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Originally Posted by Lady Treo
So if I were to leave my laptop at home while traveling, but still need to answer lots of email on a regular basis, which one is really better for me? I also need to visit some websites on a regular basis. However, I think the data plan is another contract, I'd really like to avoid that.  |
Data plans do not have a contract. You can add, remove, and change data, SMS, and MMS packages as often as you like without getting a new contract or renewing your 2 year contract. They are add-on features to your voice plan and existing contract.
The only contract you have is for the voice plan.
So you can add Media Net the or the PDA plan for 1 day, 2 weeks, or 2 months and then remove it without breaking your contract.
For your own sanity, ask the Cingular customer service person if there is a contract on the data plan. They will tell you 'no' as long as they aren't mistaken.
There may be a one time charge for 'activation' when you add or change data plans, I haven't checked. But that would be just 1 time surcharge, nothing related to contracts. Having said that you may not want to change plans too often if you'll be paying a fee every time. They may also waive the fee (if there is one) if you ask them when changing from one data plan to a more expensive data plan because they like it when you do that.
So you could add the Media Net plan for a while and try it, then later call and change it to the PDA plan, or even simply get rid of the plan with no problem.
To answer your question, Lady Treo, I think the Media Net plan using the WAP gateway is going to be just fine for your usage. That's what a majority of Cingular Treo users use (even if they have the PDA plan) and it's just fine. I only recommend paying more to use the ISP gateway if you plan to use the treo as a modem (teather/DUN) a bunch.
When people say that ISP is faster than WAP, we're talking about a very small improvement in speed. It's more likely that what they're seeing is because ISP can handle more bandwidth than WAP and is therefore less likely to have congestion causing a bit slower speeds during peak time usage. And so far I don't notice hardly any peak time slowdown at all.
You should see speeds of 120-160kbps on both WAP and ISP most of the time.
But don't let me talk you or anyone out of the PDA plan. After all that's the one Cingular wants you go use with a Treo. I just don't want you to waste money on the service you probabally don't need.
It's merely a matter of prefence and what you're willing to pay.