GPRS & WAP Confusion

Jester

The other day i bought an 8310 on a vodafone contract. My contract includes 200 free minutes a month, in the tariffs brochure it states that "wap" calls count as some of these free minutes.

In my services menu on my fone, i have set up two different sets of settings using the instructions on the vodafone website. One is called "Vodafone GPRS" and other "Vodafone WAP". I know a little about wap and gprs, that gprs is cheaper and you only pay for what you send and receive, and that wap is paid for by how long youre connected.

So my questions are what is the differences between wap and gprs, and if i use the gprs settings on my fone instead of the wap settings will i still be using free minutes? Or are wap calls and gprs completely different things???

And my final question was, if i buy a suitable pda or laptop can i use gprs throught my 8310 to connect wirelessly to the proper internet, not wap network?

sorry if this all seems a bit daft, but i honestly am lost, and i dont want to end up with a huge bill.

MiCr0

gprs != wap

gprs is just a way of transfering data

regular wap uses csd (circuit switch data)
this is just regular dialup for the rest of us

gprs wap is done purely on data transfered
psd (packet switched data)

regarding regular internet access
with the regular dialup wap you can
but with the free gprs service you can't - not until they start charging

hth
MiCr0

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by Jester

So my questions are what is the differences between wap and gprs, and if i use the gprs settings on my fone instead of the wap settings will i still be using free minutes? Or are wap calls and gprs completely different things???

And my final question was, if i buy a suitable pda or laptop can i use gprs throught my 8310 to connect wirelessly to the proper internet, not wap network?

Jester,

WAP is a protocol used to deliver cut-down web pages. It can be thought of as similar to HTML (used for standard web-pages). To use it, you use a WAP browser on a device, it doesn't have to be a phone (e.g. PDA). You can access WAP pages over any kind of network link, as long as you have the address (e.g. http://wap.yahoo.com). When you access the WAP browser on your handset, you are making a data telelphone call, much the same as you would dial up the internet from a landline. So, you would use up your minutes (as it is treated as a phone call).

GPRS, on the other hand, is a data transmission standard - i.e. used to get data from one place to another. It doesn't matter if that data is WAP pages, Sound, Pictures, MP3's - whatever. Your phone is treated like a terminal connected to an always-on network. You don't have to dial up like you do with WAP. To use the home analogy, it is like ADSL (though a HELL of a lot slower!).

To answer your final question, yes, you can use your laptop/PDA to access the "normal" Internet - I do it using my 6310 and I get 38.8kbps which is nearly as fast as a standard landline. PM me if you want details (or do a search as I posted the details on another thread). The telephone number is (087) 6202222 - username and password are the same as your e-merge account (which you usually get with a vodafone account).

Hope this helps,

TD.

Jester

k, its beginning to make a bit more sense now. If GPRS is an always on kind of connection, how come when i activate the "Vodafone GPRS" settings on it, and go to use it, it says "Connecting To Service"??Should it not be instantaneous?

So if i use normal wap ill be using up my free minutes, but i pay for using gprs? atm mine is 2p per kb (Im from NI incase youre wondering) The bit thats really lost me then is why in the vodafone brochures and stuff they call it "GPRS over WAP" ????

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by Jester
k, its beginning to make a bit more sense now. If GPRS is an always on kind of connection, how come when i activate the "Vodafone GPRS" settings on it, and go to use it, it says "Connecting To Service"??Should it not be instantaneous?

I don't have much knowledge/experience of GPRS, but I would imagine it would always have been on for you, so it should be instantaneous. Then again, when you log onto any network, you still have to log on using a username and password, so perhaps that is what it is doing when connecting. Though, you should only have to do this every time the phone is switched on.

So if i use normal wap ill be using up my free minutes, but i pay for using gprs? atm mine is 2p per kb (Im from NI incase youre wondering) The bit thats really lost me then is why in the vodafone brochures and stuff they call it "GPRS over WAP" ????

Yes, using wap over dial-up will use yor free minutes and using GRPS, as you correctly point out, is paid for by the amount of data transferred. The brochure should read "WAP over GPRS".

TD.

Jester

Ahh i understand it now. Thanks very much for your help lads. Didnt have a clue for a minute there . So tell me, what else can i do with GPRS it seems like a classy bit of technology?

triple-play

Vodafone are telling me that gprs isn't available until August 1 and that is why I can only connect at 9600bps through my gprs handset. On August 1 I have to contact them so they can set up the gprs isp account for me.

Are they talking ****e? (it has happened before you know!)

flywheel

nope, that's right, no GPRS ISP (full internet) access until they launch it, they just offer WAP access at the moment. Corporate customers can be set-up with GPRS ISP (full internet) but not regular consumers.

Hopefully it will be August 1, but it's been pushed out each month for all the previous release dates (May, June, July....)

What handset have you got? You may be able to push 14.4kbits/s or a HSCSD (High Speed Data) call if your handset supports it.

Brian G.

triple-play

Thanks Brian G.
I have a siemens s45. To be honest I'm not too worried as I want to use it with my laptop and not for wap and am willing to wait to for the 40kbps in august -though you are right to be sceptical!