Hi everyone,
I apologize in advance for the possibly n00b question. I am in Italy now with a T-Mobile USA G2 that I unlocked with GFree 0.5/adb/everything yesterday. I put in my TIM (Telecom Italia) SIM card and it finds the TIM network and connects me to normal phone service, but simply does not connect to 3G. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm assuming the G2 is capable of overseas data connectivity because T-Mobile advertised it as a "quad-band" phone -- am I wrong? Do I need to install a custom ROM to have international 3G?
Yeah, I think you are screwed. According to the t-mobile site here your quad band phone has the following freq specs:
850 MHz;900 MHz;1800 MHz;1900 MHz;UMTS: Band IV (1700/2100)
The band IV is the t-mobile 3G band in the states that uses 1700Mhz uplink and 2100 downlink (also known as AWS). Unfortunately for you Italy uses the typical European freqs of 1900Mhz uplink and 2100 downlink. And no you can't just use the downlink!
On the bright side, EDGE should work.
Thank you very much. I think you are correct: it's shameful and pathetic that T-Mobile advertises the G2 as an "international" phone and then provides a phone with support only for a single UMTS data band (unlike the iPhone 4, for example, which has support for 900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA).
As per the suggestion that EDGE should work, that does not appear either. All that appears is the "cellular" network icon -- a.k.a., the one immediately to the right of the battery. There is no "E" data connection either as there would be in the U.S. when I am out of 3G range. Is that normal? Is EDGE simply the normal cellular network?
I feel your pain, having traveled internationally a lot
No, when you are connected to GPRS you should get a "G" symbol near the signal bars and when you are connected to EDGE there should be an "E." If you are not getting that then a couple of suggestions:
1) You have switched on the data connectivity on your phone, right!!? (duhh)
2) Did you buy this SIM card new? There are older SIM cards where I had a problem getting the data connectivity, though that should not be a real problem.
3) Did your phone get the right APN settings from the SIM? In most cases for TIM I think you want ibox.tim.it and you *might* have to set in manually
4) Is this a prepaid SIM and do you have a balance? The network will probably reject the connection if you have 0 balance
5) If you don't have a plan (even prepaid), your balance will go down VERY quickly. In fact, your phone may have actually connected when you were not looking, and run your balance to 0 just by syncing.
The best deal for TIM data packages are listed here. I use them all the time, however if you are in the big cities WIND is pretty good and MUCH cheaper.
Hope that helps
Vodafone requires that a new Access Point Name (APN) be set up for the SIM. The problem is that the Photon won't let me me create and save a new APN. What I've discovered is that, if I set the MCC and MNC in the APN to Sprint's values (310 and 120), then I can save the newly created APN, but the data connection won't work. If I set them to the appropriate values for Vodafone (505 and 03) then press save, the newly created APN disappears.
I spoke with Sprint today, and after 40 minutes of getting bounced around, finally got to someone who told me that this was by design. So if true, it appears that the SIM is unlocked for voice but locked for data (at least, if the carrier requires specific APN settings, as Vodafone does).
I also tried using APN Manager from the Android app store to create and select a different APN - no dice there, either.
Any suggestions, or am I out of luck?
The good news is that I brought my trusty old Touch Pro2 with me, just in case, and it is working fine ... but going back to the TP2 after a blissful week of using the Photon is really, really hard.
Doesn't make sense to me that it would only be unlocked for voice and not data. Did you try contacting Motorola directly? I'll rather hear it from the horse's mouth.
It's hard to tell who's really the horse in these situations ... nonetheless that is a great suggestion, and I've just submitted the question to Motorola's support site.
Im sorry...im very confused by this. Ill be traveling to lebanon tomorrow and specifically got this phone to be able to pop a sim in and use data and voice....your saying i wont be able to uze data?
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
I am saying that I can't use data ... your experience may be different. I suspect that this may work for some carriers but not for others, depending on what settings they require for data. If they require you to create a new Access Point Name profile, then it most likely won't work, given my experience.
I'm able to use data on a foreign sim. I was able to save the apn also. This is with Telcel and Movistar in Mexico. Setup the same as my Samsung Captivate.
