Vision v. WAP

[SKYravefever]

Hello,

I've been searching the forum for the longest time trying to understand the various terminology around data transfer technologies and plans before committing to a provider. Could anyone help me by answering the below questions, as I doubt I'll be able to get a coherent and unbiased answers from my local stores?

- What exactly is the Power Vision pack? As I understand it, it allows me to access the web, grab mail, and watch TV. Are these exclusive WAP sites, or are they regular Internet sites?

- How does T-Mobile's T-zones/WAP access compare to Power Vision? At $6/month, T-zones seems to do most of what Vision does (less TV).

- What happened to the $10/month all-you-can-eat package from Sprint? I'm currently looking at the Sprint website, and the cheapest one is $15/month.

- How do run of the mill websites (e.g. Hotmail, MSN, eBay, Fark, Slashdot) look via the Vision plans? Can/do they look the same as if I viewed it via my computer?

- What is EV-DO? I'm under the impression that it's the technology that delivers the content to the phone/PDA.

I'd greatly appreciate any input as I'm really behind on phone technologies. (Still rocking my Motorola V60 on a TDMA network)

[laursifer]

I can only answer some of these, and certainly not as well as some others could.



What exactly is the Power Vision pack? As I understand it, it allows me to access the web, grab mail, and watch TV. Are these exclusive WAP sites, or are they regular Internet sites? Power Vision gives you EVDO (high speed) internet access on your phone and depending on the package, you get other goodies like TV and Picture & Video Mail. You can browse to any site you'd like but that doesn't necessarily mean it will work or be worth the time. There are plenty of WAP sites and you can also check out Opera Mini for browsing practically any website, like Slashdot and all that jazz.

How does T-Mobile's T-zones/WAP access compare to Power Vision? At $6/month, T-zones seems to do most of what Vision does (less TV). I can't comment much on this, but if I am correct, T-zones isn't "high speed." Power Vision would be comparable I think to Verizon's mobile web service.

What happened to the $10/month all-you-can-eat package from Sprint? I'm currently looking at the Sprint website, and the cheapest one is $15/month. Firstly, that $10/month was for regular Vision, which is different from Power Vision. Secondly, those cheap plans are slowly going out the window.

How do run of the mill websites (e.g. Hotmail, MSN, eBay, Fark, Slashdot) look via the Vision plans? Can/do they look the same as if I viewed it via my computer? Some you can access from the phone's browser, some aren't worth it. Most phones don't convert regular webpages very well at all. However, I was reading that the 900 does a great job with it. My 940 does an okay job, but I still use Opera Mini for non-WAP pages because they look much better.



Hope that helps some.

[Matt]

That seems pretty accurate Laura.

[SKYravefever]

Ahhh... the terms are much clearer now. To reiterate, and please correct me if I'm wrong, EV-DO is the channel used to move data, which can support any internet protocol (POP/IMAP, HTTP, FTP), while the actual utilization of it is based on the software off of the device. In other words, if I had a compatible browser (e.g. Opera Mini) or mail client, I could potentially use EV-DO as a connection to those services. Does that sound about right?

Of my local providers, T-Mobile, Cingular, Verizon, & Sprint, Sprint is the best bang for the buck with respect to the data plans. $15/month v. ~$45/month, which seems too good to be true - or is it? Why the discrepancy?