[8125, K-JAM, P4300, MDA Vario Software Upgrading] mengesb:
Man, you know... I tried to keep this kid from getting flamed... and let me tell you, he's toasted.

There are thousands of people here tweaker. Heck, why do you call yourself tweaker? Before I get into a flaming mood, lets move on beyond your obvious ignorance, or blaitent denial of facts presented to you here by people who know a lot more about this phone than a 2 day owner, whom apparently has $700 to flail around as if its chump change, "Oh, that one looks pretty, I'll buy it - WHAT WIFI COSTS MONEY!?"

WIFI - a wireless frequency in the 2.4ghz band, which provides communication between devices. Now the FCC allows this frequency to be used publically, without charge, no if/and/buts about it. WIFI is free, get over it, flip the CSR off, and piss on his foot.

Wireless SERVICE is NOT free all the time however. As a poster related, and confirmed what I wasn't going to say out loud because technically this is information not to be dispursed, but cingular is looking into a 'hot-spot' market. This is where you go to a business, a place, somewhere, and the person tells you, "Here's your mocha latte sir, and oh by the way if you have a wireless device, such as a laptop or cell phone with browsing capabilities, you can browse the web using wifi here for just $__ per hour or setup a repeat account, since we see you here every day at 6p." Now this is a service being sold. You're not paying for WIFI. Please read this again, you're not paying for wifi. Now read it again, you're NOT paying for wifi - YOU ARE PAYING FOR THE INTERNET SERVICE ATTACHED TO THE WIFI. Now cingular in their all mighty nature wants a slice of the pie, so if they provide the internet, THEN YES THEY CAN CHARGE YOU - HEY wait a second, read THAT AGAIN - IF CINGULAR PROVIDES THE INTERNET THEY CAN CHARGE YOU. This applies to a CINGULAR PROVIDED hot-spot, and EDGE/GPRS connections initiated from your phone.... hey here we go, lets draw some pictures:

Let me grab my nifty device, that I've had for a few months now here... up... yeah... there we go baby, don't be scared... we're just gonna connect to our old friend the Linksys SRX100 router....

This is a connection not charged by Cingular. The only thing the CSR could possibly be trying to relate to you is that the service ATTACHED to wifi is not free... but you're misunderstanding. Yes, the wifi in my house is free, but I pay for the service that the router is attached to, so ultimately not free - but please don't get back up on your soap box or high horse and say, "I told you so" because with the other statement of going to your neighbor's house and stealing wifi from him, he's paying for the service, but not paying for the wifi.

Cingular has no way of charging you for wifi usage. It can't be done PERIOD END OF STATEMENT. Get the CSR's employee id, and call center, call the corporate office, and say, "This douche in this call center with this id, whom I talked to just moments ago, said that WIFI is not free and Cingular will charge me for its usage. By the way, because of an invasion of privacy, and charging me for something that IS free, I'm going to sue you and make mega bucks off this deal. Thank you good bye!" See how that pulls over.

So now lets show you when you DO get charged.

Notice the NOTIFICATION that its connecting to GPRS. That's when you're getting charged. Also on the second image, there's a little 'E' over the bars, that means I'm on an EDGE connection, using CELLULAR SERVICE PROVIDED TO ME BY CINGULAR WIRELESS. They now have every right to charge me for using bandwidth provided to me through their cellular towers.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and are also very simple and easy to understand. So, we have learned that when the little 'E' icon is over bars, and when the bubble box pops up and says "CONNECTING TO GPRS" types of messages, you're being charged for the internet connection. When you've got a tower icon, next to the celluar tower icon, you're now using wifi. they key are the icons and nodifications.

When you first connect to a wireless router (which I didn't show you that screen, here let me show it to you):

This is a local wireless connection, WIFI. You cannot be charged for the packets sent between your phone and your wireless router, because you own both of them, and cingular doesn't own the air space between those two. Now your ISP whoever it may be, heck, you could still be paying for AOL for all I know, is allowed to charge you for data packets sent between your cable modem/computer modem/dsl modem/your DEVICE to their DEVICE. They own the lines and computers connected to the rest of the world so they CAN charge you for THAT connection - the service they're providing to your wireless router.

It boils down to this tweaker - if you connect to the internet, who owns the device that you're connecting to? If its a cingular tower, using cingular's service, you're damn right that that wireless connection (which is NOT WIFI) will be charged. If you're connecting to a wireless router, in a business, and they say they're charging for the service - then you can connect to it even though you don't own it, but if you're not going to pay for the service, then you don't get internet. If you're connecting to the router you have at home, you paid for it, its yours, so cingular again cannot charge you.

IF you're in a cingular hot-spot test market (which i suspect you are), then if you go to a place where cingular say's "use wifi here" then yes, they can charge you for the service, but like in the middle example above, you can connect to that wifi connection for free, but if you don't agree to pay their charges, then you get no service, but the connection is still free. They don't own the air inbetween your device and the next, so they can't charge you. Its like me charging you money to breathe... which I think judging from your IQ level, I could reasonably convince you that you owe me compound interest plus late fees for how many years you've been stealing my air... so when can I expect my first check?