GPRS CONNECTION ALERT (C500)?

[Guest xspyda]

Is there a way I can assign a sound to alert me when a GPRS connection is made?

I have a GPRS 'bundle' and generally use the Internet PassThru option when connected to online service, but I have been caught out a few times when GPRS has connected and remained so for several hours - therefore using up my GPRS allowance.

All I am after is an audible alert for when a GPRS connection is established.

Anyone know if this is possible via a registry hack or if there is an app. that will allow this? Maybe I can even just assign a .wav to the event of a connection being made?

Thanks for your thoughts ...

[Guest rizzles]

You dont actually pay for being connected to gprs, you only pay when you are sending or recieving data. so your gprs can be on all day without you browsing or sending emails and you wont be charged a penny

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest squall]

You dont actually pay for being connected to gprs, you only pay when you are sending or recieving data. so your gprs can be on all day without you browsing or sending emails and you wont be charged a penny  

Posted from my SmartPhone!

there is a ping signal that goes back and fourth when connected to gprs so you do get charged something if you stay connected.

however it a very small amount of information

[Guest jleecong]

I will second you get changed for nothing. I have used 6 voice minutes and 301KB. I checked 1 webpage, Yahoo mail to test the connection, and made 2 voice calls. I did receive 2 text messages, one from AT&T the other was unknow. Nothing close to 300KB though. I only used 15Meg total over the last year on my Nokia and that was linking with my PDA for wireless web.

One thing I did notice one night was a message every couple of minutes about wanting to connect and failing. I was fine with that cause I wasn't doing anything the phone was just sitting. There is no need to connect unless I tell the phone to.

I am not using the phone now to test if usage rises. At home I have BT so it shouldn't rise but come Monday when I go to work for the day it better show no usage.

[Guest squall]

just disconnect gprs by holding home button and selecting disconnect, then you wont get charged

[Guest xspyda]

Yep, I am aware there is no charge for being simply connected to GPRS, only when the connection is active and data is being transferred ...

However, I would still like an audible alert when a connection is made for the times that GPRS kicks in to substitute an otherwise unavailable connection (ie, Bluetooth Internet PassThru).

Is there a way to assign a sound to the event of a GPRS connection being established?

[Guest squall]

not that i know of, it should be possible. there should be know applications that can dial gprs without you initialising it (note the should!)

[Guest xspyda]

there should be know applications that can dial gprs without you initialising it (note the should!)

The problem arises when the 'internet' conneciton is set to Automatic. Initially, when synced to the pc, the phone can browse using the Internet PassThru rather than GPRS.

If and when Bluetooth fails (for whatever reason), the GPRS activates instead and subsequent browsing is done using GPRS - sometimes unknowingly.

I know there is an icon at the top to show the connection but it's not always noticed - esspecially if not paying full attention when using Agile Messenger for instance.

I will keep looking - seems to me it is possible, just a case of finding if anyone has written anything to do this.

[Guest xspyda]

You dont actually pay for being connected to gprs, you only pay when you are sending or recieving data. so your gprs can be on all day without you browsing or sending emails and you wont be charged a penny

Just to follow up on this ...

Woke up this morning, looked at phone to find the 'g' indicating that GPRS is active. Checked in All Locations counter and data was being transferred constantly.

Checked call timer (reset the night before) and found 9hrs + of data calls had been made!

Checked Task Manager and the was NOTHING running in there apart from the All Locations counter!

So ... seems I AM paying for an 'inactive' GPRS connection after all!

[Guest Grouch]

I've had exactly the same problem Xspyda. Unwanted connections and a total of 40hrs of data calls I was unaware of in the last two weeks.

Should anyone be able to advise on how to get an audible connection alert, this would be most welcome!

[Guest rizzles]

even though you have had nine hours of data calls you still dont pay for it. that just means you have been connected for nine hours. you only pay for SENDING and RECIEVING data. They may be a very very small charge for whatever reason someone said in the earlier post but this will hardly anything. i have my gprs on 24 hours a day 7 days a week .

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest NIGHTMARE]

even though you have had nine hours of data calls you still dont pay for it. that just means you have been connected for nine hours. you only pay for SENDING and RECIEVING data. They may be a very very small charge for whatever reason someone said in the earlier post but this will hardly anything. i have my gprs on 24 hours a day 7 days a week .

Posted from my SmartPhone!

Sorry but you are wrong,

To clear this up:

:arrow: You are charged for the data sent/recived when using gprs :!:

:arrow: You are not charged for time connected :!:

:arrow: While you are connected small amounts of data are tansfered to orange anb back to your phone(for checking connection is alive and working) - theirthore you are being charged a small amount if you leave your gprs on 24/7 and not using it, you are paying for it, or al least wasting some of your allowence :!:

I know its bad but thats what happens.

[Guest martin]

You only pay for SENDING and RECIEVING data.

