Logged into T-Mobile with ease
With G1G1 laptops arriving, I emailed OLPC Donor Services and asked them if the T-Mobile HotSpot subscription information will be contained within the XO box or will the info arrive in some other manner.
I received the following response, which I confirmed with a T-Mobile customer service representative. (Sadly, the T-Mobile rep had never heard of the XO but after telling her about it she said she planned to order one.)
Email response from OLPC Donor Services:
You will receive an email message close to the time that your laptop ships containing instructions on how to begin your complimentary year of T-Mobile HotSpot service. Please refer to http://hotspot.t-mobile.com for additional information on T-Mobile HotSpot Wireless broadband Internet service.After speaking with the T-Mobile rep, I kept asking myself why she did not know about the XO and the promotion. Later on I received a more detailed email response from T-Mobile USA:
Once you have placed your donations you will receive a thank you notice from One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) advising of the promo. Once the laptop is ready for shipping the you will receive another email from OLPC with their pin # which will allow you to activate your complimentary HotSpot service. In order to activate the complimentary service the customer must have received their pin #.Still, why are T-Mobile and hosts of HotSpot locations not advertising the G1G1 program? Don't they want to maximize their HotSpots and draw more customers? Maybe this whole thing is just moving too fast for large businesses and they are missing the boat.
So, what are you going to do about it as an XO laptop supporter? There is still some time left until December 31. You can make some calls, send some emails and ask to post fliers at local Starbucks, Borders, FedEx Kinkos, hotels, airports, libraries, etc. If you are really motivated, take your XO to public places as much as possible and hold impromptu demonstrations.
For some good fliers you can post and distribute, go to sverma's fliers. The fliers are under a CC license so you can alter and distribute them.
As a side note:
There is no problem with buying or selling an XO laptop on eBay. However, if you plan to purchase an XO on eBay, do not assume it includes the T-Mobile Hotspot subscription.
According to one seller, who I emailed, the XO he is selling does not include the HotSpot subscription but he failed to post this info in his listing and does not plan to add it. The other seller responded that his/her XO will include the subscription and posted this info. So, Buyer Beware!
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I heard the laptop does not have working WPA? Do you know if the t-mobile hotspot access will work without WPA??
You could try this out:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/WPA_Manual_Setting
Dan, when I test a B4 XO with the latest software updates at a Starbucks last week, I did not need to mess with WPA. The XO easily found the access point in the Neighborhood view (SSID: tmobile), and then I used the web browser to sign up for a T-mobile day pass.
See:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/2089730625/
Mike
My XO easly connects to the free wireless my city provides. I keep my XO on the counter of my store and everyone is asking me about it. A handful knew about it, but most didn't. Just taking it out in public seems to be great advertising for the program.
When you receive the email, it provides a link to click and enter your order number. You are then presented with the pin(s) to use at http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/give1get1 to redeems your year of service.
What's the url of the "link to click and enter your order number" so I can enter my oder number -- my olpc arrived, but I didn't get the email yet??
try this URL: http://64.34.176.239/get_ref.html
The hotspot's logon screen did not render correctly on the XO's browser. The username and password fields appeared briefly, then vanished. I contacted T-Mobile and the rep gave me alternate logon URLs that will display on the XO browser.
For the Western US:
http://service1.hotspot.t-mobile.com/vfile/pages/logon.jsp
For the Eastern US, just replace service1 in the above URL with service2.
Hope this is helpful to anyone experiencing problems logging in with your T-Mobile username and password.
Are people finding this works? I get an error saying "Unable to validate serial number". It doesn't work from my iBook either, so I don't think this is an OLPC browser problem.
T-MOBILE USA SAYS OLPC REFERENCE # IS INVALID
After receiving the OLPC email titled "Coming soon: Your XO laptop," I entered the order reference number in the email as instructed at the T-Mobile USA website to receive a free year of T-Mobile service.
However, T-Mobile repeatedly says "INVALID REFERENCE NUMBER" - does anyone know what the problem is here and how to overcome it?
Many thanks.
It's the same code that I got in my confimation e-mail when I initally ordered it. BUT even after I got the the "laptop shipped" e-mail (4 days after getting the laptop) which had a t-mobile link in it, it still wouldn't work.
I tried it every few days and it finally worked about 10 days after getting the "laptop shipped" e-mail.
This is fishy:::
Posted by: Damiana Nemesis Lanford on December 20, 2007
try this URL: http://64.34.176.239/get_ref.html
Please don't input ANY information there.
The IP lookup is:
our WHOIS Search Results
64.34.176.239
Record Type: IP Address
Peer 1 Network Inc. PEER1-BLK-08 (NET-64-34-0-0-1)
64.34.0.0 - 64.34.255.255
ServerBeach PEER1-SERVERBEACH-02A (NET-64-34-176-0-1)
64.34.176.0 - 64.34.191.255
Doesn't seem like TMobile would register an IP address, in the residential IP address sector, for this...
This is definettly fake, it posts the info to a php page.
Don't click URL: http://64.34.174.239/get1_ref1.html
(I changed the url a little to prevent accidental clicks). I reported it as phishing to google/firefox.
If you go to the laptopgiving.org website, and click on "Track your order", it goes to http://64.34.176.239/laptop_giving/index.html
So http://64.34.176.239/get_ref.html is probably not a fake URL.
OLPC arrived today. Of course the t-mobile stuff didn't work yet; I'm glad I read this page and can now expect it to work in a couple weeks. I'll be giving the OLPC to my kid, who doesn't spend all that much time around t-mobile hotspots, but I'm keeping the subscription for myself! :)