The folks over at PhoneNews have hacked the Nokia 3555 to work with the T-Mobile Sidekick Prepaid plan.
This is a hot deal because it's their first 3G prepaid phone, and this gives it unlimited data for $1/day. You can then use it as a broadband card for your Mac or PC, via USB or Bluetooth. (Yeah, the Sidekick 3G was first, but it can't tether/sling internet).
Hack looks pretty straightforward, just involves going through a lot of menus. And, with the recent price-drop on the 3555... it's not a bad backup phone either. AT&T charges $45 for a refurb, non-camera 3G prepaid phone. This one has a camera, and isn't a refurb.
is it $1 a day EVERYDAY or just on the days that you use them?
if its on the days that you use them then its a pretty hot deal.
EDIT: boo they charge you for everyday, even if you dont use them. so you are still looking at a $31/month....
Sidekick: Pay By the Day and Pay As You Go (including Gold Rewards program) plans not available for Sidekick customers. Calls 15¢/minute. Service is $1/day, even on days you do not use your phone.
Message edited by: cuoreesitante on 2009-08-03 16:47:18 CDT
And, did a google search, looks like this phone does UMTS but not HSDPA. It's still 3G, but you won't get multi-megabit speeds. Not that those ever stick around on a connection... still a good deal cheaper than buying a MyTouch 3G.
glenatuf said:Nice deal...can the sim be pulled and used in another modem?
Yes, but keep in mind there are very few devices that support T-Mobile 3G. The only other devices are the Sony Ericsson TM506, T-Mobile G1, MyTouch 3G, and Dash 3G. The T-Mobile 3G broadband cards will work as well, provided they are T-Mobile USA cards. There are a couple of unbranded devices in the works that support T-Mobile 3G, but most only support AT&T 3G.
If the device doesn't support T-Mobile 3G, you can still fall back to GSM's EDGE speeds with most GSM 850/1900 MHz phones. That's why iPhone and iPhone 3G/3GS work on T-Mobile Sidekick Prepaid, albeit at EDGE speeds only.
Message edited by: asuka on 2009-08-04 10:52:33 CDT
bhyde said:glenatuf said:Nice deal...can the sim be pulled and used in another modem?
On a slightly different aspect ... is the SIM actually different?
I.e. can I move the (very old) SIM from my current T-Mobile prepaid phone into this one and expect the G3 services to work?
T-Mobile Prepaid uses the exact same SIM cards as regular T-Mobile accounts. Same with AT&T. Only non-American carriers use different SIM cards for prepaid accounts.
(Boost Mobile and Nextel use separate SIM cards, but they are separate companies... even though everyone considers Boost to be Nextel Prepaid, including Sprint).
asuka said:bhyde said:glenatuf said:Nice deal...can the sim be pulled and used in another modem?
On a slightly different aspect ... is the SIM actually different?
I.e. can I move the (very old) SIM from my current T-Mobile prepaid phone into this one and expect the G3 services to work?
T-Mobile Prepaid uses the exact same SIM cards as regular T-Mobile accounts. Same with AT&T. Only non-American carriers use different SIM cards for prepaid accounts.
(Boost Mobile and Nextel use separate SIM cards, but they are separate companies... even though everyone considers Boost to be Nextel Prepaid, including Sprint).
Thanks Asuka. The prepaid/postpaid SIMs are identical - at least that's my experience. Having poked around a bit I think my question is: does T-Mobile US require a "USIM" for G3 access or will a classic SIM work. Browsing about it appears that T-Mobile europe has both, and the USIM is required by some carriers to get into their G3 networks. T-Mobile Europe doesn't require it.
Meanwhile the USIM has some other features: larger more feature full address book and text message storage.
Anyhow, it's not that big a deal switching the account to a fresh SIM, i.e. the one that comes with the phone, isn't hard.
I have serious doubts that this hack is really going to work because of the way the SideKick is designed to work. The browser on the Sidekick gets EVERYTHING FROM A PROXY. Now, I'm not quite sure, but I think that anything coming over port 80 on a SideKick goes thru the proxy, and not direct to the device. The reasoning for this is that all images are resized on the poxy before being sent over the air to the phone (saves on bandwidth and load times).
Since there are very few G3 devices that work on T-Mobile, I'm also going to assume that it won't take T-Mobile too long to catch onto this since a sidekick is designed to call back to the mothership all the time.
While it is possible to unlock the phone and use it in other countries you are not going to get 3G speeds anywhere but on T-Mobile USA.(it would fall back to edge)..even their european counterpart doesn't use the same frequencies.
Message edited by: famewolf on 2009-08-05 16:02:48 CDT
I'm a bit lost with all this talk of proxies and resizing images over the 3G network. I'd like to use the Nokia 3555 to work with the T-Mobile Sidekick Prepaid plan and tether with my Macintosh laptop, but I have 2 concerns:
would it be too slow to use with Skype or a VoIP service?
someone mentioned being able to turn on or off the $1 per day service for using 3G .. can anyone confirm this. e.g., I do not need internet M-F cause I have it at work, but can I then turn it on only for saturday and sunday (so it would be about $8 per month?)
How is T-Mobile about "unlimited" data? Some other carriers claim unlimited and then limit you at a point they feel is excessive. Anybody have any experience with what you can safely get away with here?
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