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?

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by 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?

This was around the time that RIM came up with a fix, there was a free feature added to all BB users whether or not you had the data plan that is a BB msging addon which provisioned the devices to be able to send and receive with no data feature MMS, now the fix is outdated and with recent enhancements to the network and to the provisioning tool it is standard...example of progress.

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by 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

Currently my personal opinion for kids and sms with tmobile is you can't go wrong with the samsung Blast. It has a great shared keypad, like a Blackberry Pearl, another great thing about the phone is that it also as a feature called my email. What this feature allows is email with no data feature, only phone with tmobile that supports this feature (pilot feature) you can send and receive email on this phone and it is rated as an txt msg, standard rates apply .15 incoming/outgoing, but for teens if you get a family plan get a my faves plan and save yourself the headache and definately get the family time unlimited msging feature it's 19.95 to add to the acct and it is good for up to five lines (most you can have in one plan) plus with the my faves each user gets five people of their choice to get unlimited calling to and from this will save you loads on overage. check the website Unsupported Browser I believe the blast is only 49.99 after rebate, and FYI if you activate through Costco (membership required) you will get a rebate for your activation fees (35.00 + tax) Welcome aboard if you sign up, we look forward to having you with us, and do yourself a favor check the coverage before you sign up the website is very honest about the expectation of service. All states except CA have a 14 day buyer's remorse period, CA is 30 days due to the California Bill of Rights.

For the Sidekick devices it is true that there is a data plan it's 19.99 per line gives unlimited msg and internet to device, but a secret that no tmobile rep will tell you is that if you have just unlimited msging feature added you can still send and receive all the txt/mms that you want, the annoying thing is that without the data feature everytime you turn you sidekick on, it will say waiting for activation, you bypass this by pressing menu + L at the same time. I agree the Sidekicks are expensive and I don't see the costs coming down on them, there is a new SK Slide coming out this summer no idea what the price will be though. Trust me though Casey...the Blast is just as good as any phone on the market has 1.3 MP camera, Stereo Bluetooth, MP3, Removable Micro SD memory, and great keypad for txting. and it's a cool slider. There are more phones coming this summer but we never are told about them specifically until about two to three weeks before launch.

[Kulacoco]

I would like to use the myFavs and like to know if the incoming number shows ..what? Right now I have Vonage $24.99 unlimited minutes and have a local number in UK, which is additional $4.99 per month. So when my girl calls my UK number which forwards to my local Vonage number and then the local vonage number forwards to my Metropcs phone and I can talk unlimited minutes. But If I sign with Tmobile and MyFavs and have my girl call me. Will it have unlimited talk minutes? I burn over 5000 minutes a month on Metropcs and pay only $35. But I have been travelling a lot and Metropcs does not work everywhere...so is myfave worth it??

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by Kulacoco

I would like to use the myFavs and like to know if the incoming number shows ..what? Right now I have Vonage $24.99 unlimited minutes and have a local number in UK, which is additional $4.99 per month. So when my girl calls my UK number which forwards to my local Vonage number and then the local vonage number forwards to my Metropcs phone and I can talk unlimited minutes. But If I sign with Tmobile and MyFavs and have my girl call me. Will it have unlimited talk minutes? I burn over 5000 minutes a month on Metropcs and pay only $35. But I have been travelling a lot and Metropcs does not work everywhere...so is myfave worth it??

here is the rule with my faves...the numbers that you assign to be your contacts have to be domestic numbers within US as long as the number you assign to be your contact is domestic all incoming/outgoing calls are unlimited. So if you set up the forward from your local vonage number it should work fine. My faves has no network limitation so it can be from anybody just has to be a us number that is not toll free. and you're in CA so try it out you have nothing to lose you get a 30 day trial and you can check how the minutes are rated within that 30 days, sounds like it would work to me though

[Kulacoco]

Right when I get my call, I see UK number as caller ID and not my vonage number. Do I assume it won't work??

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by Kulacoco

Right when I get my call, I see UK number as caller ID and not my vonage number. Do I assume it won't work??

Based off of that then I would assume it will not work, but again try the service get the plan and do the buyer's remorse if it doesn't you just have to cancel within 30 days to avoid being locked in...and by the way if you call 1800 tmobile, same deals as the web and store but you can get with a one year contract instead of a two year contract...but try it out you'll know within days if it is not working, if it doesn't work call and return your phone and cancel the service.

[clock3687]

Originally Posted by Kulacoco

Right when I get my call, I see UK number as caller ID and not my vonage number. Do I assume it won't work??

That's the way Vonage forwards calls. I remember setting up something similar, but just forwarding to a landline. I was never charged long distance on the landline, since the forwarding came from Vonage which had a local number. Since your US Vonage number is going to be recieving the call, and thats in your myFaves, I think it should work. You can keep track of your minute usage on t-mobile.com, and Like t-mobileman said, use the return period to your advantage.

[Kulacoco]

Thanks guys!! I'll give it a shot! Just waiting to get out of jail from cingular on June 13th after 2yrs.