Verizon's Dirty Little Treo 650 Secret

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 10:12 AM

One of the great features of the PalmOne Treo650 is that you are connected anywhere. Sure it's a great combination of cell phone and pda, but wireless is the awesome bonus.

Well, if you are a Verizon customer, don't count on it unless you're rich! Verizon's dirty little secret is that the Verizon version of the Treo 650 has been crippled, meaning that you can't connect with data any way but via Verizon's very expensive data plans. ($45/mo unlimited. $25 for 10meg/mo. And a single page can easily get close to 100K even with pictures turned off.)

For the average person, this means that with the Treo 650 you have a cell phone and you have a pda, but that's it. I think most people are not likely to pay $45/mo (which is $1080 for 2 years!)

As a result I HIGHLY recommend that you avoid the Verizon version of the Treo 650!

But I do like the Treo 650, so I'd do some shopping around to find the right carrier version for your needs.

It might be okay if you need the very good signal coverage of Verizon and are willing to either forego the data plan or shell out the $45, or live with less megabytes and byte counting. But I'd personally have rather paid the ~$200 fee to change carriers if I had known all this in advance. I could kick myself for not checking more carefully.

Don't know if it applies to the Treo 600 also or not. If I had bought it from a Verizon store, I would have returned it and canceled my service contract even now. But I don't have that option, and I guess I'm too lazy to do all that via ebay.

Note: I probably should have waited a week or two to post this info. I'm feeling a bit burned right now and frustrated at being trapped with a plan and phone that isn't going to give me wireless data at a price I can afford. I'm sure that affects the tone of this post greatly. But I want people to have the info. I'll edit this post later if I need to tone it down. So for the moment, just pardon my heated disgust at Verizon and my situation, and take out the information for what it's worth.

Like I told Alex, I'm extremely frustrated right now. Mostly because I wasn't smart enough to make the right choice, so I'm stuck for a year or two with a Treo but no data connectivity when I could be browsing away remotely with someone like Sprint.

The worst thing about the crippling of the Treo by Verizon is that you can't even do WAP web browing like what you can do with almost every other (WAP) "web enabled" phone they have. This is the part that frustrates me most. I would have expected Verizon to at least allow me to use the functionality of WAP browsing that I had on my previous $50 camera phone. It would have been great with the larger keyboard and screen.

I figured I'd add a WAP browser and simply change the network connection to either Verizons proxy server for $5/mo, or if they didn't want to provide that, I would use a public proxy server. But when I went to internet connections it said that "National Access" (Verizon's pricey data network) was locked and could not be changed. I should have done more research, but there's not much info about all this yet, and Verizon is very unwilling to share the info. Certainly they don't want to publicize it. Even their customer reps don't understand it all. I would have gladly paid another $100 or even $200 for an unlocked version, except the unlocked Treos sold are not compatible with Verizon. (Another reason to avoid Verizon!)

I don't believe you can use wifi or bluetooth to connect to the internet either, unless a hack shows up and you're willing to take a chance on it. Hopefully someone will provide a hack. Shadowmite has something, but doesn't seem confirmed much for Verizon phones, and I don't know if it handles WAP or bluetooth or just wifi. If others try it first with success, I'm just desperate enough to give it a try. But, of course, it's quite risky to do something like that anyway.

Bottom line is that Verizon forced PalmOne to cripple the device and force users to only connect via Verizon's very expensive data network. I can't afford $45/mo, and don't want to count megabytes, so I'm cancelling my data plan. Funny thing is that now, not only does Verizon lose the $20 or $25 per month I would have paid for a reasonable unlimited data plan, but they also lose the $5/mo I would have paid for WAP browsing.

The Treo is a great device, but much less great than it would have been if I could have at least used it for home connection to my wireless network via wifi, or if I could have had a reasonable monthly data plan like other carriers have.

One advantage of Verizon that I must admit to is that they have better coverage area. However, I suspect that Cingular/ATT is catching up fast. Personally, I'd have given up coverage to get data at a reasonable price, and I recommend that anyone with data needs avoid Verizon.

I made a big mistake, but hopefully this post will serve as a warning to future buyers out there.

Chaos · 05-31-2005, 10:39 AM

That does suck... I can't be certain, but I may remember something about various patches for Verizon's Treo, to remove at least some of those limitations.