So is there any possibility that this thing would ever be unlocked for US gsm networks like the Touch Pro 2 was? That would make this unit epic....
rotoread said:
I'm able to use data on a foreign sim. I was able to save the apn also. This is with Telcel and Movistar in Mexico. Setup the same as my Samsung Captivate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which carrier did you purchase the phone from - was it Sprint?
So here is the latest, for anyone who's interested.
I emailed Motorola asking about why I couldn't save the APN, and was told
Motorola does not have any access to the Access Point Name (APN).The APN can only be access or generated from the service provider.
I then contacted Sprint again, and got a hold of someone who took my request more seriously then the previous Sprint people. After several days, however, this person came back with
I contacted Motorola and was told that the data will not work with the Motorola photon gprs data
I have no idea what the truth really is, but the bottom line is that I could not get the phone to work with data using a Vodafone Australia SIM. I even had Vodafone replace the SIM with their most current SIM - didn't help.
My Touch Pro2, on the other hand, had no problem getting the SIM to work for both data and voice, and I ended up turning my TP2 into a wireless router so I could indirectly use my Photon while out and about.
levman said:
Which carrier did you purchase the phone from - was it Sprint?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought directly from the respective carriers.
levman said:
So here is the latest, for anyone who's interested.
I emailed Motorola asking about why I couldn't save the APN, and was told
Motorola does not have any access to the Access Point Name (APN).The APN can only be access or generated from the service provider.
I then contacted Sprint again, and got a hold of someone who took my request more seriously then the previous Sprint people. After several days, however, this person came back with
I contacted Motorola and was told that the data will not work with the Motorola photon gprs data
I have no idea what the truth really is, but the bottom line is that I could not get the phone to work with data using a Vodafone Australia SIM. I even had Vodafone replace the SIM with their most current SIM - didn't help.
My Touch Pro2, on the other hand, had no problem getting the SIM to work for both data and voice, and I ended up turning my TP2 into a wireless router so I could indirectly use my Photon while out and about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.
Outer Marker said:
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on where he is in Australia. In most areas Vodaphone's network operates on UMTS2100 which the Photon does support. In some smaller areas it's UMTS900 which the Photon doesn't support.
Is it possible that the SIM card is supposed to "provision" your data similar to when you activate the phone on the Sprint network initially?
Or is the creating of an APN always a manual program effort by the user?
myphone12345 said:
It depends on where he is in Australia. In most areas Vodaphone's network operates on UMTS2100 which the Photon does support. In some smaller areas it's UMTS900 which the Photon doesn't support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a good point. It's entirely possible he's in a UMTS900 zone...
Outer Marker said:
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is from Motorola's site:
NETWORKS4
Worldphone - WiMAX 2500, CDMA 800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
I believe WCDMA 2100 is the UMTS band being referred to. I am fairly certain the Photon is a Quad-band true world phone. http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...Mobile-Phones/ci.MOTOROLA-PHOTON-4G-US-EN.alt
EDIT: I see now you meant UMTS on 900 MHz rather than GSM at 900.
Outer Marker said:
This is a good point. It's entirely possible he's in a UMTS900 zone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like the guy is having APN issues, not reception issues. Otherwise he would have at least been able to get EDGE/GPRS connections - but those too require the APN.
FYI, I was in Sydney for most of the trip, with a few days in Canberra.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
I started two threads on the official Sprint Support forums. One in the normal Moto Photon, and one in the Premier area. Wonder if Sprint will respond.
jorjitoc said:
This is from Motorola's site:
NETWORKS4
Worldphone - WiMAX 2500, CDMA 800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
I believe WCDMA 2100 is the UMTS band being referred to. I am fairly certain the Photon is a Quad-band true world phone. http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...Mobile-Phones/ci.MOTOROLA-PHOTON-4G-US-EN.alt
EDIT: I see now you meant UMTS on 900 MHz rather than GSM at 900.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's ridiculous that Data and voice are so segmented, but these are smartphones! Gone are the days that you just had to worry about the GSM voice frequency. Now you have to make sure the data frequency and radio band are supported by your phone.
