Last week I was trying to help a reader get an unlocked, non-T-Mobile LG phone configured for data and MMS on T-Mobile USA.  This should have been easy, T-Mobile, like almost every mobile operator in the world, has an online data configurator.  It’s a simple web form where you enter your phone number and seconds later a special provisioning message arrives in your phone’s inbox. Open the message, choose “Apply” and your phone is all set up and ready to connect to the Web and send picture messages to your friends.

T-Mobile’s configurator is documented on the operator’s help pages, complete with a handy link labeled “Begin using the T-Mobile Wireless Configurator“. I’ve used the configurator several times in the past and it worked great.

However it doesn’t seem to work anymore, redirecting to the corporate home page of WDSGlobal, which is apparently the company that operated the configurator for T-Mobile. Nowhere on that page is there any hint of how to have settings sent to your phone.

Digging around a bit on the WDSGlobal site, I found a press release touting a new WDSGlobal service called configuremyphone which does exactly what the old T-Mobile Configurator did. Except that it costs $3 per setting message sent!  Whew, and you thought 20 cents a message for SMS was bad, how about 15 times as much for essentially the same thing. Plus the settings for the browser, email , MMS and Java apps are all separate, so you can end up paying $12 for what has traditionally been free.

I tried using configuremyphone to send settings to my Nokia N95 which is using a T-Mobile prepaid SIM.  The settings never arrived, probably because T-Mobile blocks premium messaging on prepaid.  Surprisingly, I was able to complete the process of sending the settings to my phone with  no advance indication of what the costs will be.  The pricing information is buried several clicks away from the actual configuration tool in a FAQ document. Aren’t services using operator billing required tell the customer up front what  the costs are and give them an option to decline the service at that point?

It looks like Nokia USA’s configurator, which was also operated by WDSGlobal, is gone too, as is AT&T’s.  I wonder what happened? Did the operators and Nokia all suddenly decide that customers with unbranded, unlocked phones were no longer worth supporting? Probably not, more likely WDSGobal decided that they could make more money by terminating their operator relationships and going direct to consumers.

So how do you get settings sent to your phone if you are on T-Mobile prepaid or don’t feel like paying $3 to $12 dollars to WDSGobal?

One option is to have the settings sent by the manufacturer of your phone.  Both Motorola and Sony Ericsson still offer this service and can send settings to their devices on hundreds of networks around the world:

Motorola Settings Update

Sony Ericsson Phone Setup

Even if  you don’t have a Motorola or Sony Ericsson phone you may still be able to use these configurators. The provising file format used to setup phones over the air is an Open Mobile Alliance standard (PDF) that is supported by almost all phones.  I used the  Motorola site to send the settings intended for a Motorola Z8 to my Nokia N95 and it worked.   There can be differences in the type of settings required by each phone especially for browsing ,so it may not always work.  The issue is that older and some current low end phones connect to the web using a WAP gateway, while most modern devices connect directly to the network. The two types of connection require slightly different settings. For best results, try to pick a phone on the Motorola or SE site that is similar in vintage and sophistication to yours.  Even if the settings don’t work they aren’t going to break anything and you should be able to delete them and try again with a different set.

Another option is to setup the phone manually. Listed below are the values for T-Mobile USA and AT&T. Not all these settings are used by all phones, just set the ones that you can find.  The only ones that are always required on all phones are the APN names and the MMSC (multimedia messaging service center) address:

T-Mobile Browser/Java Settings:

Connection name: T-Zones
Gateway IP address: 216.155.165.050
Secondary IP address: Blank
APN name: wap.voicestream.com
Data bearer: GPRS
Profile name: GPRS
Username: Blank
Bearer: Data
Home page: http://wap.myvoicestream.com

T-Mobile MMS Settings:

WAP Gateway IP Address: 216.155.165.050
APN Name: wap.voicestream.com
Homepage or MMSC URL: Messaging Server: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
Data Mode: Connection Oriented

AT&T Browser/Java Settings:

Connection name: Internet GPRS
Data bearer: GPRS
Access point name: wap.cingular
User name:
Prompt password: No
Password:
Authentication: Normal or Secure
Gateway IP address: 66.209.11.61
Homepage: http://device.home
Connection security: Off
Session mode: Permanent

AT&T MMS settings:

Connection name: Multimedia
Data bearer: GPRS
Access point name: wap.cingular
User name:
Prompt password: No
Password:
Authentication: Normal or Secure
Gateway IP: 66.209.11.61
Homepage or MMSC URL: http://mmsc.cingular.com
Connection Security: Off
Session Mode: Permanent

Settings for other networks can usually be found by Googling: “GPRS settings for <your operator name> ” and “MMS settings for <your operator name> “. Other good sources for data settings  (no MMS) are Opera and Nav4All

The real trick with manual configuration is not the settings themselves, which are usually fairly easy to find, but figuring out how and where to enter them on the phone. The phone manuals are sometimes a help as are phone manufacturer’s websites.   Nav4All has generic data setup instructions for 1000 phones. Network operators O2 and AT&T have  very detailed setup information for hundreds of phone models.  Even if you are using a different operator these can be helpful for figuring out the phone menus.  Just be sure to substitute the proper values for your own operator for the O2 and AT&T ones.