Database Users

Can you prevent switching to UTMS?

Hi,
I've found that the switch between GPRS and UTMS can be a bit of a PITA. It causes TomTom to drop it's traffic connection, and makes web browsing in a marginal 3G area practically unusable as it's chops and changes between GPRS and UTMS (3G).
I've tried to create a new "Cellular Line" connection with the *99# dialup settings, in a hope that this would connect me to GPRS without switching to UTMS if available, but I can't get it to work - it just says "No modem at above number".
Has anybody got a solution to this?
Cheers,
Steve.

If you select Settings -> Phone -> Band and choose GSM (instead of Auto), what happens? Does it stick to GSM? I think it should do.
EDIT: Jus ttried it on mine. Had full UMTS signal and forced GSM and it worked!

I'm not in a position to test that at the moment (no 3G signal), however, doesn't that prevent all 3G facilities of the phone (i.e. video calls) from working?
Having said that, I can't think why I would want a video call, and I can always switch it back should I need to.
Cheers,
Steve.

Yes it does prevent all 3G features (and therefore extends battery life). Sorry, I didn't realise that this was not what you wanted to do. From your original post I thought you didn't want it to use UMTS at all.

Ideally, it was just the web browsing/internet access that I wanted to prevent switching to UTMS, but to be honest, I'm not sure I would miss video phoning - is there anything else I'm getting on 3G that I'll not get after making that change?
Cheers,
Steve.

As far as I'm aware, making voice calls on 3G is a little bit clearer than on GSM, but consumes more battery. So if you are unable to tell the difference between the two then you could fix it to GSM and save battery life.
However, don't forget that UMTS is vaunted as being 3 times faster than GPRS for internet use, so your browsing etc will slow down if you lock it into GSM/GPRS only mode. I bet this doesn't matter much for TomTom traffic though as I am sure it only uses small amounts of data. If you're happy with GPRS then go for it.

Yes, I'm aware of the speed difference between GPRS and UTMS. My main problem is that I use my Exec to update the football scores on my football club's website, but the home ground is in a marginal UTMS area, so it keeps switching on/off, and consequently takes much longer to update the score than if it just connected via GPRS.
I'll give these new settings a go, and if there are any unwanted side effects, I'll switch back.
Cheers,
Steve.

Having being in the know about 3G for some time now I'm saying that its virtually impossible to only use GSM for internet, but stay with 3G for vid calling.
Your best bet would be some 3rd party software for this as I don't think any 3G phone lets you do this.

Yes I agree Biohead. I don't even think third party software would help as the radio has to disconnect and then reconnect. So you can't do some stuff on GSM (like GPRS) and then some on UMTS (like Video calling) without disconnecting and reconnecting. Luckily for Mr Pritchard, he is not too bothered about video calling and so, hopefully, this will solve his problem.

Switch between GPRS and UMTS network

Hello,
I know the place in the phone options (on the band page) where you can
change the network from GPRS to UMTS (3G).
But is this possible to do programmatically with RIL or TAPI or another API
on the pocket pc device?
Thanks for any suggestions.

I support this request; Many topics on the board cover erratic behaviour with JJ, and ppl return their device to no avail. Swopping to another operator often helps. The issues SEEMS to be a poor UMTS reception with a given SIM or location, and this results in JJ trying to connect to UMTS or even latching on to UMTS but with an abysmal signal. After more than 15mins (annecdotal) of this is fails to ever go back to GSM without a reboot.
Solution is to turn off UMTS, but that's darned inconvenient cos you OFTEN want 3G speed (mail, RSS, google/surf).
Here's a way forwards; can someone tell us what reg entry gets changed when we select GSM vs UMTS? I will then write a couple of .reg files that can be launched from iLauncher (or whatever). Buzz coule probably write a switching app like he did for BT.

i have the same problem
When i use my Universal at home, there is pretty low level of UMTS/WCDMA signal and full level of standard GSM signal. By default Universal changes between those two sources automaticaly. But in my case, the quality of WCDMA signal is often varying just around critical level. So the result is that Universal changes band to GSM and back. And then again. And again. And... Due this, there is sometimes not possible to make data connection, because Uni is so much occupied by changing bands back and forth...
I would like to find a better solution, than select only GSM manually in phone settings. Especially because i have to unselect it manually every time when leaving home :-(
Is there any way to set treshold value (i expect increase it) for automatic switching between WCDMA and GSM?

