Telus mobility and Windows Mobile 5 AKU 2 / MSFP Update report

For those of you who didn’t know – up here in Canada, Telus Mobility was the first Canadian based mobile operator to offer a Mobile 5 device to their regular walk in clients / web store patrons. A while back (it was the launch of this blog in January) Damir and I did the TNX: TechNet Exchange tour around mobile devices and collaboration using the Telus provided UTStarcom 6700 Windows Mobile 5 based device. All along we kept on saying that they would be releasing a update that could be self deployed… Well it’s here now.  My good friend and fellow Gadget Geek Daniel Nerenberg in Montreal got notified of the update and decided to share his excitement with the Canadian IT Pro Community.  The long and the short of it? If you have a Telus based 6700 – go out and get the update!

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Boy was I happy to get an e-mail today letting me know that Telus has released the long awaited update for the UT Starcom 6700. This update allows the device to work with the Push mail feature in Exchange 2003, and provided much enhanced security features.

For those itching to get your hands on this update here is the URL:

https://www.telusmobility.com/on/business_solutions/utstarcom_6700_upgrade.shtml

My upgrade experience was really smooth.  I downloaded the update. Before I ran the update I made sure all my contact, calendar, and e-mail data was synched. I also cradle synched my device to make sure the files and notes data was synched.

When I executed the update it went through a few version checks with the device, and then proceeded to update the device rom images. (This wipes the device of all data)

All told it took about 15 minutes to run the update. Once I got the device up and running again I was able to immediately use push e-mail and boy is it FAST!!. I barely hit the send button from my second e-mail account on my home server when the message arrived on my Mobile 5 device.

This update allows me to interact with my companies Exchange server quickly and securely. I can't begin to explain how useful this is. Being a consultant on the go I never know when I'll get a chance to plug into a network location or get to a wifi café. With my Mobile 5 device I can now always pull my email down, and have rapid access to my contacts and schedule, all while keeping my colleagues appraised of my needs and whereabouts. 

Finally, the beauty of this solution is that my network admin didn't need to do anything special apart from installing SP2 for Exchange server. No 3rd party service, no additional hardware, no intervention on his part. I simply pointed my device towards the Exchange server's web access page and as they say out here in La Belle Province Voila!

I'd love to know how your AKU2 upgrades go, post back in the comments, and don't forget to back up your data and programs!
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Daniel Nerenberg, MCSA, MCSE, NERD ( Labelled at birth by the Government no less!) - Senior consultant with Alpha Mosaik in Montreal  and Vice president of the Montreal IT pro user group (https://www.mitpro.ca). Daniel is naturally inquisitive and passionate about technology. Driven by the desire to see cool technology bring people together in a global and local communities, Daniel has spent entirely too much of his own personal wealth to play with all the latest gadgets. Lately he is head over heels in love with his UT Starcom 6700 (much to his wife's chagrin) and trying to figure out all the different ways it can be used to make each day even more efficient then the last!