Why can't I get [mobile internet app] to work on my mobile phone?

[excerpt from the Bluepulseblog]

...because carriers are universally lousy when it comes to customer communications. When some proxy server admin guy makes a change to the internet gateway somewhere deep in the bowels of your carrier's data centre, how many levels of middle management do you suppose that news needs to filter through before it ever reaches a customer?

The correct answer is: too many levels for the news to ever reach a customer.

Of course, the admin guy is unlikely to change anything that will block access to any of the services installed on the carrier's default 'deck', but any other services you might be accessing from your phone? Someone else's problem.

To employ a desktop internet analogy: it's as if your ISP requires you to access the internet via their proxy servers, and won't give you reliable access to any internet services not featured on their homepage. Very Web circa 1995 - the kind of attitude AOL and CompuServe used to have towards the rest of the internet. And history tells us AOL only just wizened up in time; CompuServe never did.

The good news is; getting the latest internet settings installed on your phone is only as painful as...[read more]