AT&T Wireless Network Is Open Too

narramissic writes "Following last week's much-heralded announcement that Verizon Wireless would open up its network, AT&T is making it known that its wireless network is also open to outside devices. 'By its nature, GSM technology is open,' said Michael Coe, an AT&T spokesman. 'Customers could always use GSM phones not sold by AT&T on our network. We can't guarantee the performance of the device, of course.' AT&T will start to publicize that information through salespeople at AT&T stores, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of the company's wireless business, told USA Today."

I suppose...

[garcia (6573)]

Customers could always use GSM phones not sold by AT&T on our network. We can't guarantee the performance of the device, of course.

I assume they mean those with a roaming agreement, right and even then there might only be one roaming slot open for data services in any given area. Plenty of times I've been geocaching with a friend in some Cingular/AT&T area and one of us would have GPRS data on our T-mobile Sidekick and the other would not. I'd have to disable/enable the radio in one unit at a time

Re:I suppose...

[tlhIngan (30335)]

I assume they mean those with a roaming agreement, right and even then there might only be one roaming slot open for data services in any given area. Plenty of times I've been geocaching with a friend in some Cingular/AT&T area and one of us would have GPRS data on our T-mobile Sidekick and the other would not. I'd have to disable/enable the radio in one unit at a time to gain GPRS.

So yeah, guaranteeing the performance of the device might entail not having data at all.

Actually, what happens is carriers "certify" phones to work on their network. YOu may wonder why you can buy Model X of a phone, and find that it doesn't have features while other Model X's do. Some of these features include things like call timers (carriers disable them since they like to charge from the moment you hit Send, rather than the moment the call is actually connected), byte timers (carriers can charge for every byte, including OTA packet headers and such), button color (the Send and End keys *MUST* be of a certain shade of green and red...), and so on.

But what they mean is that since it isn't tested by them, if you call customer service saying your phone doesn't work, they'll say "too bad, so sad". By its nature, GSM carriers cannot test every phone that appears on its network, and in any complex spec, there's bound to be areas where things don't work. Like taking a tri-band phone into a place only serviced by 850MHz GSM.

As for roaming - carriers are stupid if they don't allow people to roam. Roaming is a huge profit center for a carrier. (What, you think it really costs them 5 cents to transfer 1000 bytes of data?).

Re:I suppose...

[Mr_Silver (213637)]

Actually, what happens is carriers "certify" phones to work on their network. YOu may wonder why you can buy Model X of a phone, and find that it doesn't have features while other Model X's do. Some of these features include things like call timers (carriers disable them since they like to charge from the moment you hit Send, rather than the moment the call is actually connected), byte timers (carriers can charge for every byte, including OTA packet headers and such), button color (the Send and End keys *MUST* be of a certain shade of green and red...), and so on.

I think I should point out again that in the rest of the world, carriers do not do this kind of stupid stuff.

This is an example [o2.co.uk], it's a mobile device designed entirely by a network operator. None of this slap-windows-mobile-on-it rubbish, this is a BREW based handset (running the MSM6280). All the features and functionality have been explicity detailed, designed and managed by O2 .. and guess what?

• It has a fully functioning bluetooth stack so you can send and received any content you like
• It even supports A2DP and AVRCP.
• You can set any supported music file as a ringtone, you can bluetooth it off the device directly from the music player if you want
• You can send and receive vcard and vcalendar files
• You can access the device in mass storage mode and pull off your pictures or video, or put some on, or set them as a wallpaper
• You can synchronise your contacts and calendar using the supplied software with Microsoft Outlook
• It supports SyncML 1.1.2
• It has a fully working Java runtime environment. You can download and install unsigned Java applications if you want.
• It has a full XHTML browser which you can use to access the web.

Only in the USA do carriers have such a massive control over their phones. This is a prime example of a device which could have been massively crippled from birth - but the operator deliberately chose not to.

Re:

[ncc74656 (45571)]

Verizon is the carrier with the most restrictions in their devices, which are due to the closed nature of CDMA networks...