I can't find any in a quick search right now, but I'll try more later.

Pride Of Lions · 05-31-2005, 01:00 PM

Sorry to hear of your plight, Bob. It bothers me the "fine print" these companies use to screw us customers. If they had any integrity at all, they'd place all of this information in the light and inform us up front of these different "quirks" before we signed on the dotted line. Also, the multi-year contracts bother me. Being "married" to a company before finding out their foibles is completely unfair. I'm with AT&T/Cingular, partly because I've been with them since Cellular One and I'd rather deal with the devil I know than the one I don't. I'm afraid if I fell for some other company's BS I might regret it later and then it'd be tough to go back to AT&T/Cingular and get the sweetheart deal I have now.

I'm a fan of unlocking a phone for use with other carriers, but I don't see much said about it on forums. It must not be the "right" solution. I just feel like the customer should take theiir phone with them to these different companies and not have to buy their "special" version. Whatever happened to "The Customer is Always Right"?
POL9A

Alexander Turcic · 05-31-2005, 01:35 PM

I asked Bob before if he wanted to unlock his phone, but I guess loss of warranty is an issue here.

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 02:21 PM

Yeah, I wasn't willing to consider the hack before. I've changed my mind after we talked because I discovered I couldn't even use WAP browsing. So loss of warranty or not, I'm willing to give it a go. I've got my old Verizon phone as a backup and am willing to buy another pda if I have to.

It's just a matter of finding the hack that does what I need for my ROM version, and waiting for other people to test it enough that I feel like the odds of success are pretty good. That may mess me up for upgrades, but I'm willing to forego upgrades if I can get WAP functionality back. There's a browser called WAP Universe that seems nice. They do indicate that there are rare fatal errors, but I can even live with that.... I'm almost desperate!

I suppose I could afford to switch carriers even now if I wanted to badly enough. But I couldn't bear the thought of paying all that money just to switch carriers. I've got to keep some money around for my next super-pda also!

sUnShInE · 05-31-2005, 02:51 PM

Well I guess this answers my question.

Why can't you get out of your contract?

derekweb · 05-31-2005, 02:59 PM

Note to self ::: Stick with Sprint.

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sUnShInE

Well I guess this answers my question.

Why can't you get out of your contract?

Technically I could switch carriers for a fee of something like $160 or $180 or whatever the charge is.

If that was my only expense and trouble, I'd do it and switch to another carrier. But remember that I also have a Verizon-only Treo now that I would have to sell. Plus I would have to buy another Treo and start service with another carrier without my nice DevCon discount.

Plus there's no official place to ask the detailed questions that you really need answered. And an new unlocked Treo runs for about $700. Which still doesn't guarantee there are no more gotcha's!!! (Wouldn't that be a kicker if I paid all that and got surprised the second time around with more problems!)

I don't need the headaches or expense, so I'll probably either wait for a hack or live with a 10meg $25/mo data plan with Verizon. As much as I don't want to give them another cent, I may have to just admit that I'm defeated and have been beaten by their tactics and suffer through the shame and expense of their data plan until I can leave Verizon more cheaply. (Like when I want a new pda anyway.) But I can tell you one thing... Verizon will need a pretty awesome deal to ever win me back as a customer.

Or... maybe I could even teach myself how to hack through into WAP access on the Treo? I think I only need to replace that "National Access" with something else to get to a WAP proxy server like all the "cheapo" phones can do. How hard can that be?

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 03:51 PM

By the way, lest the Treo 650 get caught up in this too much, I've got to point out that the Treo itself is great. I'm really impressed with many aspects of it, and it's built very solid. I love the one-handed control of apps. And the way they've both integrated and separated the pda and phone functions is awesome.

In fact, even without a wireless data plan, it's well worthwhile. It's just that if I had chosen another carrier besides Verizon I might have had all that and much, much more by getting a reasonable data plan on top of it all.

Antoine of MMM · 05-31-2005, 05:12 PM

Ok, so dont ask my why it took me so long to register but I finally have (thanks BobR);

back to the topic:
I've always said that VZW isnt a smart choice. Service aside, they do not cater to the customer and are only slower than Congress when it comes to moving with the times. I'd tell you to sell it BobR for as much as you can and use the money to cancel the contract and put towards an unlocked 650. Granted, you will be forking out more funds, but there is something to be said about being mobile without a chain to your wallet along the way.

