WAP Mail
After slating Genie in January, I've been using other WAP mail services for a couple of months. That's been the only use I've found for the technology so far - this article details my experiences.
Firstly, a quick update on the article from January 14th - The Mobile Revolution: A Tale of Woe. Since that article, Genie have redesigned their site and started advertising on the TV again. Well, the email to SMS service still refuses to work with my phone. I'm considering signing up under a different name, to see if the initial problems with signing up are causing the problem which I'm having now.
WAP Mail
As mentioned above, I've been using WAP to check email while I'm out and about. This has become quite useful, as I can respond quickly to any major problems. Unfortunately I'll have stop using it when BT start charging; it might be useful, but it's not 10p per minute useful. I've been evaluating the ICE Mail service used by ITC Internet - that has been my main service. It is quite well laid out, however I do prefer the free Mail2WAP service at www.mail2wap.com. Simply enter your details and it will get your email.
Both of the services have their limitations. On certain emails I get an "Internal Server Error" from Mail2WAP - it may be emails with attachments, but I'm not quite sure. While writing this I had 12 emails in my Inbox - only one wouldn't display. The ICE Mail system is good, however it displays all of the email titles on one page. With 12 emails the connection kept timing out (and I can't find a setting on my phone to change it).
The Equipment
For the record my phone is a Trium Mars, I'm with BT Cellnet and the WAP connection is supplied by Genie.
Connection Problems
My first issue with the system has been it's unreliability. It's got better lately, however even with a full signal a data connection couldn't always be established. The phone's orientation in the room and the prevailing wind direction seemed to have an effect on this.
Battery Life
One quite extreme thing which I have noticed is the impact that a quick mail check has on the battery. Normally it can go for four or five days depending on how much it has been used. Once I start using WAP, this decreases quite dramatically to barely three days. That's 15 minutes worth of WAP use a day and no phone calls. Of course this is only to be expected, but with faster GPRS networks the battery life could become the limiting factor.
Phone Issues
I've noticed a couple of problems of the phone, which of course are unlikely to be recreated on other manufacturer's equipment. To start with, WAP can sometimes hang the phone (seemingly at random). It usually switches itself off shortly afterwards, although I have had to remove the battery on occasion. A similar issue involves the phone's ability to turn itself off, at random, when using WAP (without hanging first). My final issue is that I can't find a way to set the connection timeout. The Internet settings menu does not have an option for it and the manual doesn't mention it (actually, I don't think it mentions WAP much at all).
So, there you have it - WAP is very useful, but there are still some problems. Most of these are due to shoddy services and poor programming. Oops. Lets hope they do a better job with the next generation phones - do you really want to remove the battery in your phone every 6 hours to restart it?