I don't think you can blame CDMA for Verizon crippling features on its phones. Sprint uses CDMA too, and it doesn't pull any of the crap that we hear about Verizon.

Re:

[athakur999 (44340)]

No, I think they mean you could use a phone acquired from somewhere besides AT&T, stick your SIM card in it, and not have any problems. As far as I know all GSM providers will allow their users to use any GSM device with their SIM card. Whether the GSM devices they provide can be used with other providers is a different story.

Re:

[zieroh (307208)]

]I assume they mean those with a roaming agreement
No, that's not what they meant. What they mean is that you can put an AT&T SIM card into just about any GSM phone and, assuming the frequencies line up, you can use that phone on the AT&T network. I've used many GSM phones on my AT&T account, using my AT&T (ne Cingular ne PacBell Wireless) SIM card, and they just work, regardless of whether AT&T sold the phone or certified the phone.

If the frequencies don't line up, you're out of luck, bu

Re:

[Vegeta99 (219501)]

I've used many GSM phones on my AT&T account, using my AT&T (ne Cingular ne PacBell Wireless

nee PacBell nee Bell Telephone nee AT&T =)

Re:

[Andy Dodd (701)]

There's a difference between customers of other carriers roaming on their network and their own customers popping an AT&T SIM into any phone that supports the correct GSM bands (The U.S. bands are shifted slightly from the European ones, so European phones will only work in the U.S. if they support the extra bands - most phones nowadays do, quadband GSM is the norm and not the exception for new devices.) and work fine.

What Verizon said is "any customer of ours will be able to use any device approved by

you misunderstand the point

[numbsafari (139135)]

What you are talking about is whether or not you have ACCESS to the network. Obviously, you need to somehow PAY AT&T to get access to the network.

What AT&T (and Verizon) are saying is that they will make it possible to use devices on their network. Currently, Verizon is very restrictive about what devices can work on their network. Basically, you MUST buy your phone from Verizon and it MUST be one of the phones they authorize.

In the case of AT&T you were always able to buy another GSM device and

Re:I suppose...

[Sparks23 (412116)]

I think what they mean by 'open' is that any AT&T customer with an unlocked GSM phone can use that phone on the AT&T network. Which is true; I could take an AT&T SIM and put it into my unlocked O2 Xda IIs, and be online with AT&T just fine. This is true of any GSM network by definition, which I think was AT&T's point.

Verizon's making a big fuss about 'okay, we are going to let people use phones they DIDN'T BUY FROM US on our network! WOW!' And AT&T's response is, 'Congratulations, welcome to the world of things GSM customers take for granted.' (Which, yes, is a little silly that GSM networks will make a deal about how you can use phones they didn't sell you on their networks, but will lock down any phones they do sell you so you cannot use them on other networks.)

Roaming for customers of other networks is a whole different -- and often, more depressing -- story.

AT&T's freedom

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

Why, our networks are also completely open to the NSA as well.

AT&T followed up the statement with:

We enjoy so much freedom it's almost sickening. We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we don't want to pay our taxes, why, we're free to spend a weekend with the Pain Monster.

Translation

[explosivejared (1186049)]

For other devices, "we will unlock the device when customers fulfill their contract; we will also unlock the device if the customer pays full price for the device," he said. "The iPhone, however, is an exception. The iPhone is exclusive to AT&T in the U.S."

Translation: Yeah, yeah openness or whatever the buzzword is, but we still gotta turn a profit. If it's any consolation I hear they are really easy to unlock on your own.

I don't blame AT&T. Apple signed the agreement and now AT&T is due their profits. However, it is quite a marvel to see the dustorm Google kicked up. Competition, when you can get it, is a powerful thing.

I call bullsh*t

[gambit3 (463693)]

I couldn't even get a phone locked to the OLD ATT (ATT Blue, for those counting) unlocked by them to work on the NEW ATT (formerly called ATT Orange, or Cingular). It was a phone I bought FROM THEM, and that I'd been using for three years. I liked it. It had long battery life and was sturdy.

I just wanted to change my plan (I was LONG out of contract) and to use the same phone with the new plan. They refused, and even told me to go to "one of those stores at the mall" and pay to have it unlocked. I very kindly told them what they could do with themselves, and switched carriers.