For what it's worth, I've had little luck with Vodaphone sim cards overseas. I typically use Tmobile or Orange sim cards in the UK, and TIM or Wind in Italy. For points in between, I just roam on the UK Tmobile sim. Next trip won't be for a bit, so I'm eager to see what the photon is like...
did you try rooting and manually editing the apn database with SQLite?
This was taken from the atrix APN editing thread:
Code:
2) Enable Airplane Mode
(hold power button for three seconds, select Airplane Mode)
3) Open Root Explorer
4) Navigate to: /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/
5) Click on "telephony.db"** (this should open the db using SQLite Editor)
6) Select "carriers"
7) You should see a long list of APN settings for various carriers. Edit/add what you want
8) Press back twice to close the SQLite editor and you should be back in Root Explorer. Close Root Explorer.
9) Disable Airplane Mode
So Just add the APN with the sprint MCC and MNC, then manually edit the APN's MCC and MNC and see if that works
Howzit guys,
I brought a HTC Aria in the USA on AT&T network. I came back to SA and rooted my phone put Android v2.2 on (phone came with v2.1) thinking that would unlock the phone, but it didn't. I ended up looking on the net for a website that I could get an unlock code for my phone. Long story short, I found one, paid for it and it worked. I'm using the phone on Vodacom no matter what I do I can't get 3G or HSDPA to work, only GPRS. HSDPA and 3G work fine in the states.
After doing some research I noticed that in the Mobile Network settings on the phone there is 3 options under Network Mode:
1. WCDMA only
2. GSM only
3.GSM / WCDMA auto
Now from what I've seen I need to use WCDMA to get the 3G / HSDPA to work, but when I select option 1. I don't get any signal and then phone eventually switches to GSM automatically. I was at work on the weekend helping a customer with her laptop and she had a 8•ta 3G modem, and 8•ta 3G modems are currently running off of MTN's network I was told this by an 8•ta technician and I noticed when connecting the modem it said something regarding WCDMA.
So now my question, if I change to MTN do you think I will be able to use 3G / HSDPA on my phone?
Any info regarding this will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
The American version of the Aria uses different 3G frequencies (because that's what AT&T uses), so unfortunately your phone will not work with 3G in South Africa. There is a different version of the Aria (called Gratia in most regions) that is the exact same phone except it supports the correct 3G frequencies for your country, but there's nothing you can do with the phone you have now to make it work.
So I love my HTC ONE.... Fantastic phone.. No question about it.
As I posted else where I have the UK model and I am on AT&T in the USA. It's working, but the HSDPA and 3G is bouncing around quite a bit and it jumps to E really quickly. And it loses the signal quickly in low signal areas. More than any other phone. If I switch the network to GSM, I have full signal almost everywhere.... But no data bandwidth.
It was suggested that I might need to look at my setup.
So here is what I have.
I have a STD LTE data plan
I have a STD sim that work on all my other LTE enabled phones
My APN is Called Phone and has the same setting as I find on the forum for a 4G setup...ie it is NOT the wap and cingular setup.
I have selected WCDMA and GSM networks (I know the phone is not compatible with AT&T LTE bands), but it acted the same way even when it was on the default GSM WCDMA and LTE Auto setting.
Does anyone know else I should check or change?
PS. I will likely buy the developer model, or the AT&T model as soon as it is available... this phone is that good!!!
Thanks for your help.
Nick
PS. I will be in Korea next week, so I am curious how the LTE will function there.... I will let you know. I think they have the 2600 band on one provider and that overlaps with the UK bands
I recently tried again to play with mods, thinking now about 3 types ... either JB sandwich for ics or something like the collective or nighty.. as JB 4.3
The real problem I have now though is that my phone tries to go for 2G and 3G, 4G instead of Bell network HSPA and LTE ... that is a real pain and I wondered what is doing that ?
