I've recently run into difficulty with some operators (Orange and Vodafone in the UK at least) who appear to be blocking content being downloaded to my application.
I've found out that since Vodafone introduced the transcoding engine WTE, then you may not have a clear path through the Internet. Vodafone have introduced several workarounds which I'll test tomorrow, and update this item.
The WTE may block your content, as it is trying to reformat it for a mobile phone. It will also alter/strip out user agent strings. There are several methods to bypass the WTE.
original URL is http://www.betavine.net/web/guest/projects/resources/mics/next
Automatic passthrough of mobile sites
The WTE already recognises several mechanisms by which sites can identify themselves as mobile friendly. This means that content on sites that obey the rules below do not need to be put onto the whilelist as the WTE passes them through without modification. Please check your sites for these parameters before considering adding them to the whitelist
Correct Sites are passed through the WTE:
If a domain begins or ends with wap
If a domain begins with mobile.
If a domain ends in .mobi
Correct use of the doctype meta tag: 'DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN" http://wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd'
Mobile Indicator Source Description
Content-Type header HTTP response -Standard A site is deemed mobile if the Content-Type header is set to one of the following: 1 application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml
2 application/xhtml+xml
3 text/vnd.wap.wml
Use of No-Transform
The August rollout adds in improved support for the No-Transform directive in the standard HTTP 1.1 headers. Sites setting this value to 'true' will not be transcoded.
The instructions for using No-Transform are easy. To tell the WTE to avoid modifying an item of content in any way, add the following header to the outgoing HTTP response headers:
Cache-Control: No-Transform
There is also a whitelist of allowed sites. To apply for the white list, send an email to: eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6d%6f%62%69%6c%65%69%6e%74%65%72%6e%65%74%2e%77%68%69%74%65%6c%69%73%74%40%76%6f%64%61%66%6f%6e%65%2e%63%6f%2e%75%6b%22%3e%6d%6f%62%69%6c%65%69%6e%74%65%72%6e%65%74%2e%77%68%69%74%65%6c%69%73%74%40%76%6f%64%61%66%6f%6e%65%2e%63%6f%2e%75%6b%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))
I've tried updating my URL to start with 'mobile' instead of 'www', but it is still being blocked.
