trying anymore. I believe if you use WebWapSelect it makes your SPV pretend it's a Nokia or something but I never got it to work properly

[Guest martin]

When the portal changed to Orange World it included a specfic section for the SPV but the pages are written in HTML rather than WML. I think this is why wsp://orange.multimedia no longer works for the SPV (via the WAP proxy server).

The program WebWapSelect will, by default, change the SPV phone ID to Nokia 7650. This will allow wsp://orange.multimedia to work and the pages are written in WML. The only problem is that Orange World on the Nokia 7650 WAP phone looks EXACTLY the same as you get on the SPV including all the pictures.

I would try using WebWapSelect and modify the .ini file to something like the Nokia 6310.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest AFCChris]

well, I loaded WebWapSelect and i-meter and I am now much happier. Not only am I getting a true picture of the data I am using, but due to WebWapSelect I am accessing the Orange WAP page text only page that I want to access. What I found strange is that although I am accessing http://wap.orange.co.uk the pages that come up are the ones that I used to see when using wsp://orange.multimedia and even the things I have added to the "Your Page" section are the ones I set up ages ago on my Nokia, and therefore different to the ones that I had set up recently when accessing the same wap.orange.co.uk page. The difference in data used between the text only and the normal site with pictures is quite noticeable.

Whether this is a case of getting over the problem or getting around the problem I don't know but thanks for all the help and advice you have given.

One last question - is there a english version of i-meter and WebWapSelect?!! Unfortunately my french isn't what it should be and need some translation to be able to use these apps properly. I might ask this on another topic so more people see the question without having to read all these posts but if anyone watching this has any info on an English version then I'd love to hear about it!

[Guest martin]

Hi Chris

Yep, that's the catch to changing the phone ID ? The Orange World menus and services are not generic but are actually specific to the phone type so accessing as a Nokia 7650 will give the 7650 menus including games and ringtones which are of no use to the SPV, likewise with the Nokia 6310 menus. As far as Orange World is concerned you ARE using a Nokia 6310 (check 'You and Orange') but least you can swap between SPV and Nokia 6310 when you need to.

Unfortunately there is no text only version of the SPV menus.

I asssume you copied the WebWapSelect.ini file to IPSMApplication Data and changed WAP: PhoneName=Nokia6310, User-Agent=Nokia6310/1.0. I don't think there is an English version of the instructions but I just copied it into http://babelfish.altavista.com/ which helped a bit. It would be nice to have a proper translation though.

Here's the original site for these applications http://twyxspv.3utilities.com/300903/SPV.HTM where there an English pack for i-meter although I'm not sure exactly sure what it does as I've never used i-meter myself.

[edit] Oh and if you have any problems accessing any internet you will have to change phone ID back to SPV. Maybe attach WebWapSelect to a speed dial :lol:

[Guest AFCChris]

Martin.

I didn't actually change the ini file at all. It worked like that straight after install. I checked the .ini file now and it had Pocket PC in the phone name and Mozilla (or something like that) in the next line.

All's well that ends well.

Cheers