Open my foot.

Re:

[gambit3 (463693)]

By the way, this experience happened a scant two months ago.

Re:

[dgatwood (11270)]

Then you talked to an idiot CSR. I did the same thing about two or three months ago as well. Old blue phone, moving to an orange iPhone plan and wanted to be able to have the old phone as a backup. Call them again.

Re:

[dgatwood (11270)]

Better yet, use the automated online form. That way, there's no potentially incompetent CSR to muck up the works. That's what I did. One week later, I had my unlock code. Unless there's some fundamental technical limitation as other people mentioned, so will you.

Re:

[peragrin (659227)]

I know the AT&T cingluar to AT&T switchover hasn't gone all that smoothly though i do have one question was your old Phone GSM? If it was I would ahve gone to one of their stores, said I want to use my old phone and my current contract and when they started to as for payment for unlocking yelled at them.

Most of the stores I know would have unlocked the phone for free, but only if your there.

Re:

[emj (15659)]

I think you fail to understand what it takes to unlock a phone, if it really was that old as you say it's no wonder they had no rom upgrading kit available.. Maybe it sucks but it's very understandable..

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

The "Old AT&T Wireless" was not a GSM system. When they merged with Cingular they went to an all GSM system (you probably had an TDMA phone). That old phone would be incapable of working on the current network. The old AT&T systems are completely separate - the start a new account on the GSM system. I had the same issue (although, it was explained to me much better).

Re:

[meatspray (59961)]

Negative, It might not have been gsm in your area but I had a Nokia 6620 on AT&T long before Cingular. What ticked me off was getting the third rate treatment after Cingular took over. I had picked up a sony vaio with an integrated edge data modem. Cingular took over ATT and was sending me two bills. I asked for the accounts to be merged, they told me i'd have to scrap my old phone number. I told them I'd like it ported they said sorry it's the same company. I unlocked the phone myself and took it to

Re:

[Andy Dodd (701)]

As another person said in a reply, there is a good chance that this was a technical limitation and not a policy limitation. The phone was probably just so old that they didn't have the equipment/documentation to unlock it any more. (And as another person said, the Old ATT->Cingular transition was pretty rough.)

I see quotes in the article about AT&T unlocking phones for customers out of contract (or paying full price for the phone), I'm not sure if that's a change or "the way it has been", but the t

Been that way for YEARS

[Adambomb (118938)]

Pretty much any phone is only defined by whether its based of the CDMA type techs or the GSM type techs, and regardless of who the carrier is, the phone will work. The thing is salespeople have been trained for years to rebut requests to do so with lines concerning it being "unsupported" or to just simply start with "its not a phone for our network". On the CDMA side of things a least, if you have the lock codes, you can activate it anywhere. I do not know GSM too well myself, but i believe billing and acco

Re:Been that way for YEARS

[Shakrai (717556)]

On the CDMA side of things a least, if you have the lock codes, you can activate it anywhere

Not exactly. In order to provision a CDMA phone the carrier needs to put the ESN [wikipedia.org] of the phone on your account. They can easily refuse to complete an ESN change if the new ESN represents an unapproved phone model.

With GSM you don't need to involve the carrier to switch phones. All you do is move your SIM card. The only provision on GSM for blocking phones that I'm aware of is the ability to use the IMEI Database [gsmworld.com] to blacklist [wikipedia.org] certain IMEIs [wikipedia.org], typically those belonging to stolen phones. In theory, if your phone is reported stolen it will be added to this blacklist and become a brick unless the IMEI is changed. In practice, not all carriers honor this database.

I wonder if the carriers will be nice enough to let us bring our own phones (presumably paying full price for them and avoiding any carrier subsidy) and get service under the same terms as anybody else, but without a long term contract with ETF? Somehow I kind of doubt it -- wonder what the justification for contracts will be when people pay full price for the phone?

