back to article Too dim to set up your phone? Pay someone else to do it

A new service from WDSGlobal will send your mobile all the configuration settings it needs, and the company reckons you'll pay a quid for it too, despite network operators offering the same thing for free. Configuremyphone is a website where UK punters can select their mobile phone and network to receive settings for browsing …

COMMENTS

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  1. Tom

    I like this idea...

    I have a Touch Dual on Orange, and its connectivity to both 3G and HSDPA are messed up, being unable to recieved MMS if i have my connection setup for 3G/HSDPA and vice versa.. after much messing about with it i gave up having broken all my settings so now no longer receive 3G content (not that I did anyway).

    But still maybe there will be something I might want and I just wont be able to do, looking at the orange website for the settings yielded little and calling them is never going to happen.

    Will I use this service, you can bet your arse I wont!!! £1.. outrageous.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why not check...

    ...the intarweb.

    Everytime I search, this is pretty much the first site that comes up, and has supported me for a long while now...

    http://www.filesaveas.com/gprs.html

  3. Steven Raith

    Simon is correct

    www.google.co.uk

    "[handset] [GPRS/3G] [Operator]"

    <return>

    Oh, look, there are the settings.

    Hasn't failed me yet...

    Steven R

  4. Frederik Mansell
    Thumb Up

    I think that the point has been missed

    You guys are assuming that every phone user is happy and capable of going into the setup menus and transferring all those details correctly. Gut feel is that 95% of users will not be experienced like you all are, and would not worry about spending £1 on not having to mess around with Google or the support phone lines.

    I do find it interesting that we as a society will quite happily pay £4.50 a month to download attrocious quality ringtones, or £1 for a iTunes download, or £3 for a barely playable game, but maybe think that £1 for a simplified setup is unacceptable.I guess it's down to your skill and your priorities in the end.

  5. Angus Ireland

    T-Mobile...

    sends the settings to you every time your SIM is put in a new phone.

    That's a quid saved for all their customers :)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Google and ye shall find

    Great Idea, can of course be done for free, sent straight to your phone...

    Google:

    site:wdsglobal.com intitle:configurator

    WDSGlobal host configuration setting for the majority of the major Handset manufacturers and Networks WORLDWIDE. I've been using their product(s) for some years now under different guises (they 'whitelabel' their service out, so it looks like the company you're dealing with).

    I'm sure the Configuremyphone is simply hoping that WDSGlobal isn't doing enough advertising or that the users they're targeting aren't clued up enough to get to their network's tech pages etc.

    Won't leave my name, don't want to be known as the bearer of bad news (FAIL!).....

  7. Ken Hagan Gold badge
    Stop

    It's a phone, people.

    If it requires any configuration beyond what the average 50 year old can manage (*) then it is broken beyond redemption and the interface designers should have the engineering samples plugged where the sun don't shine.

    I realise that one person's crap interface is another person's business opportunity, but that's why everything (**) in the world is shit. Can't we break the cycle for once by just not buying the product?

    (* I know a 10-year-old is the usual comparison, but the average 10-year-old probably hacks pirated copies of Vista onto phones for the hell of it these days.)

    (** That might be a minor exaggeration. Then again...)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Erm...me again

    ConfigureMyPhone IS WDSGlobal, I've done the Whois and checked their address.

    Whoops, I might have spoiled someone's business plan.....

    p.s. Paris, because she makes some fine errors of judgment....

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fair enough...

    <pedantic>

    but then again, you just said £1 for not having to mess around with Google or support lines. What we both mentioned was that, finding the information is very simple.

    </pedantic>

    Also I think most people who buy "vanilla" phones, will probably be more likely to beable to set such up, rather than general users who just have contract phones or PAYG off the shelf.

    PS. I don't think ringtones should ever be paid for. iTunes (although I despise the service), you are paying to actually own (loosely speaking) something, same for the games pretty much also.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    surely the point is..

    Either the networks or the salesperson should set it up for the customer. Christ, I used to do it a number of times a day for different people I sold phones to, and its not as if it takes long if you know the product. Which you should if you're bloody selling it. And, unless things have changed in the few years since I worked in the industry, a quick phone call by the customer to the network in most cases will result in a few service messages that should set the phone up anyway, unless the phone is really new or not offered by the network as part of their line up.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    eh

    Can't you just call up the support line and have them sms you the setup info? The phone should be able to take it all on automatically from there. All you have to do is click accept, even old general public aren't that incompetent (although sometimes on tech support you do wonder)

    Oh and for those that buy vanilla phones, pretty much the first thing you get when you activate a sim is a spam operator messages with - you guessed it - the network settings. Makes me really wonder about the people who might make this service even slightly viable tbh.

  12. Kanhef
    Thumb Up

    Making money

    from idiots and the technologically illiterate (who probably shouldn't be allowed to own complex devices). Sounds good to me.

  13. Simon
    Coat

    Another Simon comments

    Yeah I will give him credit, i'm a different one.

    It always amuses me when i hear someones phone ring and its the default "Tinkly piano" Nokia tone.