Yep, that is correct :lol:

It's a Packet Control Unit at the far end that controls all GPRS resource (uplink and downlink) over the radio network therefore the mobile does not have, or need, a dedicated GPRS connection. The more mobiles wishing to send or receive data, the less resource that can be allocated to each by the PCU. What's important is that the PCU only acknowledges the mobile terminal when they are actually in the process of data transfer :wink:

The only time an idle mobile will communiate on the GPRS network is for location updating to the SGSN for which you will not be charged. You are only charged for user data i.e via the GGSN (Gateway Node)

[Guest xspyda]

Thanks for all your replies peeps. I am aware that a GPRS connection is not chargeable when connected if no data is being trasferred and that the ping packets that are sent back and forth are minimal and therefore nothing to worry about.

If this was my only concern, I too would probably leave it connected 24/7 as rizzles says. However, anyone using Agile Messenger will know that it can be quite hungry on the data side of things, even if no messages are being exchanged. The reason for this I would assume is the constant checking of the online status of any 'buddies' in the list.

I did a test today, staying connected to GPRS with only Agile active; I have about eight contacts in the list of the particular account I was using and over the space of a coulple of hours, according to All Locations GPRS Counter it used 100k +.

This may seem minimal as a one off but when you calculate the total that would be used at the same rate over a period of a month - it's clear that the 4mb / month bundle that served me so well when using Agile on the Nokia 6600 will no longer be adequate.

I would still like the option of being alerted to a GPRS connection being established but it seems I'm floggin' a dead horse here!

Apologies for the long post - just wanted to clear up my initial request.

Again, thanks for the responses :lol:

[Guest martin]

I did a test today, staying connected to GPRS with only Agile active; I have about eight contacts in the list of the particular account I was using and over the space of a coulple of hours, according to All Locations GPRS Counter it used 100k +.

Messenger programs do periodically send polling data which is enough to keep the GPRS connection active. I see what you mean though: 100K (assumed Kilobits) is 12.5 Kilobytes for 2 hours, 150Kbytes a day and 4500Kbytes (4.4MB) a month so that is basically your 4MB allowance.

I'm not sure that there is a straightforward way to create a sound for GPRS connection and I can't remember seeing anything in the registry but maybe somebody will come up with an idea.

[Guest blowdart]

I know its bad but thats what happens.

And downloading any page with nightmare's posts on it will add an extra 2Mb to your bill

Geez, easy on the graphics there bub.

[Guest xspyda]

Messenger programs do periodically send polling data which is enough to keep the GPRS connection active.

Yep, I understand the need for constant polling to keep the connection alive - one of the issues though is that Agile will re-establish a connection (therefore using GPRS) after you have logged out of the IM service and closed down the program completely. So, add to this the constant polling and the fact that you are not aware of the connection being made (overnight for instance), and the problem becomes apparent.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has this issue with Agile Messenger ?

I see what you mean though: 100K (assumed Kilobits) is 12.5 Kilobytes for 2 hours, 150Kbytes a day and 4500Kbytes (4.4MB) a month so that is basically your 4MB allowance

Brace yourself for this ...

Nope, the figures quoted were in Kilobytes already. So 100 kilobytes in two hours. now that seems excessive and not at all feasible as a cost effective IM connection.

Is this normal under the test conditions I have described above?

Cheers!

[Guest rizzles]

100 kilobytes sounds like to much to me. i have msn on all the time and my gprs bill is normaly very small. sounds like you have a problem somewhere. What gprs counter are you using? maybe thats where the problem is

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest xspyda]

100 kilobytes sounds like to much to me. i have msn on all the time and my gprs bill is normally very small.

Thanks, I thought so too. Can you be more specific? Ie. do you primarily use your GPRS for IM? Would be interested to know approx, number of contacts in your list and if you don't mind sharing - the approx. amount of data you use a month. At the rate I appear to be using data I am looking 1.2 MB / day ... and for nothinh more than an idle IM connection with a list not exceeding 4-5 contacts !!!

I have done extensive testing and am coming to a dead end with this. By all means PM me if you prefer - especially as this may be getting boring for some readers?

sounds like you have a problem somewhere. What gprs counter are you using? maybe thats where the problem is

All-Locations ... I thought this was the weapon of choice ? :lol:

[Guest rizzles]

I have ten contacts in my msn and i use msn quite alot during the day. i browse modaco a fair bit. and my email is set up to check for mail every fifteen minutes. when i first had my contract (o2) i never went much over five mb for the month. But bout three months ago i got a 200 text bundle and a eight mb gprs bundle. for some reason they have only been charging me for the text bundle and not the gprs bundle and also not been charging me anything for gprs. :-)

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest NIGHTMARE]

Messenger programs do periodically send polling data which is enough to keep the GPRS connection active. I see what you mean though: 100K (assumed Kilobits) is 12.5 Kilobytes for 2 hours, 150Kbytes a day and 4500Kbytes (4.4MB) a month so that is basically your 4MB allowance.

I did a similar test, i left my phone on gprs on agile messenger all night, with the 'shell fix' to keep gprs on all the time, 8 hours later i woke up, found that i was not on either of my agile networks even though gprs was still on and about 500k of my allownece had gone, just a good think i did that or i would have left it on much much more, it has made me go back and turn off that setting in the Shell program. Gutted, i really did want to keep agile on all the time, if it was for free it would have been well good!

[Guest rizzles]

maybe this has something to do with agile. because i dont seem to have the same problem with msn and i dont think that most people do. or maybe the gprs counter isnt reliable.

Posted from my SmartPhone!