Device email address on Orange UK

[Guest gadget007]

Have set my new i-mate k-JAM up on 4smartphone, having it check every 15 minutes, but really want to set up push email. Do UK networks have device specific addresses? ie phone [email protected] or something like that?

Also, one of my pet hates from my old SPV 500 that i ditched ages ago was that the phone alarms dont work if the phone is off. It seems to still be the case with the new WM5 devices? or am i missing something?

many thanks.

[Guest gadget007]

Thank you for your mail.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to send a text message from an email address to an Orange phone as the Orange text server is not associated with the Internet. Therefore I am unable to provide you with your phones SMS email address as it simply does not have one.

I trust this information is of use to you and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards

Rob

Orange Customer Services.

Not sure, but it doesn't sound like we're talking about the same thing, but I stand to be corrected?

[Guest chucky.egg]

What you're talking about is called "Always Up To Date" (AUTD) and isn't actually push email.

The Exchange server can send commands to your device to make it sync via ActiveSync over the air. Subtle difference, but maybe significant.

What you used to be able to do was setup an Orange.net email address that would send SMS notifications of new emails. You could then give the system that address to send the sync notifications to.

I don't know if you can still setup email accounts let alone SMS notifications.

The other option is to use a commercial service like http://www.sms2email.com You can setup the address and use that for the notification delivery.

If you're looking for "push" email (and even this isn't really push email) then you need a WM5 device and the AKU2 update - which isn't out yet.

[Guest thereaperman]

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Edited February 14, 2006 by thereaperman

[Guest gadget007]

Does anyone know if any of the ohter UK operators support this/have device email addresses? in particular O2 as am trying to set a mate up with 4smartphone.net as well, and he's on O2.

[Guest fraser]

What you're talking about is called "Always Up To Date" (AUTD) and isn't actually push email.

The Exchange server can send commands to your device to make it sync via ActiveSync over the air.  Subtle difference, but maybe significant.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I though all push-email worked that way? The device doesn't maintain a GPRS/3G connection (battery killer), instead it waits for coded text messages to instruct email retrieval on a new message arriving. At that point it contacts the server and downloads it. I may be wrong, but that's how I always thought it worked.

[Guest jimbouk]

I though all push-email worked that way? The device doesn't maintain a GPRS/3G connection (battery killer), instead it waits for coded text messages to instruct email retrieval on a new message arriving. At that point it contacts the server and downloads it. I may be wrong, but that's how I always thought it worked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That was the old version but the networks killed the ability to text via email.

The new roms coming next month will give you MSFP - which sends a heartbeat pulse to your exchange server so mail is sent straight to you. Some battery and data usage involved!

[Guest fraser]

That was the old version but the networks killed the ability to text via email.

That's not what I meant. And AFAIK, you can still email/text gateway in some places. You as the user never see these text messages. Regardless of the mechanism, the phone gets an alert from your mail server that triggers a sync. Otherwise the phone is sitting in hibernation and cannot process mail. The only thing that's alive is the phone component, so it must start there.

I've just had a quick scan at the specs for MSFP; looks to me like Microsoft have done deals with the telcos to provide these messages behind the scenes. Using txt messages that don't hit the inbox is a bit of a hack; txt messages are just one of many different data messages that can get sent to your phone. Looks like they are building this into the networks now in a more formal way.

Either way, it's all pretty cool. Shame I don't use exchage though, and I doubt they'll open up the system as it's a good sale point for Exchange! Grrr!

[Guest jimbouk]

You can still get email/sms gateways but none of them are free. You can use these so that whatever mail server you are using can effectively send an invisible text trigger to the device to commence syncing.

The networks killed off the ability to send a text to [email protected] (where the x is your mobile number, as it could be so easily abused - just think anyone could text their friends for free or could sit there and spam any [email protected] for free.

They also killed it off cos a) blackberry came along and the networks earn money from them and ;) MSFP was on the horizon and they earn money from the datapulse and the resultant sync data.

(MSFP sends a datapulse (about 3kb of data) over gprs to your server every 3 minutes (by default) telling it that it is online. If the server has any changes (ie messages, new appointments etc) it sends a pulse back telling the device to sync. It doesn't use invisible texting.

I have a Jamin with the new rom and a 4smartphone hosted exchange service and it works fine.

Edited March 25, 2006 by jimbouk

[Guest fraser]

(MSFP sends a datapulse (about 3kb of data) over gprs to your server every 3 minutes (by default) telling it that it is online. If the server has any changes (ie messages, new appointments etc) it sends a pulse back telling the device to sync. It doesn't use invisible texting.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That sucks big time. How long will that take to kill the battery on a PPC device? It would need to come out of standby, associate Wifi or GPRS, poll the server, and shutdown. Every three minutes?

Plus it's not push email IMHO, I could set up my imap server to poll over the same time frame. If I'm paying for push, 3 mins in unacceptable.

