I am here to help as much as I can

[tmobileman]

Hello I work for tmobile and recently found this site, I am liking it. I work in the retention department for tmobile and will be checking in late at night usually but would love to answer any questions I can for any users out there. So feel free to hit me up with your questions, I promise not to give you the company response here...that is what is so nice about this site I can speak plainly with customers, so here I am pick my brain.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by tmobileman

I work in the retention department for tmobile.

What does a "retention department" do? Retain customers?..employees? ...?

[tmobileman]

I should have specified I work in customer retention, I am commonly referred to as an acct specialist...

[Jay2TheRescue]

Thanks for joining! I don't think we have any particularly active TMO employees here (My apologies if we do and I didn't remember) I'm sure there will be pleanty of questions for you.

-Jay

[Eric47]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8300/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Welcome again! We will berade you with TMOB questions jk

[tmobileman]

well I will do my best to answer them...and keep my job too...lol

[annabeth11]

If I message someone from my T-mobile phone and use their email through AIM, how will that show up on the bill ? On a text, phone to phone, the number of the person you text shows up but when yu use AIM and an email address, what shows up? Also are the texts obtainable for anyone else to read?

Thank you for your help!

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by annabeth11

If I message someone from my T-mobile phone and use their email through AIM, how will that show up on the bill ? On a text, phone to phone, the number of the person you text shows up but when yu use AIM and an email address, what shows up? Also are the texts obtainable for anyone else to read?

Thank you for your help!

Thanks for the question, if you message someone from your phone to their aim email or IM handle, it will usually be rated as an outgoing SMS, so if you have a txt package it would pull from that bucket or if no package or if over alloted sms bucket would be billed at .15, however if you are using the web client IM i.e. logged into aim through tzones, this does not bill through your phone because you are not sending message directly from phone but are using wap, or web based software. you must be subscribed to tzones or internet package to use IM this way, (depending on equipment tzones subscription for standard handsets, and internet or Blackberry add on for PDA's and data devices)

When you send and receive these messages what is displayed on your incoming/outgoing call log is a 4-5 digit short code, for aim it is usually ranging 4700-4799 (could be wrong on exact range as I am not looking at the info right now) If you see these on your bill you can call tmobile cust care and they will identify the short code for you, word to the wise if you use aim...UPGRADE TO THE UNLIMITED TXT package...if not eventually you will be sorry. I can't tell you how many people I have talked to that do not log all the way out of IM client and then still receive a bunch of messages and don't realize it until they get their bill...well that's too late.

At this time the carrier cannot directly access the content of the message, however to comply with federal regulations, from the FCC, and dept of Homeland Security when you send a message from your phone you are using our software and due to Patriot Act and other legislation the govt can monitor the content of your messages to "flag" keywords, to make sure your not a threat to national security. Your messages are always sent from your phone to a service center and then to destination, the service center is the place that routes your message and assigns the short code for billing purposes to your IM's and emails to and from your handset, that is also the place where the content of your message is accessible. Tmobile does not monitor the content of your messages but big brother is always watching. Regular tmobile employees do not have direct access to the service center, so we cannot tell what is in your messages.

Hope this answers your question.

[Ubiquitrips]

Howdy,

I posted a question in the below post, but I figure I will post it here as well to see what happens:

Previous Post (TMobile > T-Mobile Forwarding Question)

I have a somewhat complicated question, but I am not sure the T-Mobile reps understand me when I explain it so I figure I would post here to see if any users have figured a way around this.

I have two cell phones, cell phone A is my work phone, cell phone B is my home phone.

Cell phone B is forwarded to cell phone A for all incoming calls.

When I receive a call on cell phone A(from cell phone B), in the caller ID, I see cell phone B's phone number.

What I want to happen is to see the originating callers number, say phone C instead.

So the grand result would be phone C calls cell phone B, cell phone B forwards to cell phone A, cell phone A rings with phone C's number in the caller ID.

I know this is possible because when cell phone A was with Verizon this is how it functioned. Has anyone managed to convince a representative of its feasibility? If so, how? Or perhaps has just found a work around?

Thanks

Any light you could shed on the subject would be greatly appreciated. I got a canned response of "We have an outage that has is causing that error". Apparently that outage has been happening since January 7th. That just seemed like an excuse to get me off the phone really, but who knows.

[tmobileman]

I will research this on tuesday when I go back to work we have two different types of call forwarding so I think it may work with one or the other, but I am not sure right now, so give me until tuesday and I will do some research for ya. Should have some info by tuesday night

[Ubiquitrips]

Thanks much, while it may not seem a huge deal, it is almost a deal breaker for me as I will always have these 2 phones.

[Cailiff04]

K Here Is A Question For You...why Does T-mobile Only Care About Major Cities?? I've Noticed That Better Coverage With Tmobile Is In The Bigger Cities!! Why Cant They Put Coverage In Lets Say Ottawa Ohio (population 5000) Even Though It's Not A Major City Or Major Route.still Could Put Coverage Here

[RJB]

Originally Posted by Cailiff04

K Here Is A Question For You...why Does T-mobile Only Care About Major Cities?? I've Noticed That Better Coverage With Tmobile Is In The Bigger Cities!! Why Cant They Put Coverage In Lets Say Ottawa Ohio (population 5000) Even Though It's Not A Major City Or Major Route.still Could Put Coverage Here

You know I wonder the same thing on even Sprint sometimes there are places where there are over 10,000 people are no native service I just dont get it. I know that they would have people sign up maybe they just dont think they can make any money from this.