Re:

[ahecht (567934)]

Up until last year, Cingular would let you sign up for service with only a 1-month contract, but you had to really fight with them to get them to do it (I went through 4 customer services reps before I found the magic word COAM, which stands for Customer Owned and Maintained Equipment). However, as of January of this year, CIngular requires a minimum 11 month contract. Therefore, if you have an existing phone, you're better off getting the free phone with your 1 year contract and selling it on eBay (reselle

Re:

[Shakrai (717556)]

T-Mobile has an option called FlexPay [t-mobile.com], which provides for almost all of the advantages of post-paid service, without needing a contract (if you pay full price for the phone).

They are the only (major) American carrier with anything like this though and that's a crying shame IMHO. Why the hell do I need to be locked into a contract for the benefit of having phone service? And don't anybody come back and say "prepaid" as an option -- most American prepaid plans are a joke for anything over and above "keepin

Re:

[PortHaven (242123)]

Not sure if that is totally correct? At least with CDMA...

If I recall correctly, Verizon and Sprint (both CDMA tech) use different megahertz frequencies. So the phone also has to be capable of operating at both frequencies.

- Saj

Re:Been that way for YEARS

[Andy Dodd (701)]

"On the CDMA side of things a least, if you have the lock codes, you can activate it anywhere."

Not true. Even if you have the MSL code to unlock programming, Sprint always had an ESN whitelist. If a phone was not in that list, they would activate it. Sprint also MSL-locked all their phones with random codes (stored in a database so only they could activate them, of course.)

Verizon, on the other hand, used an MSL lock code of 0000 on ALL phones. Didn't matter since Sprint would refuse to activate them. If you could get the MSL unlock code for a Sprint device and change it to 0000, you could activate Sprint phones on VZW though - for the 6-9 month gap between Sprint releasing the Treo 650 and Verizon releasing it, this is how VZW customers got Treo 650s. (Although I hear VZW may have started ESN whitelisting policies too sometime since 2005.)

A general thing with CDMA devices is that your account is tied to your phone's ESN. To change devices, you must activate the new device with your provider, deactivating the old one. (There is a standard for SIMs for cdmaOne/CDMA2000 devices, but I have yet to see a phone that used this, at least not in the U.S.)

You are correct in that all account/billing/identification info for GSM phones is stored in the SIM. It is indeed standardized. If a phone supports the GSM bands used in the U.S. (they differ from Europe, but quad-band GSM phones are the norm and not the exception nowadays, especially for higher-end devices.), you can just pop in a U.S. SIM and go. The one exception is that phones can be locked to only accept SIMs from one carrier, so you need an unlocked phone if you want to use a device not sold by the carrier. Examples of phones not sold by any U.S. GSM provider but usable on the U.S. GSM networks include the HTC Advantage, HTC S710, HTC S730, and some of the GSM HTC Touch variants. (Although older Touches were only triband GSM, same for the 710 I think.)

Note here that while the phones sold may not be open (may be locked), the network NEVER locks out particular devices (at least I have never heard of such a thing happening.)

Ooops

[Andy Dodd (701)]

If a phone was not in Sprint's whitelist they would NOT activate it. Missed the "not". :)

I've been using it for years...

[Iphtashu Fitz (263795)]

I never really liked many of the phones that AT&T/Cingular/whatever sells in their stores. The last three or four phones I've owned I've always bought from places other than AT&T and I've never had any problems with them. One big reason I do this is because I want a GSM phone that will work outside the US. I recently went to New Zealand and Australia, and if I had an AT&T provided phone it wouldn't have worked down there. My current phone, a Motorola V360, worked great down there with local SIM cards I bought. I always make sure I get a quad-band GSM phone for this specific reason.

The only real advantage to buying a phone from a carrier is that it'll come fully configured to operate on their network. When I buy non-branded phones I have to set them up myself. It's basically entering information for voicemil access, WAP gateway, and similar things. It's easy enough to find out most of this information though. Just do a quick Google search of your carrier & phone and you'll probably find numerous forum posts describing how to do it.

Re:

[xaxa (988988)]

I set my phone up for these services (MMS, web etc) by putting my phone number in the Virgin Mobile (UK) website, I then received a text message with "data settings", which I allowed to do its stuff, and all the settings were applied. I don't know if features can be disabled doing this...