Give me invisible text messages any day, that's the way to go. 8) Far better system, but not as profitable for Orange I guess!!

[Guest jimbouk]

That sucks big time. How long will that take to kill the battery on a PPC device? It would need to come out of standby, associate Wifi or GPRS, poll the server, and shutdown. Every three minutes?

Plus it's not push email IMHO, I could set up my imap server to poll over the same time frame. If I'm paying for push, 3 mins in unacceptable.

Give me invisible text messages any day, that's the way to go.  8) Far better system, but not as profitable for Orange I guess!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It doesn't activesync every three minutes. It purely sends a 3 kb data pulse to the server to confirm its IP address and that it is online. If there's any changes on the server, the server initiates the sync - which is "push email".

It doesn't work over wifi (if you have wifi on then you can activesync anyway) or over the passthrough (ditto) purely over gprs. So the device remains in "standby" and just sends the pulse.

My battery life doesn't seem to have changed at all.

If you wanted to poll your pop or imap server that frequently, you would need to set up your device to authenticate itself on the server and do a send/receive - which would use more data and more battery.

[Guest fraser]

Sorry, but that is not push email and Microsoft are really taking a liberty if that's what they are calling it. If the device is polling, nothing is getting pushed. End of discussion! ;)

True push mail would send a packet to the phone, which would then initiate the transfer. TXT messages are just one of many types of control messages that can be sent on GSM. That's the area where you ought to be doing push systems however that requires support from each and every telco company involved. That would not be easy, so I can see why MS went with this kind of solution.

Battery life is an interesting one. AFAIK, the PPC can't really do much in it's standby mode. It's possible for the phone stack to wake the device up, which is what happens for phone calls and text messages. If they have implemented this entirely in the phone stack, then the impact would be less than I suggested earlier. This is easy on a Smartphone as it's always awake, but PPC devices go into standby effectively disabling the processor. However, you still have an GPRS connection, and that will drain the battery. The normal GSM poll frequency is in the order of 10 minutes IIRC, so at the very least your standby time is impacted by all those extra radio bursts.

I'm just a little peeved as I'm disappointed. There is no way for me to use push mail without having to license Exchange Server. And that is kinda annoying!!

[Guest jimbouk]

It actually is push email. The device is not pulling the mail continuously, all it is doing is confirming its IP address (that is constantly changing) and that it is online.

The server initiates the push when it has new mail/new appointments/contacts etc. The device initiates it when you send new mail or change appointments or contacts.

I absolutely love the system. All you need is a £50 a year hosted exchange account and you are sorted. It's probably the easiest email set up i've ever done. And I can share documents and files with colleagues.

Of course, you can have your version of push email. Simply use a wm2003 se device and pay for an email to sms gateway service and google for the code the gateway needs to text your phone to initiate a sync.

I'd prefer MSFP any day.

To all intents and purposes, my Jamin remains in standby when sending the data pulse - it may not be in standby but it appears to be.

I have editted reg to send the the heartbeat pulse every 600 seconds to save data costs and because I am prepared to wait up to 9 mins 59 seconds for new emails. You can of course reduce it to 60 seconds but your data bill will be probably in the region of £15 just for the pulse (unless on new fixed cost tariff) and your battery would probably suffer.

[Guest fraser]

Interesting, £50 is not too bad for a years account. I might actually consider it now; any links for providers? What's the deal with mailbox space? I'm not one for deleting mails!

If you have to wait 10 mins for new mails (the next heartbeat) then it's not a true push protocol. In networking terminology, a push is when the client has an active listener waiting for events. It's actually very rare in practice as it's difficult to do with the way most people set up their devices. HTML for example can use some neat ajax hacks to provide the push of data out to the client (without the client requesting it) but it's a hack at best due to the fact that it's not possible to open a connection from the server to the browser directly. It's this lack of request that makes it a push, and in the PPC world, the heartbeat is the request.

If, say 2 mins after a 10-min heartbeat, you can receive a mail, then it's a genuine push protocol. If the keep-alive has a "should I sync?" request expecting a reply, then it's not.

[Guest jimbouk]

The heartbeat isn't a should I sync. Its a confirmation of the devices current IP address. As you move your mobile device around, it changes GPRS nodes and can jump dns servers. All its doing is confirming to the server where it is. As I said earlier, the sms service just couldn't be sustained. Even if they coded the messages, someone would have cracked and published the code required on the web and we would all have free sms (until they closed it down).

The best hosted exchange is have found is 4smartphone.com I have been with them for 8 months and the service is good. They announced that they were ready for push email back in December!

BTW I do actually have a true push email service. I am currently trialling orange's push email which sends all your new mails from any provider via mms to your device. I have tested it and emails take about five minutes usually from sending to receiving. It's better than their text alerts but not as good as MS's solution.