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by Cailiff04

K Here Is A Question For You...why Does T-mobile Only Care About Major Cities?? I've Noticed That Better Coverage With Tmobile Is In The Bigger Cities!! Why Cant They Put Coverage In Lets Say Ottawa Ohio (population 5000) Even Though It's Not A Major City Or Major Route.still Could Put Coverage Here

Originally Posted by RJB

You know I wonder the same thing on even Sprint sometimes there are places where there are over 10,000 people are no native service I just dont get it. I know that they would have people sign up maybe they just dont think they can make any money from this.

I wonder why Mighty Verizon has such poor to non-existant coverage in Racine, WI. It only has 85000 + people.

Btw: at&t, T-Mobile, Sprint & USCC all provide degrees of very good coverage here.

tmobileman, sorry for the OT post on your thread. Thanks for all your contribution, keep up the great work.

This is a very good thread and a generous offer extended by the OP. Please let's keep all post on topic in this thread. All future OT posts will be deleted.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by Cailiff04

K Here Is A Question For You...why Does T-mobile Only Care About Major Cities?? I've Noticed That Better Coverage With Tmobile Is In The Bigger Cities!! Why Cant They Put Coverage In Lets Say Ottawa Ohio (population 5000) Even Though It's Not A Major City Or Major Route.still Could Put Coverage Here

Because TMO concentrates on urban areas. That's just what they do. For example, Alltel does not have native coverage in Washington DC... There's millions of people in and around DC. That's because Alltel does not do major cities... Rural coverage is their thing for the most part.

-Jay

[Mobile Mike]

Originally Posted by Jay2TheRescue

Because TMO concentrates on urban areas. That's just what they do. For example, Alltel does not have native coverage in Washington DC... There's millions of people in and around DC. That's because Alltel does not do major cities... Rural coverage is their thing for the most part.

-Jay

Very true, and of course the other end of this is the fact that urban areas are where T-Mobile has their spectrum, just as Alltel has it's spectrum mostly in rural areas, but in a few major cities as well (Phoenix being the most notable one).

Hopefully T-Mobile's national coverage on the 1700mhz spectrum will improve things in rural areas. Of course at the rate they do things, it might take a while to notice any real difference.

[bsmitty]

In one of your earlier posts you mentioned that t-mobile can not retrieve the content of text messages, but it is accessible via the US gov or law enforcement. How long does t-mobile store text message content?

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by bsmitty

In one of your earlier posts you mentioned that t-mobile can not retrieve the content of text messages, but it is accessible via the US gov or law enforcement. How long does t-mobile store text message content?

short answer I don't know sorry

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by Ubiquitrips

Any light you could shed on the subject would be greatly appreciated. I got a canned response of "We have an outage that has is causing that error". Apparently that outage has been happening since January 7th. That just seemed like an excuse to get me off the phone really, but who knows.

First of all sorry for the delayed response and sorry for the following answer:

At this time what I have been told is that there is no way to remedy this issue but I was told that if you have the call forwarding set up unconditionally...which means that cell phone B doesn't ring but just transfers call automatically the originators ID information should be what shows, if that is not what is happening then cancel all call forwarding and call tmobile, ask to talk to tech support and have a tech rep set up the forwarding through the IHLR for you so that calls are routed through our network to Cell A. What is happening right now is that our network is recognizing the incoming call on Cell A to be actually coming from Cell B which means that incoming call is going to Cell B, Cell B is then autodialing Cell A which is recognizing the call from Cell B not from origin. If Tech sets it up then Cell B is really not involved it is bypassing the phone directly and being routed through system to Cell A, I am told that if that does not fix the issue it can't be fixed.

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by Cailiff04

K Here Is A Question For You...why Does T-mobile Only Care About Major Cities?? I've Noticed That Better Coverage With Tmobile Is In The Bigger Cities!! Why Cant They Put Coverage In Lets Say Ottawa Ohio (population 5000) Even Though It's Not A Major City Or Major Route.still Could Put Coverage Here

Thanks Charlyee appreciate your support, I would like to respond, I don't think that this is the answer you may want to here Cailiff but here goes:

Tmobile like all other carriers must gain approval to expand into different areas, then the question is asked can we make money in this area. Several factors are included in answering this question, marketshare, existing providers, cost of tower construction, can we use existing GSM towers (which these days is usually no since AT & T and Tmobile are ending most roaming agreements with eachother), is the majority of the consumer base in this area in our general demographic. So if tmobile is not where you are, you have three choices at this time, wait longer....move.....or stay with your existing provider
Thanks

[casey66]

I am debating starting a new plan with tmobile. It is between tmobile and sprint. My wish is that tmobile had a bigger selection of phones. I have 2 teens that want phones mostly for texting. Are there any new phones coming out that are similar to the en- v or the rumor by lg? I think the sidekick is too expensive, I can't even begin to think about buying 2 of them. I was told you have to have the data plan with that as well, is that true? Please let me know if there are any suggestions on your end for my situation. Thanks in advance...... Casey

[RJB]

Oh I very much hope this is on topic here is a question I have:

A year ago Blackberries on Tmobile without a BB plan could not send MMS. Now they can without the BB plan what has changed for this to happen?