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March 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
T-Punkt'ed in Germany
So I'm having fun, T-Punkt is one of the German versions of a regular T-Mobile shop, but wait...not quite...because Deutschland's citizens can purchase DSL, home telephones, combo DSL+Wifi+Cellular routers all under one roof. My experience started as I started my quest to stretch the proverbial penny (or Euro in this case). With Hotel wireless hovering in the 20 euro per hour range, I just had to find something cheaper to satisfy my cheap nature. I had gotten lots of help from T-Mobile USA with a list of hotspots I could use my T-Mobile USA hotspot account on, but they just didn't work time and time again. So out of frustration, I blew 20 Euro on a 24hour card at the T-Punkt store in Celle.
ling. full stop [Br.]
Shamelessly borrowed from http://www.dict.cc/
So I happily started bragging about my new hotspot card to the rest of the American Journalist contingent....and found that it didn't work at the Hotel...or the Hannover Hauptbahnhof (aka train central), nor the convention center...feeling more than just a bit cheated...I was confronted by the biggest T-Mobile booth I had ever seen. Unique to the Hannover Fairegrounds are permanent booths/buildings for carriers like T-Mobile/Vodaphone and a few others.
After a short wait in the tech support queue/line, I found myself showing off my new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet to a 20 year old deutchlander who tried and tried but couldn't figure out what was going on...and as I got ready to just toss the 20 Euro card into the trash can, he tugged on my sleeve and asked me to follow him to the tier 2 tech support. Huh?! (This UberBang is actually called an interabang which is an emphatic query) Seems T-Mobile/T-Com has a permanent tech support facility just off to the side in a glassed in corner of the hall. We were seated at a diner style table (bench seats on both sides with a computer at the end) where a the tier 2 tech oohed and aahed over the Nokia and mentioned that perhaps here husband might buy one for her this Christmas. Well while she too couldn't figure out what was wrong with the account on the card, she was bright enough to realize that the purpose of the card had passed, and that an immediate refund was in order. However she didn't stop there, she pulled up a knowledgebase article and told me that to use the T-Mobile hotspots in Germany, I should append .US to the end instead of .COM for the account name. Voila...hotspot heaven....
Keep firmly in mind that your US T-Mobile phone will ONLY work here IF you signup for the service AND are willing to pay some roaming fees. The same goes for both mobile service as well as the hotspot service...but it's a lot better than ending up paying the ridiculous hotel fees.
/brian chee
Posted by Brian Chee on March 5, 2008 06:10 AM
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Uhhhh... If you read the T-Mobile DE login Screen there is an "English" link on the top, then you use the "Roaming Partners" link to choose T-Mobile USA.. .You then get a T-Mobile USA native login screen in English where you login as you do in the US.
I've been logging in this way for 2 years now...
NO NEED to do the username@t-mobile.us
HOWEVER that is already in the T-Mobile FAQ... From 2 years ago
So you're article seems about RTFM... Huh?
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Comment from Brian Chee
Nope...it's more along the line of uneven implementation of gateways to vendors like Vodaphone, and T-Mobile/T-Com...what drove the level 1/2 tech support folks crazy (and why they finally did a refund to the card) is that even at "approved" locations like the Hannover FairGrounds/Messe the gateways are unevenly implemented. At Hannover (even on the english) version, you MUST use the @tmobile.us instead of @tmobile.com or otherwise since that's designed for roaming folks. They also suggested a test to see if it's an "official site" by typing in http://hotspot.t-mobile.net and even if there is a portal it should allow you to go directly to the REAL hotspot login page.
So in the case of the Intercity Hotel in Celle, AND the hotspot I used in Heidelburg (sp?), these weren't official t-mobile hotspots and had an unevenly implemented portal.
Summary, same as in the US just a whole heck of a lot more options on the login screens.
Oh, and I had more sucess on the German only screens in Hannover Messe. Those at least got me to the actual password check and did work with my US hotspot account.
/brian chee
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