Database Users

o2 xda exec in the US, need some help.

I've been reading the Universal forum for days picking out tidbits of advice on what to do with my exec here in the US. I'd like some difinitive answers if anyone has them to these questions. (I use Cingular)
1. I currently live in massachusetts and my quad band razor gets [good] service in my apartement (seems to get data too). My NGage (tmobile branded) doesn't get service inside, but outside I get 3 to 4 bars. My new exec gets 1, maybe 2 bars outside, and mostly nothing inside. Every once in a while Ill pick up the cingular signal and then it fades before I can attempt to make a call. Can anyone explain this? Im not sure its just the 850 band discrepancy since the ngage is only dual band 900 & 1900mhz.
2. WHERE can I get the Cingular MMS and GPRS settings for my phone? I've found a few sites that I've been able to peacemeal together a working gprs connection using wap.cingular as my access point, but MAN is it slow! I get faster transfer speeds on the ngage! I think that Im not using the fastest available (what the phone can support and the network provides that are compatible) settings, so if anyone has any links that are better than the junk I've found, please post them, or a tutorial if you have time. Also I read that IMATE's extended rom has a configuration app that will auto configure GPRS and the correct GSM settings for a multitude of networks, would this solve my problem as in, does it work with Cingular US?
3. No one can agree as to whether the military in the US will give up the 2100 Mhz band, and since Cingular has begun deploying umts here on 1900mhz, whats the final story on the universal and UMTS? I see an equal number of posts and articles that say a software patch can allow the 1900mhz frequency to be used instead of the stock 2100, and I see another set of posts saying its hardware locked, and the universals 3G is and forever will be useless in the US.
4. Any US users please advise as to the most successful radio rom version, the stories about what does and doesn't work are mostly european. As we speak Im upping to the new o2 1.30 rom with radio version 1.09, that seems to be consistently considered the best rom abroad. Ironically the one person who commented from the US was reinstalling tmobile radio 1.11 because 1.09 sucked for him.
Thanks to the Experts for your help.

I hope this helps anyone of the number of readers who were interested in a response to this. I've done a bit of esearch and concluded that:
DO NOT TRY TO USE THIS PHONE WITH CINGULAR, unless you happen to live and/or exist in one of their 1900mhz locations. T Mobile USA is the way to go. while cingilar is phasing out 1900mhz in favor of their lower freqency but stronger 850mhz band, TMobile ispredominantly 1900mhz, except in very rural areas. They promise to continue to expand their 1900mhz network and build their massive wifi hotspot network to incorporate some of their "futuristic" seamless gsm over ip technology that is supposedly dominant in Germany. Don't see the big deal in that. However, I just moved to New Orleans, Louisiana yesterday and was able to test cingular and tmo side by side via 1900mhz coverage during the drive from Massachusetts. tmo was in full coverage most of the trip at 1900mhz. there were few places where I could get steady 1900 via cingular durin the drive, but to be fair, quad band cingular coverage was flawless until alabama, and then good again after the 20 minute stretch of nothing. tmo quad wasn't checked but is safe to say that the coverage is awesome in most metro areas. as long as you don't live on a farm you can safely use tmo and the universal together. I opted to keep my cingular voice (family) plan dueto my contract, but I did get a pretty sweet steal on tmo using a little trickery.
$30 a month for unlimited data + 500 text messages. no voice.
basically I signed up for the unlimited blackberry plan and requested access to internet2.voicestream.com AP for particular business software requirements. tmo was happy to oblige.
I had cingular unlimited data; and even when I had full service the connection was amzingly flaky. I even used my razr as a bt modem for my uni for a while to take advantage of the razrs quad band reception and data apeeds. slow and flaky, frequently failing dns lookups. tmo internet is sllow gprs but 3 to 4 times as responsive as cingular gprs. data lookup takes no more than 2 seconds, an large pages load in under 8 secons, including All pics. xda developers takes approx 4 seconds per pag to render via tmo. using cingular I couldn't make a followup post because lookup and rendering time were in the minutes, when the page loaded at all. Push via mail2web works great, not a single flaw so far. snce I can keep open the data connection and I'm not constantly redialing, my battery life has doubled. mail arrives within seconds of its arrival on the server, and I've never beeen happier with a device. agile messenger works great now too, running in the background all day without any hangups, hickups, or problems. just can't send push to talks because I can't map a ptt button. if anyone has any questions, just pm, post, or email me.

T-mobile 3G

I have the t-mobile wing... and i remember reading that tmo is going to rolling out its 3g network by this summer. can n e one tell me is the wing capable of connecting to this 3g network or with i have to get a new phone?

need a new phone t-mobile's 3g network runs on 1700mhz none of their smartphone as of the moment use that band, i know your pain, my girl has the wing and i have the shadow, neither are going to work on it

HSDPA 900mhz

Hi all sorry but Im not real up tpo date with some of this stuff, but I will tri to explain; I have just go a prepaid 3G wireless sim and got it sort of working but the data really is very slow about 30-40k, It is with Optus in Australia and I am in a regonal area I thort it may have been sonthing wrong with my shift but i tried a telstra data sim in it today and it worked at nearly 1600k down and 260 upload.
I spoke to an optus person today and they said it was because the device doesn't have a band for HSDPA 2100MHz/900MHz dual band that optus uses in regional areas is this right? Is there a away to add that setting/band?
Is theere a nother rom with thoses settings? (I am using i00's rom which has been working well)