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 06:38 PM

We're honored have you here and registered at MobileRead Antoine! Your views are always interesting, whether on one of the sites you write for, or comments in forums like this one!

I may yet switch providers, but for the immediate future I'll see if I can survive without being connected, or if a hack comes out.

As far as I can tell, the existing hack hasn't been tried much yet on Verizon. And it is for Bluetooth DUN, dial up networking, which I assume is for connecting a laptop to a the Verizon data network via the Treo. Not what I need. But it would have potential if it allows you to connect to a dialup provider from the Treo and works with a Treo browser.

csmith75 · 05-31-2005, 09:49 PM

The unlimited data plan is $45? We just came from a Verizon kiosk and they wanted $79 for unlimited data.

Bob Russell · 05-31-2005, 10:52 PM

Yes, I've heard about that. I think I read an article saying that they just recently lowered the one plan to $45/mo (and therefore I suppose that more drops in the price may take a while), but that if you want their new high speed network you still have to pay the ~$80 fee. I can't confirm that, but it matches what you were saying. Was that price quote you got based on service via a laptop card for wireless data network access?

Either way it's more than my wallet can stand without a real good reason.

But now I'm wondering if I might get really lucky... I cancelled the $25/mo for 10meg plan today. And have no per meg service. My CSR said there is no way to be charged for data connection now. (Of course that wouldn't include things like SMS message charges.) Yet I still seem to be able to connect so far. Are they still going to charge me, or does it take time to disconnect, or (be still my heart) do I get unbilled service? I suppose if I get lucky and have free service, I might stick to just WAP browsing to be fair. Or I might not! We'll see when I figure it out in a couple of months from the billing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by csmith75

The unlimited data plan is $45? We just came from a Verizon kiosk and they wanted $79 for unlimited data.

cnek · 06-01-2005, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobR

But now I'm wondering if I might get really lucky... I cancelled the $25/mo for 10meg plan today. And have no per meg service. My CSR said there is no way to be charged for data connection now. (Of course that wouldn't include things like SMS message charges.) Yet I still seem to be able to connect so far. Are they still going to charge me, or does it take time to disconnect, or (be still my heart) do I get unbilled service? I suppose if I get lucky and have free service, I might stick to just WAP browsing to be fair. Or I might not! We'll see when I figure it out in a couple of months from the billing.

At least with the Treo 600, there is a way to get data without paying for an extra data plan, and it seems like you may be hooked up with that option right now. I would not wait until your bill arrives to find out.

Verizon has an unpublicized option where instead of charging data by megabyte, it comes off as minutes from your monthly allotment. This is great if you use the phone mostly at night or on weekends, when all of the minutes are free. For some people like me, who use the data stuff mostly on weekends and at night, it's great, and since I'm not paying for any data plan, Verizon is actually cheaper than the other carriers.

However, you HAVE to be careful, because the Treo doesn't automatically disconnect (and if you see little arrows above the bars, you *ARE* connected even if you aren't doing anything), and you can quickly run over your weekday daytime minutes and run up a bill of more than $1,000. If you're doing this, get Battery Doctor. Now. It'll automatically disconnect you after a set amount of time.

You can find more information here: http://mytreo.net/treo600faq/VerizonNoDataPlan

One person's experience:
http://www.zacheverson.com/Blog/200...e-treo-600.html
Click on comments to get more info and more links.

TadW · 06-01-2005, 03:21 AM

Bob I am glad you bought a Treo and sorry to hear about your Verizon troubles. You can find a lot of information on hacking your device on this site.

