Jun 26, 2010

Nokia Messaging – Free or Trial ? Confusion and Solution

Technorati Tags:

Nokia Messaging Email (Earlier Nokia Email when it started 2 years back on Betalabs) has been working great for me for long time. I never had much issues which many others reported about email delivery, slowing down phone etc.

So all was going well till recently. I was using 2 year "old" N82 happily with Nokia Messaging Email. Also I tried same with N97 mini. Both worked seamlessly. Email delivery was good, I could check emails in HTML view by default.

Then I got Nokia E72 for trial, Thanks to guys over at @womworldnokia , I knew that E72 is flagship Eseries with Nokia Messaging Email and IM built-in. Also it had lifetime (???) Nokia Messaging subscription free. I was not really sure about this. But I knew that in some countries Nokia Messaging is launched with specific plans from Operators. This is similar to the way Blackberry Email works. So to use the service you need to have certain Data Plans. But in India , Nokia has never launched such Operator specific plans yet. Fact is that almost all newer Nokia smartphones now come with Nokia Messaging built-in. This works with almost any operator in India if you have working GPRS plan(WAP plans may not work but I have not checked it)

My N82, N97 mini were working fine with Nokia Messaging Email and my subscription plan was shown as "Nokia Messaging Trial"




As "Trial" sounds like it is not going to be always there, I checked up with Nokia Care Helpline and tried to clarify things. But it seemed liked Helpline Agents were even more confused than me. They could not tell me difference between "Trial" and "Free". Also They could not tell me if this "Trial" is going to end and when.
What they kept repeating was that it is supported with Operator plans and many operators are supporting it in India.Finally I could never get satisfactory answers.

When I used same Nokia Messaging account on E72, It got setup with all email accounts. It was working well again. But thing which I noticed was change in Nokia Messaging Subscription plan. Somehow it got changed to "Nokia Messaging subscription - purchased with device"


All was fine, until something strange happened and my email stopped syncing. Intially I thought the issue was with EDGE connection but then I realized that something is wrong with Nokia Messaging as Web, other apps were working.I also got email from Nokia Messaging stating following.

“ Dear Nokia Messaging customer,



The Nokia Messaging account you have been enjoying came as part of the purchase of your Nokia phone. According to our records, that phone has been transferred to another person.


Your Nokia Messaging account has been deactivated. Your account is safe – it cannot be accessed by the new owner of your Nokia phone. In addition, you can sign up for a new Nokia Messaging account for use on another Nokia phone. Please visit the Nokia Messaging website (http://email.nokia.com/account) to see a list of Nokia phones that run with Nokia Messaging.


We look forward to serving you again.


Sincerely,


Nokia Messaging team


*** This email was generated automatically. Please do not reply to it. *** “ 
 
I just could not understand how my account got de-activated as E72 was still with me. Only one thing was possible that I tried to configure email account which was not part of Nokia Messaging account. So it thought that someone else is having phone now and trying to setup different Email accounts.This immediately cancelled/de-activated my account. This seems very good idea as if you happen to give phone , they can start using Nokia Messaging with their account. So it is Phone(IMEI) specific.
But this also caused lot of confusion/issues for me, initially I was not sure what is happening so I called Nokia Care again.After going through this Blog Post and some similar things on Nokia Discussion forum I started to understand things bit better. Nokia Care was able to activate my account. But for some reasons I was not able to use it again for setup. I then went ahead and cancelled Nokia Messaging Subscription from email.nokia.com. Then I tried to setup account and this worked.
 
Few days later I bought new Nokia E52, assuming that it will be also having so called "Lifetime Free Nokia Messaging". Even this was mentioned in some blogs like here but it was removed later. Surprise again :)
 
Irritating thing was unless you cancel your account you wont be able to setup it again or use any of email accounts with Nokia Messaging which you had earlier. Senseapplied has mentioned these issues here.
 
Also since in box there was not a single mention of Nokia Messaging , I thought something is strange here.
I tried to check this by completely deleting my Nokia Messaging account and trying to do fresh setup on E52. I was shown Terms/Conditions of service while setup which clearly mentioned that "Purchase of your Nokia phone includes subscription to Nokia Messaging". This was exactly same as you will get on E72.
I continued and finished setup. After setup I logged into email.nokia.com and found that my subscription was "Trial".
 
 
  
I called Nokia Care Helpline to check about this. They said E52 is not having Lifetime free Nokia Messaging subscription. They stated only E63, E71 and E72 have this. But somehow Nokia's own website said something else. I really felt bad about all this and kind of felt cheated. Also I wasn't given Phone with new retail boxes(with Navigation accessories).I was told that such newer retail boxes were not available yet.
But around same time Nitish Kumar bought E52 which had Navigation Accessories.
 
I told Nokia Care Helpline agents that I bought E52 for Messaging related features and not having clear information about Nokia Messaging Subscription was really bad.They assured me that my complaint will be raised with higher level. I checked for few days on email.nokia.com and I still saw it as "Trial"
In all Nokia India promotions, status of service is still very confusing with words as "FREE*" when you look for what * means It is explained as "Nokia Messaging service is available on select Nokia devices only and FREE for lifetime of the phone.Operator and Data charges may apply.Check with you operator for applicable charges.For further information; visit your nearest Nokia Store. Nokia Messaging is currently being offered as a beta service"
I thought "FREE for lifetime of phone" is only for select Eseries phones like E72, E71.

 
Please note that I always found that Subscription Plan never made any difference to Email experience to me , whether it was "Trial" on N82, N97 mini , E52 or "Purchased with Device" like E72. Emails were handled well,emails got to my mobile faster than browser on desktop. My only concern was about being on "Trial" in case it goes "paid" service. I am not sure how Nokia is going to go ahead with this in India.They need to be more clear about their service offerings and communicate to users.Having some idea of Mobiles, services I was able to figure things out and resolve it. But I dont think many users will give a second chance when their account gets deactivated.
 
Yesterday I just tried to check my plan on email.nokia.com and to my surprise I found that , somehow it has got changed to " Purchased with Device". May be my calls to Nokia Care did the trick, may be !!!
 
So I was happy after all this.So calling Nokia Care can help you sometimes :)
 
But I would like Nokia to be more clear and specific about their service offerings. I am still not sure whether this service in India is "FREE" or "Beta" or "Trial" or what else. No clarity is there at all.

Hope someone is listening !

Update : I just found reason why Nokia Messaging thinks that "your phone has been transferred to another person". I found that these issues have been already reported on Nokia Discussion forums since E75 was launched. Basically if you change your SIM(your Number) and try to use that with phone having Nokia Messaging Lifetime free subscription, Nokia thinks that you have transferred your phone and it will stop all push email updates to your phone and cancel account. While this is done to ensure safety of your emails, data, it fails to take into account that same person can also use multiple accounts.
Also if I have password of Nokia Messaging account and can verify that in Email settings, Nokia just should not have any issues. As i found in my E52 that if I change my SIM card, I had to go in Email settings->Account settings. Change Access point(since NM on E52 still doesnt support destinations !)
Even if I do this change I have to put my Nokia Messaging password to verify changes. I am surprised that even after verifying password why Nokia Messaging thinks that my phone is with other person ?
Overall I strongly feel they need to manage things better here as current systems is totally fail, it just doesnt give any helpful suggestions as why all these cancellations are happening which is bad. Since I tried to get to bottom of issues and found out all this via various sources its ok for me. Most other users won't just try things again once it's broken.

24 comments:

  1. I am new user .. dont have must idea about Nokia, But thanks for sharing your thoughts

    ReplyDelete
  2. New USER .. haha :) you are FUNNY

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for your comments, did this article helped you in anyway? reply in comments/

    ReplyDelete
  4. thanks.. i have same problem in my e52 n found this on searching.. bit clear now..
    business tactics..:)
    but can't get the trial period length / cost after trail any where.. any idea ? pls send to ->
    pratheepseenu@yahoo.co.in

    ReplyDelete
  5. @pratheep , Well we cant say these are business tactics. Their intention is good , to secure your emails if some other person gets your phone.
    But what we need is some kind of mechanism which allows using different SIM cards with same Nokia Messaging account. This is possible if they update client software so that if asks us our Nokia Messaging Password if SIM card change gets detected.I am sure this will happen soon as many people have faced same issue. Problem is that Nokia never explained this, until we found out ourselves.
    Right now what I understand is only Eseries phones E75,E72,E71,E63,E52 also upcoming E5 have Nokia Messaging service Lifetime free service.
    For others its trial, and may become paid by operator.In few countries it is paid, means you need to get special Nokia Messaging Data Plan activated.
    Sorry to say that I have never got any proper answer from Nokia about service status in India.
    I think they dont know what to do with this service as it has become popular. Making it paid will cause problems.
    Finally being E52 user(me too), you never have to worry as you are in special club.
    if you still have any questions, let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Suyog
    I am having the similar issue on my Nokia E52. As I have used full free subscription at first with this phone when I purchased the phone. but after few days the subscription has gone changed to "trial" I don't know what happened. but The services were good even with trial. I also discussed with Nokia Care and still in communication with them. during this phase of communication with them I received the same email explaining about the deactivation of my subscription and even when I didn't give the phone to any one nor I changed the account on the phone so that Nokia could think of the transfer.

    What I did instead was just that, I registered on http://email.nokia.com with another new account for my other Nokia E72 and I don't think that it could cause some thing to my above subscription which has gone deactivated. To be sure not to have any conflict, I created the new email address on my own custom domain (at google apps) and I was going to use it for registering a new NM account for my other Nokia E72. Then while registering on the website with this newly created email address when it asks about my mobile number, rather than providing another mobile number I just provided a mobile number which I had used already with one of my accounts on Nokia Messaging(I don't remember that it was really linked to the account which I talked above being deactivated). Any ways... during the new registration on http://email.nokia.com the system prompts me that the Mobile Number has already been used with another account on Nokia Messaging and asked my permission to continue with this information (given three options to choose from "to go back and change the mobile number" or "to stop the registration process and add this email account as new mailbox in already existing Nokia Messaging account" or "to continue with this number for new Nokia Messaging account"). But the system didn't warn me for any loss with any of the account already created using this mobile number.

    So I chose to continue with this number and the account was created successfully. What happened during the configuration of this new account on Nokia 72, is separate issue, I'll explain later.

    But after this new registration I didn't check the Nokia E52 for any change as I didn't expect any thing bad for it. but some times later I felt that I am not receiving any new email notifications on my Nokia E52 and when I checked, I saw an email already there in my Nokia E52 as you have added in red in your post above. I just headed towards my account at email.nokia.com which was registered for Nokia E52. And what I see there that the Subscription Plan has changed back to "******* - purchased with device" but the Subscription Status has gone "Canceled"..... :/

    I am not sure what's going on there at Nokia. But I am currently missing the service. I have I also have talked to Farhan at Senseapplied and on his suggestion I also threw some text about the issue to nokiamessaging at facebook and twitter. Hoping and wishing to have my subscription back.

    I would also appreciate if you got some idea about the case what I have been through with.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  7. Secondly which I mentioned about the other device the Nokia E72. I've tried a lot to configure it with Nokia Messaging but got no success.

    I've spent hours for it. Whenever I try to add an account it takes me to the list of selection from Ovi, Gmail, Windows Live, Microsoft Exchange, Other. But after selecting an option it asks me for an email address and a password. And does nothing with that. I just returns back to the list without any prompt.

    Have you got some thing to say about it?

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Khurram, Thanks for reading my post. Sorry for replying so late as I was caught up in different things.I think many users have faced similar issues, I also read Farhan's post at senseapplied.com earlier.
    Lets talk about 2 issues you are facing here, even though you have already tried most of things, you can still try.You seem to be knowing much more than me here :)

    E72 issue - Yes I also faced exactly same issue with my Nokia E52 as you have with E72.Email setup just doesnt work, it returns to list of selection.I resolved this 2 times by 2 different ways, I created account manually at email.nokia.com and then tried setup on phone.
    other time I realised that Ovi mail was creating problem, hence I used my Gmail account to start, it worked.
    So key here is you delete all your Nokia Messaging accounts and start all over fresh from device.Better to restart phone or hard reset also if possible.

    E52 issue - I agree with you that Nokia has really messed up this.Users are facing problems just because of this confusing policy.Specially Eseries users for whom Email experience should be top priority. Please take following steps if possible.
    from Email.nokia.com login and remove all your email accounts , then cancel service.
    If service is already cancelled then call you local Nokia Care helpline(Nokia Pakistan) and tell them to delete your Messaging account.
    Once this is done, restart your phone(hard reset is best) , ensure that your phone has proper EDGE/GPRS connectivity and start email setup again.
    If this doesnt work and you are redirected to email provider list again. Start account creation on email.nokia.com and complete it.
    Then try from phone.

    I still think that Nokia Messaging has something to do with operators(SIM card) which you have.Thats why it needs your number also. so each number can have only 1 nokia messaging account. This is just my guess.

    Try to ask these questions to nmfeedback@nokia.com or @nokiamessaging on twitter also.

    I also really like Nokia Messaging service but they need to improve these issues quickly.

    I hope this may be useful to you, I will really interested to know more about your issue and like to be in touch with you, I am on twitter with @mobileyog.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Khurram, Thanks for reading my post. Sorry for replying so late as I was caught up in different things.I think many users have faced similar issues, I also read Farhan's post at senseapplied.com earlier.
    Lets talk about 2 issues you are facing here, even though you have already tried most of things, you can still try.You seem to be knowing much more than me here :)

    E72 issue - Yes I also faced exactly same issue with my Nokia E52 as you have with E72.Email setup just doesnt work, it returns to list of selection.I resolved this 2 times by 2 different ways, I created account manually at email.nokia.com and then tried setup on phone.
    other time I realised that Ovi mail was creating problem, hence I used my Gmail account to start, it worked.
    So key here is you delete all your Nokia Messaging accounts and start all over fresh from device.Better to restart phone or hard reset also if possible.

    E52 issue - I agree with you that Nokia has really messed up this.Users are facing problems just because of this confusing policy.Specially Eseries users for whom Email experience should be top priority. Please take following steps if possible.
    from Email.nokia.com login and remove all your email accounts , then cancel service.
    If service is already cancelled then call you local Nokia Care helpline(Nokia Pakistan) and tell them to delete your Messaging account.
    Once this is done, restart your phone(hard reset is best) , ensure that your phone has proper EDGE/GPRS connectivity and start email setup again.
    If this doesnt work and you are redirected to email provider list again. Start account creation on email.nokia.com and complete it.
    Then try from phone.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I still think that Nokia Messaging has something to do with operators(SIM card) which you have.Thats why it needs your number also. so each number can have only 1 nokia messaging account. This is just my guess.

    Try to ask these questions to nmfeedback@nokia.com or @nokiamessaging on twitter also.
    I also really like Nokia Messaging service but they need to improve these issues quickly.

    I hope this may be useful to you, I will really interested to know more about your issue and like to be in touch with you, I am on twitter with @mobileyog.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey,

    Any 1 get free life time push-mail subs with E52 ?

    I tried nokia care & they are much confused than us. funny to hear E52 was launched before E71 in india !!!

    - Pratheep

    ReplyDelete
  12. Suyog, can you give me a link showing E52 either as free or trial ? so I cam give it to nokia care to get my free subs.

    - Pratheep
    pratheepseenu@yahoo.co.in

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Pratheep I have E52 and my subscription status is 'purchased with device' as i have shown in one of above screenshots.I also had hard time trying to explain things to Nokia care but you dont give up.you can tell them my example ,also many other users which i know have got this.You also must get this.if there is some error Nokia care must resolve it.let me know if i can be of any more help.

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Suyog;
    Thanks for your response. I think I subscribed to your post previously when I commented, to have email alerts on updates of this post. But I never got alerts from your blog :/

    It's just an update on the issue I've wrote above about E52. and Suyog, I want to mention that I have setup Nokia E72 successfully after some tries. I also posted a step by step guide at my blog, it might be help for others.
    http://resource.bells.pk/index.php/2010/08/21/configure-nokia-messaging-on-nokia-e72/

    Any ways, about Nokia E52, I would say that I still have that trial membership. One day I got surprised when I got a call on my phone from Nokia Care Pakistan which I was not supposing to have actually. Huh! it was not about Nokia E52 issue, but it was the one against another issue I have raised on Ovi.com support page about some Ovi internal issue. Believe me I was hoping for an email response on that but when I got a call, I was surprised that they actually called. Whatever I just got the issue fixed He called for. But when he asked "Is there any thing else I can do for you". It was the state when I answered straight "Yes! I have another issue with Nokia Messaging and have been struggling to resolve it. I have a lot of email discussions with Nokia Care but they are not able to do any thing about that. Would you help in this regard?". I might not have said exactly that but some thing like that. Any ways... He has been a help up to delete my account. but it was still of no use. It was again on trial. I talked to him again on the issue. He called back in response of each of my email, I appreciate that.

    Even he was also saying that "Yes! Nokia E52 is bundled with Nokia Messaging Subscription" which later he fed me with a new term "Local Bundle Subscription"... It's some thing new to me which I never heard any where. Nokia talks about Global free Nokia Subscription comes with following models. "E75, E72, E55", He said. And Nokia E52 is also bundled with free subscription of Nokia Messaging but it's not bundled as "Global" but as "Local". He advised me to talk to the Local Network Operator if they support Nokia Messaging officially. Frankly speaking I didn't get that point any way, but I talked to Mobilink(The Network Operator). The girl I talked to, was not aware of such a service by Nokia, I explained her in detail about Nokia Messaging also referring the resemblance of it with Blackberry services. She stopped and requested me to wait for about 45 minutes. She was forwarding the issue to tech department that I'll get a call later and would have talk about that. But unfortunately I didn't get the call yet after 3 days. I don't have any thing else to tell here... I'll talk to them again, I think...