I changed the modem file but it seems it is not solving my issue (I'm still a newb) ... so would it be the kernel or any other file I need to change to revert back to the Bell Canada network ? :crying:
Thanks in advance for your help !
zykio said:
I recently tried again to play with mods, thinking now about 3 types ... either JB sandwich for ics or something like the collective or nighty.. as JB 4.3
The real problem I have now though is that my phone tries to go for 2G and 3G, 4G instead of Bell network HSPA and LTE ... that is a real pain and I wondered what is doing that ?
I changed the modem file but it seems it is not solving my issue (I'm still a newb) ... so would it be the kernel or any other file I need to change to revert back to the Bell Canada network ? :crying:
Thanks in advance for your help !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i think it was just the modem file... and after that to make sure the APN would right .. like this one
I typed it all out so that I wouldn't lose it again...
Bell APN
Press the Menu key
Tap Settings
Tap Wireless controls
Tap Mobile networks
Tap Access Point Names
Press the Menu key
Tap New APN
Name: Bell Internet
APN: pda.bell.ca
Proxy: web.wireless.bell.ca
Port: 80
MMSC: http://mms.bell.ca/mms/wapenc
MMS proxy: web.wireless.bell.ca
MMS port: 80
MCC: 302
MNC: 610
APN type: Internet + mms
Authentication Type: none
I will give it a try like that .. going at the job and all and see if it works correctly
Alright .. I really need your help guys !!
So far, it seems I have the right APN but ... when I use my phone, it tries to go on 3G as well instead of sticking to H+ (HSPA) for Bell ... causing delay and problems or annoying if you want.
How could I run JB Sandwich with my phone just trying to get HSPA or LTE (Bell network) instead of trying to get 2G, 3G and 4G ??
Kernel ? .. any other file that drives that part ?
Thanks a ton to the one that will help me with that
Try typing this combination on your phone: *#*#4636#*#* Here you should get to phone info menu, then you'll see network options.
If that doesn't work enter *#2263#, then touch number [3] and than number [7].
Sfboy said:
Try typing this combination on your phone: *#*#4636#*#* Here you should get to phone info menu, then you'll see network options.
If that doesn't work enter *#2263#, then touch number [3] and than number [7].
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the first combination brings me to test menu,
The second one does not seem to do anything
the first one menu brings :
Phone information
Battery information
usage statistics
wi-fi information
zykio said:
the first combination brings me to test menu,
The second one does not seem to do anything
the first one menu brings :
Phone information
Battery information
usage statistics
wi-fi information
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So .. i found in phone information that i can actually really select what my phone should look for as signal !!! really nice and i love you man
Just not sure now ( i know im ignorant) which one would be the one for H+ only (Bell Canada) WCDMA or CDMA or GSM (thought GSM was more for Rogers type of Network ?)
Thanks again for that help ...
zykio said:
So .. i found in phone information that i can actually really select what my phone should look for as signal !!! really nice and i love you man
Just not sure now ( i know im ignorant) which one would be the one for H+ only (Bell Canada) WCDMA or CDMA or GSM (thought GSM was more for Rogers type of Network ?)
Thanks again for that help ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could help some ...
Here is a chart with a general overview of the three major carriers and what they support. Notice Bell and Telus practically use the same network. The 4G stuff may change a lot in the next little while. I have a special note of LTE later in this guide.
Bell
including
Virgin Mobile
PC Mobility
2G
CDMA 850/1900
EVDO 850/1900
3G (and fake 4G)
HSDPA 850/1900
HSPA+ 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900
WCDMA 850/1900
1x EV-DO CDMA2000
4G
LTE 1700
Telus
including
Koodo
2G
CDMA 850/1900
EVDO 850/1900
3G (and fake 4G)
HSDPA 850/1900
HSPA+ 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900
WCDMA 850/1900
1x EV-DO CDMA2000
4G (called 4G+)
LTE 1700/2100
Rogers
including
Fido
Petro-Canada Mobility
2G
GSM 850/1900
GPRS 850/1900
EDGE 850/1900
3G (and fake 4G)
HSDPA 850/1900
HSPA+ 850/1900
UMTS 850/1900
WCDMA 850/1900
4G
LTE 1700