Wenn Sie unbedingt drahtlosen Internet-Zugang benötigen und dabei nicht die Spitzen-Übertragungen brauchen^[4], dann benutzen Sie doch GPRS. Kostet wohl das gleiche, wie es UMTS mal kosten wird, wenn es frei erhältlich ist. Aber weil es nicht so schnell ist wie UMTS, rieselt Ihnen auch nicht das Geld so schnell durch die Finger wie bei UMTS mit seinen mehrfach schnelleren Übertragungszeiten. Es kostet ca. EUR 1.80 pro übertragenem Megabyte Daten, natürlich gibt es auch gedeckelte Flatrate-Tarife.

Dem Vernehmen nach will z.B. T-Mobile "dann" für UMTS das derzeit (nur) für GPRS benutzte Preis-Modell anwenden.

Lesen Sie meinen Standpunkt zu GPRS vs. UMTS: GPRS-Preise!

T-Online's users usually have access to a POP3 mail box, that they can only access, when they are online through T-Online. (They can also use the webmail interface, but that's another issue.) After a couple of years T-Online started offering a POP3 mail box for only little more money than the usual fees, that you can log in to from "outside" using ssl (and also w/o ssl). I actually don't like the idea of weird hackers "all around me" spying on me, whilst I am reading my e-mail over the wire, so ssl is a must.

The problem with POP3 (even if you can access that POP3 mailbox throughout the Internet) is, that POP3 is not proxied by company proxy software, whereas HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP are. So there is still a good reason for maintaing my perl+curl script automating webmail.t-online.de access.

When T-Online decide to offer that POP3 access "from outside" their realm, that went together with offering dedicated SMTP servers to authenticated use from "outside".

Oh, oh, oh! You want to get annoyed, upset, insulted, sleep bad with nightmares? Then visit T-Online's support newsgroups on their news server: those newsgroups! Post something there ^[5] and the support team's fan club hooligans are surely going to harass and bash you infinitely.

And even the always anonymous members of the support team have their not so subtle ways to tease and bother you.

The support team maintains its own netiquette, whereyby they can display your mean wrongness publically in the newsgroups. They have just too much time for surfing their newsgroups and reading and posting articles, and apparently not enough formal procedures, of what they actually ought to do. They should apply more TL&C to their DAU-s and leave experienced users alone, especially if the team members do not contribute serious follow-up-s.

I am sure they regularly consult their law department on user postings they don't like, but they only get explained, how stubborn they are. How sad, that it's far more difficult to get them to discontinue their not so subtle but continuous user bashing.

I am also sure they also already have yet another additional netiquette rule like: