Port 80 issues with T-Mobile
For the last several weeks I have been unable to browse the Internet using Opera on my Nokia 3650 smartphone. At first I was willing to chalk it up to some network glitch on T-Mobile’s side; however, after several weeks it still wasn’t working. When I travel I tether my phone to my laptop in order to have Internet access. Since I have been traveling a lot this month not having it working has been a pretty major annoyance. Fortunately most of the hotels I have stayed at have offered WiFi.
Last week while I had some time to kill I in an airport concourse (which didn’t have WiFi) I did a bit of investigation to see if I can track down the problem. I currently am enrolled in T-Mobile’s $2.99 / month T-Zones plan. My understanding is that this plan would entitle me to use the data portions of my smartphone specifically allowing me to browse the web via HTTP (using Opera) and to check my email via IMAP. In the past both had worked without an issue so it seemed to be a reasonable assumption that I had the right level of service. I found that I can still check my IMAP email without a problem that only browsing the web was a problem. Nothing has changed in my Opera configuration since I bought it back in February so it seems odd that it stopped working. Tethered to my laptop I was able to verify that when connected to the T-Mobile GPRS network I could successfully preform DNS lookups; however, when actually making a data request via port 80 nothing was returned.
Annoyed I finally got around to calling customer service this afternoon to see what was up. The person I talked to was polite but gave me some canned answer about having lots of “issues” with Internet access lately. He did help me verify that the built-in WAP browser worked correctly so there was nothing wrong with my T-Zones account. I hadn’t thought to try the WAP browser since it is so crappy - the reason I purchased Opera in the first place.
I did a bit of digging on HowardForums and it looks like T-Mobile has recently rolled out some type of transparent proxy to block requests from everything but those WAP browsers using their gateway. Apparently port 80 has been closed for customers trying to access the Internet without T-Mobile’s $19.99 / month data plan.
Fortunately with a bit more research I was able to find a work around to get Opera working without opting for the more expensive data plan. Setting Opera to use the following proxy server will get it to function again:
216.155.165.50 port 8080
It works well for me at the moment, but I’m not sure how long T-Mobile will leave that proxy server open. I’ll probably end up opting for the full data plan so I can continue to tether my phone and laptop for Internet access on the go. At least Opera is working again 
Thanks for the information. It works like a dream. I am not planning on using it for the most part, however, it could really come in handy once in a while.
Glad to hear it helped
So how does one do this in Opera Mini???
Or should the question be CAN one do this in Opera Mini?
I have it on a motorola v3i (dolce & Gabbana model).
Thanks for the help…
@Kosmos
Yes this works in Opera Mini as well - I use it on my RAZR without a problem (it wasn’t out in 2004 when I first wrote this). All you need to do is enter the T-Mobile proxy server information above into the network configuration settings on your phone.
On my T-Mobile branded RAZR the phone network settings were locked; however, flexing the firmware to unlock them is pretty easy - I blogged about doing this a while ago (use the search box). If access to the network settings isn’t locked out all you need to do is enter the proxy server info above.
Good luck!