05-31-2005, 10:12 AM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Verizon's Dirty Little Treo 650 Secret One of the great features of the PalmOne Treo650 is that you are connected anywhere. Sure it's a great combination of cell phone and pda, but wireless is the awesome bonus. Well, if you are a Verizon customer, don't count on it unless you're rich! Verizon's dirty little secret is that the Verizon version of the Treo 650 has been crippled, meaning that you can't connect with data any way but via Verizon's very expensive data plans. ($45/mo unlimited. $25 for 10meg/mo. And a single page can easily get close to 100K even with pictures turned off.) For the average person, this means that with the Treo 650 you have a cell phone and you have a pda, but that's it. I think most people are not likely to pay $45/mo (which is $1080 for 2 years!) As a result I HIGHLY recommend that you avoid the Verizon version of the Treo 650! But I do like the Treo 650, so I'd do some shopping around to find the right carrier version for your needs. It might be okay if you need the very good signal coverage of Verizon and are willing to either forego the data plan or shell out the $45, or live with less megabytes and byte counting. But I'd personally have rather paid the ~$200 fee to change carriers if I had known all this in advance. I could kick myself for not checking more carefully. Don't know if it applies to the Treo 600 also or not. If I had bought it from a Verizon store, I would have returned it and canceled my service contract even now. But I don't have that option, and I guess I'm too lazy to do all that via ebay. Note: I probably should have waited a week or two to post this info. I'm feeling a bit burned right now and frustrated at being trapped with a plan and phone that isn't going to give me wireless data at a price I can afford. I'm sure that affects the tone of this post greatly. But I want people to have the info. I'll edit this post later if I need to tone it down. So for the moment, just pardon my heated disgust at Verizon and my situation, and take out the information for what it's worth. Like I told Alex, I'm extremely frustrated right now. Mostly because I wasn't smart enough to make the right choice, so I'm stuck for a year or two with a Treo but no data connectivity when I could be browsing away remotely with someone like Sprint. The worst thing about the crippling of the Treo by Verizon is that you can't even do WAP web browing like what you can do with almost every other (WAP) "web enabled" phone they have. This is the part that frustrates me most. I would have expected Verizon to at least allow me to use the functionality of WAP browsing that I had on my previous $50 camera phone. It would have been great with the larger keyboard and screen. I figured I'd add a WAP browser and simply change the network connection to either Verizons proxy server for $5/mo, or if they didn't want to provide that, I would use a public proxy server. But when I went to internet connections it said that "National Access" (Verizon's pricey data network) was locked and could not be changed. I should have done more research, but there's not much info about all this yet, and Verizon is very unwilling to share the info. Certainly they don't want to publicize it. Even their customer reps don't understand it all. I would have gladly paid another $100 or even $200 for an unlocked version, except the unlocked Treos sold are not compatible with Verizon. (Another reason to avoid Verizon!) I don't believe you can use wifi or bluetooth to connect to the internet either, unless a hack shows up and you're willing to take a chance on it. Hopefully someone will provide a hack. Shadowmite has something, but doesn't seem confirmed much for Verizon phones, and I don't know if it handles WAP or bluetooth or just wifi. If others try it first with success, I'm just desperate enough to give it a try. But, of course, it's quite risky to do something like that anyway. Bottom line is that Verizon forced PalmOne to cripple the device and force users to only connect via Verizon's very expensive data network. I can't afford $45/mo, and don't want to count megabytes, so I'm cancelling my data plan. Funny thing is that now, not only does Verizon lose the $20 or $25 per month I would have paid for a reasonable unlimited data plan, but they also lose the $5/mo I would have paid for WAP browsing. The Treo is a great device, but much less great than it would have been if I could have at least used it for home connection to my wireless network via wifi, or if I could have had a reasonable monthly data plan like other carriers have. One advantage of Verizon that I must admit to is that they have better coverage area. However, I suspect that Cingular/ATT is catching up fast. Personally, I'd have given up coverage to get data at a reasonable price, and I recommend that anyone with data needs avoid Verizon. I made a big mistake, but hopefully this post will serve as a warning to future buyers out there.

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05-31-2005, 10:39 AM	#2
Chaos Evangelist Posts: 418 Karma: 281 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Device: Assorted older devices	That does suck... I can't be certain, but I may remember something about various patches for Verizon's Treo, to remove at least some of those limitations. I can't find any in a quick search right now, but I'll try more later.