But here shows it works on optus 2100mhz 3G band.
http://www.onlineshoppingaustralia....ear-htc-shift-35g-next-g-mobile-computer.html

I think it's the 900mhz side of things optus uses in regional Australia that is the problem, and Im 300km the closest place that has a 2100mhz service

Scott's Shift said:
Hi all sorry but Im not real up tpo date with some of this stuff, but I will tri to explain; I have just go a prepaid 3G wireless sim and got it sort of working but the data really is very slow about 30-40k, It is with Optus in Australia and I am in a regonal area I thort it may have been sonthing wrong with my shift but i tried a telstra data sim in it today and it worked at nearly 1600k down and 260 upload.
I spoke to an optus person today and they said it was because the device doesn't have a band for HSDPA 2100MHz/900MHz dual band that optus uses in regional areas is this right? Is there a away to add that setting/band?
Is theere a nother rom with thoses settings? (I am using i00's rom which has been working well)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Shift does not have UMTS 900 band (it is Tri-Band UMTS: 850/1900/2100). The speed you say there sounds more like Australian GPRS connection. So, you are probably running your GPRS. What is the icon on your WinMo side - G, E or 3G/H (sorry if I am telling you to suck eggs there)? If it is G or E then you are not using UMTS.
Next G works very well on it (I use mine all the time) and has good coverage. It is on the 850 band so fits in the Shift range. My wife even has one of those Telstra Pre-Paid Wireless Internet USB Sticks. There is a SIM inside that I took out and stuck in the shift to test out because it has better pricing per MB (can not make phone calls on it - so my normal Next G went back in )
Cheers

Yes it is running on gprs and it does tha just the letter "G" there. so it is a hardwear problem? can it be overcome by softwear?

Scott's Shift said:
Yes it is running on gprs and it does tha just the letter "G" there. so it is a hardwear problem? can it be overcome by softwear?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No . It is hardware only and no software can "make" the physical antenna change its frequency setting (lots of reasons, all very boring and maths based - way beyond me).
The Shift is very capable for the platform, but like almost all "world phones" (ie quad band GSM), it does not have the quad band UMTS. In fact I do not know any quad band UMTS devices (though there probably are some).
If you live in a region outside of "normal" 3G (and note only Telstra has H capability - unless something has changed with the other carriers over the las six months), then Telstra is the only solution at this stage.
Love them or hate them (I'm personnal luke warm), they do have good coverage for the Australian landmass.

thanks, its a pitty that telstra is so expensive they charge $30 for 225meg and optus is $30 for 1 gig

ATT 3G settings with Topaz O2

Hello,
i've got a Germany Topaz with an original O2 Rom (6.5), and am currently in New York. I've inserted an ATT sim card, and the topaz came up asking whether it should install the ATT settings, which it then did.
I'm able to get a connection fine, but only with Edge, not 3G. The whole greater Manhattan area is 3G covered, so i should be getting a faster connection.
I'm wondering whether there is something i need to do to activate 3G? Anyone have any ideas why i can't get a 3G connection?
thanks.

Doesn't O2 Germany use 900MHz UMTS, not 850MHz & 1900MHz as AT&T? So your Topaz is likely not an 850MHz (& 1900 MHz) UMTS model - will be able to use only GSM.

Ok, thanks for that. But i thought the Topaz has the same frequencies as the Germany Kaiser, and i used that 2 years ago in California, with ATT, and had 3G almost always. Strange.

You are aware that there is a variety of models/frequencies specific to local markets?
What is the model shown under the battery: eg TOPA110 T5362?
Then do a search for that model and compare with the (UMTS/HSDPA, not GSM) specs for AT&T Pure:
eg http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353835,00.asp

[Q] Milestone doesnt work in the USA? With T-Mob

Hey guys,
searched around but didn´t find anything that could help me. I m from germany and currently i'm in the US and want to use my milestone 2. bougth a t-mobile sim card but it doesn`t work. It doesn't work even with a german t mobile card, but with this one it shows me "(no service) / Telekom", with the T-Mobile US SIM it shows nuthin. Had the phone on the whole day...and i got a sms from t mobile. but i never saw signal bars. only this one sms from the "US SIM", nuthin more.
can anyone help?
it`s A953, aren2stone...
best regards

T-Mobile USA doesn't use the same bands/frequencies as other GSM providers. To use your phone in the USA, you should use AT&T.

w0ndersp00n said:
T-Mobile USA doesn't use the same bands/frequencies as other GSM providers. To use your phone in the USA, you should use AT&T.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It won't work on 3G, but still should on the 2G GSM network.

Milestone 2 data in USA
I got my A953 (UK) to send texts and make telephone calls on T-Mobile USA, but had a lot of difficulty getting any data to work - not even 2G.
I thought the Milestone 2 supports 3G on 900 and 2100 MHz, and T-Mobile USA uses 1700 and 2100 MHz - doesn't this mean the Milestone 2 should be able to access 3G data on the 2100 MHz frequency?