    I hear the lyrics that accompany it as "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how to set up my phonnnnne"

    Well thumbed phone manual in pocket...

  14. Paul
    Paris Hilton

    nokia's own site used to use WDS

    it used to be you could go to Nokia's site and they would sms you the settings, very handy if like me you debranded one operators phone to run on another network! All Nokia did was to iframe wdsglobal in a non too subtle way!

    I guess WDS now want to make a bit more money directly.

    Paris, because even she could do it!

  15. Paul

    RE: Another Simon comments

    From another Paul....

    I disagree. My phone is still set to that, because Im to lazy to change it.

    Also, people probably will pay for it. About 8 years ago there was a company called IBox. It did realy cheep ringtones and stuff (10p-50p. All very good quality. They went under because people would rather pay £4.50 a month to someone they have seen on TV that go on the internet.

  16. JCL

    Good luck

    Well good luck to them if it makes life easier for people. As mentioned above, the average Joe on this site is probably not a good representative sample of phone users. I'd imagine most people just aren't interested in the ins and outs of manual configuration even if they could do it.

    Now, if only they could send settings to automatically turn off keypad tones. How is it that these people send the longest text messages?

  17. Xpositor

    Assuming you've got a PC

    There's a bit of presumption here that you've got a PC to go to their site to get the settings sent to your phone.

    It's all a bit chicken and egg without that link. Buy phone, need settings, go to their website, can't go online without settings...

    The operators should be paying for these settings to be sent anyway, after all they are the ones that are selling you the bandwidth to go online from your device. If what Angus said above is correct, more operators should do what T-Mobile do and automatically send you the settings when it detects that your SIM is in a new phone.

  18. Steve Kay

    "Stupid people buy stupid things"

    Thus spake Tan Xian-Xiu, the head of Asiapac for a multinational chemical company. He then continued "Make stupid things, stupid people will buy them".

    He was so right.

  19. tim

    A little word from the people behind it all...

    Don't worry 'Anonymous Coward', you haven't ruined anyones business plan by doing a whois lookup! The first line of the story reads..."A new service from WDSGlobal will send your mobile all the configuration settings it needs....."

    I'm personally involved with this project and the story / comments don't really tap into the real value. Let me make a couple of points:

    1) The service has been engineered largely to support mobile app companies that need to offer data configuration services to their end users. Typically, many of these companies lose 30% of potential users because the target handset is not correctly set for data. However, traditional hosted config services are expensive for these sort of companies and this provides a model to offer supportative configuration and pass on the cost of running the service to the end-user. This will be delivered through forthcoming APIs - and is not immediately clear through this initial direct-to-consumer site.

    2) You can retrieve some settings from a variety of sources (not all!), but many users don't. We want to offer a convenient and fast way of retrieving settings without any manual text entry. We also run call center support services for operators and OEMs and nearly half of all tech support calls we answer relate to data configuration. It's not easy for everyone. Indeed, many don't even make it to tech support - they simply abandon the service.

    3) The service is charged for via PSMS. It's cheaper than a ringtone and most other mobile content so it depends what value people put on setting up their phone for services such as email. Yes, you may be able to get email settings from your carrier but I'll bet it's only a handful. We support email settings from over 4000 email providers - no one else does that.

    4) There's a growing army of foreign market handsets entering networks that have not been sold directly by the carrier (asian oem devices for example).These typically are not supported by the operator config service / customer care.

    I'm pretty confident that we can configure a handset faster than most can manually search and enter a configuration or call their carrier support line. Again, it's about the value that people place in the service - it's convenient, fast, easy etc. We also deliver settings (for email) that people just won't be able to retrieve OTA from their operators etc.

    Thanks for listening.

  20. Xpositor

    @tim

    Does this mean the service will support countries/operators that it hasn't done previously, e.g. Unitel in Angola?

  21. Ben
    Alien

    Humans , the missing link , bless...........

    Yep , the evolutionary progress from chimp to baboon is indeed a protracted and arduous journey ......................."how do you peel these again?"

  22. James
    Jobs Horns

    How ironic

    How ironic... WDS global provide Orange's remote setup service... free

    Steve jobs, because it's a nice idea, but they're f***ing you over with the price

  23. Slaine
    Coat

    There is a service I'd pay a pound for

    How do I disable all the extra crap on my phone? eg... I want my phone to ring UNTIL I answer it. (It's a crackberry - I checked, you can't).

    Bugger, which pocket is it in again.... dammit - missed another call.

  24. Stephen Coia

    Stupidity

    I guess it saddens me that this is the world we live in; but whilst this is true, and people will pay, so be it!

    Personally, I have on a number of occasions gone onto either the Nokia website or the T-Mobile website and been sent all the settings free fo charge. Didn't even have to speak to anyone.

    I also believe that certain people have been known to pay someone to fill up the screen-wash in their car. !!??

  25. Dirk

    Where do you get your eggs from......................

    ................ I guess most of us know where eggs come from, and if we wanted to we could hang around until a local chicken dropped one, but most of us choose to go to a shop where they are nicely packaged for us and pay for the pleasure

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