C500, Orange and OMA

[Guest Honest John]

I am coming to the end of my 12 month contract with Orange and the deals they have on offer - even through retentions- for existing customers are pretty poor in comparison with new contracts.

I have always taken out a new contract - and, of course, changed my number - with good old Onestop. I use 200 minutes per month, give or take a few, and my company pays for my data.

With the non-emergence of the C600, I find that I am actually quite ok with my C500 and am happy to keep it for the time being. I would like to retain my current number for the time being, so I either get hit with Orange upgrade choices or take my PAC code and change carriers.

Now I have noticed that I can get a Virgin 12 month tariff with a free Moto v220 for £3.99 per month for 200 minutes (Carphonewarehouse on-line offer). Having unlocked my C500, I should be able to take the Virgin sim and put it in the C500, filing the V220 in my sock drawer.

The only worry I have is that I use Outlook Mobile Access to update my diary and contacts instead of Active Sync. That means that I can update when out of the office.

Has anyone got any experience of using OMA successfully with another carrier other than Orange. T-Mobile or O2 preferably. As long as no one says it's a no-no, then I plan to do just that and, if the C600 apprears in March or whenever, then I can get one back on Orange and only be in for a contract I don't use at £3.99 per month for < 9 months.

[Guest mossywell]

Has anyone got any experience of using OMA successfully with another carrier other than Orange.  T-Mobile or O2 preferably.  As long as no one says it's a no-no, then I plan to do just that and, if the C600 apprears in March or whenever, then I can get one back on Orange and only be in for a contract I don't use at £3.99 per month for < 9 months.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have set up OMA to a back-end Exchange server many times and I confess to some small confusion as to your question which make me think I might be misunderstanding you.

1. You say that you use OMA to sync data, but OMA is only a view of the data (like OWA) and provides no sync functionality. Perhaps this is what you meant?

2. If I haven't totally misunderstood you, then OMA will work on any provider that gives access to the Internet (including plain old modem dialup).

HTH

M

[Guest Honest John]

No, I use Active Sync over the air to synchronise my Outlook with the phone. It's a feature of Exchange 2003. You set up Active Sync to do this and other settings in the last level as well.

I am assuming that there are no particular problems, but as each of the Networks can be quirky, I just wanted to check. Especially if I move to Virgin!!!!!!!!

[Guest mossywell]

The only worry I have is that I use Outlook Mobile Access to update my diary and contacts instead of Active Sync.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Now I really am confused. :?:

I take it that what you meant is that you use ActiveSync instead of OMA, not the other way round? If so, yes, I've set this up a few zillion times as well. :) When you change provider, you may indeed be interested in one of my little apps that completely clears out the activesync configuration from the mobile device. Very handy when connecting to a different server, mailbox etc.

http://www.mossywell.com/downloads/#CleanActiveSync

Anyway, (getting back on topic) the same rules apply: as long as the phone can connect to the Internet, activesync will be fine as it just connects to an IP address (in fact it uses HTTPS to connect to a URL on the Exchange server if you're interested).