05-31-2005, 01:00 PM	#3
Pride Of Lions just kinda geeky Posts: 381 Karma: 30 Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Oakland, California Device: iPhone	Sorry to hear of your plight, Bob. It bothers me the "fine print" these companies use to screw us customers. If they had any integrity at all, they'd place all of this information in the light and inform us up front of these different "quirks" before we signed on the dotted line. Also, the multi-year contracts bother me. Being "married" to a company before finding out their foibles is completely unfair. I'm with AT&T/Cingular, partly because I've been with them since Cellular One and I'd rather deal with the devil I know than the one I don't. I'm afraid if I fell for some other company's BS I might regret it later and then it'd be tough to go back to AT&T/Cingular and get the sweetheart deal I have now. I'm a fan of unlocking a phone for use with other carriers, but I don't see much said about it on forums. It must not be the "right" solution. I just feel like the customer should take theiir phone with them to these different companies and not have to buy their "special" version. Whatever happened to "The Customer is Always Right"? POL9A

05-31-2005, 01:35 PM	#4
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	I asked Bob before if he wanted to unlock his phone, but I guess loss of warranty is an issue here.

05-31-2005, 02:21 PM	#5
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Yeah, I wasn't willing to consider the hack before. I've changed my mind after we talked because I discovered I couldn't even use WAP browsing. So loss of warranty or not, I'm willing to give it a go. I've got my old Verizon phone as a backup and am willing to buy another pda if I have to. It's just a matter of finding the hack that does what I need for my ROM version, and waiting for other people to test it enough that I feel like the odds of success are pretty good. That may mess me up for upgrades, but I'm willing to forego upgrades if I can get WAP functionality back. There's a browser called WAP Universe that seems nice. They do indicate that there are rare fatal errors, but I can even live with that.... I'm almost desperate! I suppose I could afford to switch carriers even now if I wanted to badly enough. But I couldn't bear the thought of paying all that money just to switch carriers. I've got to keep some money around for my next super-pda also!

05-31-2005, 02:51 PM	#6
sUnShInE Drama Queen Posts: 784 Karma: 11712 Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: United States Device: Palm Tungsten T\|T3	Well I guess this answers my question. Why can't you get out of your contract?

05-31-2005, 02:59 PM	#7
derekweb Groupie Posts: 160 Karma: 3134 Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: United States Device: Palm Treo 700p & iPaq hx2755	Note to self ::: Stick with Sprint.

05-31-2005, 03:51 PM	#9
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	By the way, lest the Treo 650 get caught up in this too much, I've got to point out that the Treo itself is great. I'm really impressed with many aspects of it, and it's built very solid. I love the one-handed control of apps. And the way they've both integrated and separated the pda and phone functions is awesome. In fact, even without a wireless data plan, it's well worthwhile. It's just that if I had chosen another carrier besides Verizon I might have had all that and much, much more by getting a reasonable data plan on top of it all.

05-31-2005, 05:12 PM	#10
Antoine of MMM Mobile Ministry Magazine Posts: 119 Karma: 4507 Join Date: May 2005 Location: Charlotte, NC Device: Nokia N75/N800 Internet Tablet	Ok, so dont ask my why it took me so long to register but I finally have (thanks BobR); back to the topic: I've always said that VZW isnt a smart choice. Service aside, they do not cater to the customer and are only slower than Congress when it comes to moving with the times. I'd tell you to sell it BobR for as much as you can and use the money to cancel the contract and put towards an unlocked 650. Granted, you will be forking out more funds, but there is something to be said about being mobile without a chain to your wallet along the way.

05-31-2005, 06:38 PM	#11
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	We're honored have you here and registered at MobileRead Antoine! Your views are always interesting, whether on one of the sites you write for, or comments in forums like this one! I may yet switch providers, but for the immediate future I'll see if I can survive without being connected, or if a hack comes out. As far as I can tell, the existing hack hasn't been tried much yet on Verizon. And it is for Bluetooth DUN, dial up networking, which I assume is for connecting a laptop to a the Verizon data network via the Treo. Not what I need. But it would have potential if it allows you to connect to a dialup provider from the Treo and works with a Treo browser.

05-31-2005, 09:49 PM	#12
csmith75 Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2004 Device: Kindle	The unlimited data plan is $45? We just came from a Verizon kiosk and they wanted $79 for unlimited data.

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06-01-2005, 03:21 AM	#15
TadW Uebermensch Posts: 2,583 Karma: 1094606 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Italy Device: Kindle	Bob I am glad you bought a Treo and sorry to hear about your Verizon troubles. You can find a lot of information on hacking your device on this site.