Tmobile lets you use your desired phone too

[TheMCP (121589)]

Tmobile has a policy of allowing you to use the GSM phone of your choice on their network. (And yes, I found it in writing on their web site.) And they don't make any effort to prevent you from installing stuff on the phones they sell. This has been true since way back when I signed up with Omnipoint 8 years ago, and then Voicestream, now Tmobile.

I've been surprised that these announcements by Verizon and AT&T have been getting any attention, since this is seriously old news to me.

The amount of competition

[Z00L00K (682162)]

is still too low when it comes to roaming services and customer care. If they actually were a little more friendly when a customer comes in and wants a certain service (like buying a prepaid WITHOUT a phone) they would get a lot more credit on friendliness.

Open network =! Open devices

[grocer (718489)]

AT&T's network is GSM, any unlocked GSM device can be used on it. But access to the network must still be purchased. Android is geared toward creating standard, open devices. That's two different things. AT&T is trying to cash in on buzz for "open" but as far as I can tell, there's not good reason Android and GSM are incompatible.

Not just AT&T

[dacarr (562277)]

T-Mobile has been doing that for years. The thing is, as another user pointed out, there is no guarantee that one of $carrier's branded phones will actually work, but speaking for t-mo, their tier 3 department seems to have some pretty decent tools to make it work. Some things don't work much of the time for non-branded phones (like downloading content from their internal wap site), but otherwise things tend to work.

Not really news

[bleh-of-the-huns (17740)]

Slow news day..... This is atleast 3 days old now.

This is a plain PR release to attempt to on up Verizons PR release. There is no different between the ATT today and the ATT prior to the PR release. They have always had an open network, the ATT platform is another story, its pretty closed (ATT platform == ATT customized firmwares and such), and they love to exclude wireless if they can, and generally refuse to unlock the phones they sell, unless you beg.

Too late

[sm62704 (957197)]

I'm not going to beat the horse I killed in the Verizon thread last week (or was it the week before?) but suffice it to say that I won't be using AT&T ever again if I can in any way help it. I'd link to a comment or two there but I can't find the story, let alone comments.

I'm looking to US Cellular, any thoughts on that?

-mcgrew
Today's journal is NSFW [slashdot.org]

Re:Too late DUH i'm a moron

[sm62704 (957197)]

The story I mentioned in the above comment was linked from this story. here [slashdot.org] is the comment, if you're interested (score:100% overrated)

It's all about completements and substitutes

[PHAEDRU5 (213667)]

Take a look at Joel Spolsky's "Strategy Letter V": http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html [joelonsoftware.com]

Yes, it is open, and no, they don't support...

[LoadWB (592248)]

I know from experience as I have used non-Cingular/AT&T devices for a few years now. Most recently is the Sony Ericsson K790a, soon to be the K850i. And they are VERY quick to blame any problems on your device.

In particular, the Blogger function of the K790a is not working for me anymore. Blogger says it's my carrier, AT&T says it's Sony Ericsson's fault, and they won't help me to even troubleshoot to provide info to SE since it's not one of their phones.

My next step is to lie to them and say it'

Outside devices operational, but still discouraged

[adamfranco (600246)]

While AT&T allows any device to be used, they won't give you a break on the service price even though you they don't have to 'recoup the cost of the hardware'. When I went into an AT&T store two months ago they said that the only benefit I would see by purchasing my device elsewhere was to cut the contract length from 2 years to 1 year. If I use my own hardware, I don't see why they should need anything more than a valid credit card for which to reliably bill me for service. The telephone and cable companies don't require contracts for service!

Of course, they also have prepaid plans, but a monthly plan with more peak minutes than I'd ever use is the only way to get the free nights/weekends that I do use.

For the record, I ended up leaving Verizon for Unicel and love the service, the price, the plan features (free incoming calls and texts), and they don't do any locking of hardware at all. Now if only we can prevent Verizon from buying Unicel...

Re:

[yincrash (854885)]

No one said their phones were open, just the network.

