The Definitive AT&T / Cingular Blackberry & TomTom Plus services Thread
 

I have a Blackberry 8800. I also have an unlimited Blackberry data plan. For months now, I've been trying to get my TomTom One to be able to use plus services (for traffic etc) through the Blackberry. Until yesterday I had no luck.

All previous threads have always focused on settings.

1st you need to have a version 4.2 operating system on your Blackberry. If you don't have it, download the latest from RIM for your phone.

For example, they specify setting TomTom to:

wap.cingular
username:
password: CINGULAR1
Number Dialed: *99#
Initialization String: +cgdcont=1,"IP","WAP.CINGULAR"

And also setting the phone's APN settings to

APN: wap.cingular
username:
password: CINGULAR1



Anyway, so I would go about the process, I hit connect to phone. Then I would pair the two phones. I would select "other" or "blackberry 8100" as the phone brand. Then I selected "united states" and then "cingular wireless (media net) as the option for data.

Usually I would get to 65% and the connection process would die. I'd try the manual setting etc all to no avail.

Then I would read posts on blackberryforums.com and tomtomforums.com about people sucessfully connecting with the exact same setup and nearly the same settings.

Finally after some intense research of the issue I realized what the problem was. Thanks to Stinsonddog of blackberryforums.com and his fantastic set of info on Stinsonddog's Blackberry Tips

The problem, in a nutshell, is that if you are a cingular Unlimited Blackberry user, you do not have access to wap.cingular or any of the other apn gateways by default. All of your web traffic goes through a special blackberry.net apn.

What this means is that many 3rd party applications (and also TomTomPlus) can't get to the server they need to use the web.

According to Stinsonddog, this issue can be solved in two ways:

1. Get a MediaMax dataplan (or add the pay as you go option)
or
2. Use a full BES server or BES hosting company. (allegedly this will route all traffic through BES somehow)

This also explains why some people seem to have no problems connecting with their blackberry while others do. I'd be willing to bet that those who's connections have worked are BES users, while the others are BIS users.

So, to test the theory that the unlimited plan does not give access to wap.cingular, I went to the cingular/att website and added the MediaMax 200 feature to my account. As soon as I did that, I tried to use TomTom Plus data again and BAM, this time it worked!! (Please note, you may need to resend service books).


I don't have time to set up or migrate to a BES server at the moment, but eventually I'll do that because it seems that with the BES server you can get the benefit of using the apn without having a mediamax plan.

Thanks to Stinsonddog and all others who have posted on this topic in the past.

Any idea if this would also be true on TMobile? I am on BIS and cannot get my TT510 to work w/ my pearl for traffic.

I too have a problem with my Curve and Tomtom 720. With BIS, you do have access to wap.cingular I think. Apps like Opera and BBSmart both use the wap connection and both work fine for me. In any case, something is not right with the way Tomtom is trying to connect!

Tomtom versus Blackberry Service
 

I found out trying to use the MediaMax add on to my account that AT&T terminates the Blackberry Connection. Thereby you can not use the push email function on your Blackberry. Anyone else know if you can fix around this?

I am trying to connect my curve to tomtom one. I have mediamax plan but still no luck? can somebody explain the procedure please?

I think this is a lost cause. Not sure what the problem is but I am getting used to all these cool functions the 720 is supposed to have not working at all.

I recently upgraded from the BB 8800 to the 8820 and am a BES user (AT&T). The 8800 synched perfectly with my TT 910 for traffic info but now I can not get the 8820 to sync for the traffic (stops at the 65% as mentioned above. I know the OS has changed on the 8820 from the 8800 and is this the reason why the two won't sync any longer? Any/all suggesstions appreciated.

Someone on another forum had mentioned that they were able to call Cingular and have them enable full internet access via WAP/APN or something like that.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? I may try to call their business support line to ask about it.

Okay, so I called AT&T Business Care. The guy basically told me that I'd need to upgrade to a tethering plan to make it work, which is ridiculous.

I downgraded my device to 4.2.1.66, and voila, it now works flawlessly.

Does anyone have any idea what is different in this revision of the firmware? And is there any way to make newer versions work?

Where did you find the 4.2.1.66 version? I have searched here and other places and I keep finding the newer one only.

Thanks

It's from TIM Italy. If you go to the post on here that has the link to their download page, you'll find it.

A quick update. I installed the beta of 4.3 on my 8100 (4.3.1.14), and after a few tries, I am able to use the TomTom Plus services.

I did remove the "WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM" username and "CINGULAR1" password. I just left those two fields blank.

I'm not sure if that was required to make it work or not, but it is working.

The other thought that comes to mind is... I'm wondering that since this is a beta version, there may be fewer restrictions for testing purposes. Who knows what it will be like when it is finally released.

And finally, please don't ask where I got it, I cannot provide it to anyone.

Hope this means there's a brighter future out there!