    ReplyDelete
  15. @khurramar Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to see that you got Nokia Messaging working with E72.For E52 , i am really angry by answer given by Nokia care person. But i also had similar experience myself. You have got call as you are blogger. I do get calls many times for issues i raise. Trying to talk with operator is just joke, as Nokia hasnt tied up with operators in pakistan as i know. They just dont have any clue ! Operator help service talk as if nokia messaging is greek word. Try to ask questions to @nokiamessaging on twitter or send mail to nmfeedback@nokia.com
    are you on twitter? I am @mobileyog there

    ReplyDelete
  16. i think it is not trial. i am seeing this from update of latest firmware 51.0.0.6

    ReplyDelete
  17. @friend For me also it is not "trial" but in some other countries it's "trial" So confusion still remains how this works :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. I can also verify that it is bound with the SIM, using the IMSI, in the device on the time when you attempt to register an account.

    @Suyog; if you remember I tweeted some day last week about that I got my Nokia E52 having the Nokia Messaging subscription as "Purchased with Device" after when tried with another network operator "Ufone". I thought that the Nokia Care line was correct about switching the network. But now I do have pretty much doubt that it's not the case.

    After when I was having "Purchased with device" again on Nokia E52, I tried to revise the steps only to evaluate exactly what happened and how Nokia discovers and determines to give a used the subscription as "Trial" or "Purchased with device" or "Any other subscription plan, if ther is". So I did it again removing the "Ufone" SIM and attempted to use the service, after a few minutes NM stopped pushing emails to my phone and even disconnected from the server. I was exactly supposing it to be. But I was only about to confirm if it's just Network Operator thing or not I again tried to replace the SIM with the same "Ufone" SIM which has just been able to get subscription as "purchased with device". Unfortunately this time the SIM couldn't get the service as in past. It also got the service as "Trial". So I can say, in believe, that Network Dependency was not as such the issue with this case as the Nokia Care Line said to me..

    At Nokia Care Line, They of course have access to our data and can manage our accounts. but they can only manage after the accounts have been created. They can't figure out the criteria on which the Subscription is allotted on individual basis.

    Querying again to Nokia Care Line, I just managed that the IMSI along with the IMEI is the key to hold with the accounts...

    If seeing the scenario closely I, very first time, had mentioned that I was also able to get the subscription as "Purchased with device" when very first time I used the Nokia Messaging on Mobilink. After some time I might have switched the SIM and it detected some other IMSI and deactivated the Subscription, which never come back on the same SIM and always assigned a "Trial" subscription on that SIM.

    Now when I tried with another SIM card from "Ufone". It did give me the subscription as "Purchased with device". which I did spare while evaluating the real things behind. After switching from this SIM when the subscription was deactivated, trying with this same Ufone SIM again didn't workout and left it with the "Trial" Subscription....

    Till now, what I have evaluated is that, Nokia Messaging would only give a subscription as "Purchased with device - PWD" if it detects a very new combination of the following.
    "IMEI" + "IMSI".
    Of course the Device model would have priority to avail "PWD". But it will also give "PWD" only once to one combination. If some how it gets deactivated, the same combination will never get "PWD" again.

    I am still not sure about that. I have given this all evaluation to Nokia Care Line and asked on it that if it's true or not. And they forwarded to development team to check with it.

    On my side, I am just trying to get another SIM card to re-evaluate the same. I would do the same on Nokia E72 to see what's the difference..

    Hope that I could extract some thing behind...

    ReplyDelete
  19. @Khurram, Thanks for writing back such detailed explaination. I guess you now know more things about Nokia Messaging Than Nokia people :)
    I do not have spare SIM to try but when I get it I will let you know how it goes.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I got what i was looking for ..awesome ! keep up the good work!

    Price for World

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thanks for comment. which phone you have?

    ReplyDelete
  22. iguess you now know more things about Nokia Messaging Than Nokia people :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. @Mustafa , :) Thanks for comment. Well I dont know more than Nokia People. But just trying to find out things. Now with new phones like N8,C7, they have changed things again. @Khurramar(check above comments) may be knows better than me

    ReplyDelete
  24. thanks I got what i was looking for ..awesome ! keep up the good work as Xiaom mobile phones pakistan

    ReplyDelete