Re:

[Praedon (707326)]

Alltel beat them to the punch years ago. I've been using my Verizon phones on the Alltel network since the cows came home...

Re:iPhone

[fangorious (1024903)]

ever since AT&T had a GSM network (before Cingular bought AT&T Wireless, before SBC bought AT&T, before AT&T bought SBC, before Cingular changed its name to AT&T) you could use any GSM phone on their network.

Re:

[langelgjm (860756)]

My last two phones have been bought off of eBay, unlocked, with no branding or disabled features of any kind. Both worked without a hitch on AT&T (and Cingular, at that time), though I don't use data services, so I can't speak to that.

As for the phones they sell you, I've heard that if you ask nicely, and have an account history with them, they will unlock your phone for a legitimate reason - e.g., if you are traveling overseas for a few months. Again, I didn't have to do this when I was abroad, since

Re:

[ptbarnett (159784)]

As for the phones they sell you, I've heard that if you ask nicely, and have an account history with them, they will unlock your phone for a legitimate reason - e.g., if you are traveling overseas for a few months.

Not as long if you are still under contract. I've been with SBMS/Cingular/ATT since 1992, and they refused to unlock my phone for an international trip (so I could use a pre-paid SIM card) because I had 6 months left on my contract.

I should have dumped them at the end of my contract. But, s

AT&T unlocks customers in "good standing"

[Coopjust (872796)]

AT&T Customer service will submit an unlock request if you meet two criteria:
-You have been a customer for 90+ days
-You have no outstanding issues with your account

I met both of those criteria, said I was going to Italy, and requested "subsidy unlock" codes for 4 phones. 1 week later, four emails and voice mails, completely free and easy. All the phones worked (I couldn't test one, I didn't have a second 3G SIM to test with).

It's not that hard, but you have to ask nicely, correctly, and meet the criteria.

Re:

[dwillden (521345)]

I do the same thing. If I hadn't consolidated my account with my wifes, I would be sitting on year number five without a contract. When a phone is wearing out, I just ebay a replacement (for much less than what the stores would want), slip the sim from the old one to the new one and keep on going.

I don't waste time with the AT&T stores or people, I just move the card over, and continue. Neither of us are real heavy users, so we haven't needed to upgrade our plan other than when we consolidated the

Re:Except for GPRS

[by Anonymous Coward]

I call BS. First of all, you don't enable access for the phone. There is no filtering based on your IMEI or any such nonsense. It is enabled in the HLR, and guess what? EVERYONE has access to the wap.cingular APN regardless of their plan unless they specifically ask for it to be disabled. You say you got locked in or 'he' got locked in or something to an agreement. If you got a 2 year agreement on an AT&T Wireless/Cingular Wireless/ATT Mobility phone, you can damned well be sure that the apn/wapgw/homepage/mmsc settings were preconfigured. Data drives revenue (kb usage, ringtones, downloadables etc).

A simple google search would have told you all you need to know about setting up your phone for data usage. Since you're obviously too lazy, let me tell you how now:

Configure the data connection:
APN: wap.cingular
User: [e-mail]
Pass: CINGULAR1

Wap Gateway:
IP Address: 66.209.11.32
Home Page Url: http://device.home/ [device.home]

Re:

[Tintivilus (88810)]

Indeed, this works for any phone or even a tethered laptop. The biggest implication of this announcement is that the data plan tiers are likely to fall away -- the only real difference between the $20 "MEdia Max", the $30 "Smartphone Max", the $40 "PDA Personal Max", and the $60 "DataConnect Unlimited" data plans are the device you tell them you have when you activate the service -- featurephone, smartphone, PDA, or data card.

Any EDGE or HSDPA data device functions quite happily at full rate with the $20

Re:

[B1 (86803)]

I bought an unlocked Nokia E70 a while ago, and have no trouble using it with the AT&T GPRS/EDGE network.

The phone does have to be set up with the appropriate settings to 'log on' to their network though. At least with Nokia, I was able to get the settings sent to my phone over the air from Nokia's website--they had settings for a wide range of models and carriers. You might even be able to do the same directly from the AT&T website as well.