I still do not know how to switch from UMTS to GPRS and back
with some API function (or AT command) on the device.
If I get these Infos from someone that would be great.
Then I could write a tool that checks the signal quality
and the network status and if UMTS signal is too low
it will activate GPRS.
I think this can be done with RIL API but have not found
any infos.
Houser

Anything new aobut this umts switch problems??
I do have the same problems, often i am unable to make calls, always when umts is on...
would be happy to hear something,
thomas

craigiecraigie4 said:
I support this request; Many topics on the board cover erratic behaviour with JJ, and ppl return their device to no avail. Swopping to another operator often helps. The issues SEEMS to be a poor UMTS reception with a given SIM or location, and this results in JJ trying to connect to UMTS or even latching on to UMTS but with an abysmal signal. After more than 15mins (annecdotal) of this is fails to ever go back to GSM without a reboot.
Solution is to turn off UMTS, but that's darned inconvenient cos you OFTEN want 3G speed (mail, RSS, google/surf).
Here's a way forwards; can someone tell us what reg entry gets changed when we select GSM vs UMTS? I will then write a couple of .reg files that can be launched from iLauncher (or whatever). Buzz coule probably write a switching app like he did for BT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HKLM\SOFTWARE\OEM\UMTS
OPMODE=0/1/2 (AUTO/GSM/UMTS)

Easy way to disable HSDPA (but not 3G)?

Ever since I started using FlexMail with IMAP IDLE I started having trouble making and receiving phone calls. Now I know why: Vodafone's HSDPA network, unlike T-Mobile's, does not automatically adjust data connections down to 3G to allow simultaneous phone calls (see thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=302827). I will switch to T-Mobile, but in the meantime I want to be able to disable HSDPA on my Hermes and simply use 3G for data. Can anyone tell me how to do this easily since it is only a short-term fix and I do not want to invest much time in this?

Kurvenal said:
Ever since I started using FlexMail with IMAP IDLE I started having trouble making and receiving phone calls. Now I know why: Vodafone's HSDPA network, unlike T-Mobile's, does not automatically adjust data connections down to 3G to allow simultaneous phone calls (see thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=302827). I will switch to T-Mobile, but in the meantime I want to be able to disable HSDPA on my Hermes and simply use 3G for data. Can anyone tell me how to do this easily since it is only a short-term fix and I do not want to invest much time in this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try HTweakC - use google if you don't have it. These is a disable HSDPA option in there.

Thanks. Worked perfectly after a soft reset.

Disallow GPRS Connections, but not UMTS

Hey all,
is there anyway of stopping wm6 from connecting to gprs other than deleting the connection?
while i'm under 3g umts coverage, i would like it to be connected as the data is free... but when out of coverage or when my hermes decides its only going to join the roaming network (where i only get gprs), i get charged data.
any ideas guys? couldn't find much in the search. must be searching for the wrong thing or there doesn't seem to be a definate answer. ie, will allow umts, but not gprs etc. most seem to disable data all together.
anyone with Three in australia will know that Telstra charge a lot for using roaming when not in 3g coverage. there must be someone out there with the same dilemma?
Cheers,
Bill

can you just force 3g band only in phone setting?

possibly. at the moment everything is set to auto. so it defaults back to gsm (telstra network) when umts is unavailable. i just dunno what setting to pick for Three's umts. even then there is only one option for UMTS only. umts(2100+850) otherwise they are paired with gsm.
Any thoughts?

this app automatically do this job: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=503131

[Help!!]I can't hook up to HSDPA with my Kaiser anymore....

Hey guys, My device is Kaiser(TyTNII) and AT&T is my operator.
I live in Philadelphia, US.
Before yesterday my TyTNII can access HSDPA (with "H" symbol on the top right) when I try to use internet.
However, I use Kaiser Tweak to change some setting of my device and suddenly my kaiser doesn't recognize HSDPA network anymore, I mean it will only show "3G" on the top right. I have checked all the settings and everything seems fine.
HSDPA function is checked and same as in the Kaiser Tweak.
Can someone help me out here?
Thanks.

i have the same problem, cant go into hsdpa or even 3g only edge. and it seems to have happened after using kaiser tweak also.

Got some help over in the Kaiser forum that helped me. Go to your comm manager then settings/phone/ then go to band and switch your network type to wcdma. after it updated the network i switched back to auto and it seems to be working so far for me. hope this helps you out, something you could try.

I seem to have the same issue but the above solution doesn't help. Whenever I set the phone to do HSDPA through Connections I loss all data connectivity, once I turn it off HSDPA I get 3G.
Is it possible for radio settings to survive a hard rest / ROM upgrade or is the HSDPA side of my Tilt broken :-(
Any insight or help would be real appreciated.
Several times I have gotten "Warning: Unable to change GSM/UMTS Band, Please try again later."

JohnnyGTO said:
I seem to have the same issue but the above solution doesn't help. Whenever I set the phone to do HSDPA through Connections I loss all data connectivity, once I turn it off HSDPA I get 3G.
Is it possible for radio settings to survive a hard rest / ROM upgrade or is the HSDPA side of my Tilt broken :-(
Any insight or help would be real appreciated.
Several times I have gotten "Warning: Unable to change GSM/UMTS Band, Please try again later."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK is it possible for this to be tower related? What I mean is I drove about 4 miles from my house, got a better signal and surfed the internet using HSDPA. Now I'm back home and HSDPA is chocking and giving me "unknown error 0x80072f78"
What He!!?

One note on my HSDPA trouble, it must some how be related to the one tower nearest my home. When I go anywhere outside a 5 miles radius (I live near the tower) everything works fine.
Here is the weird part, every where else the phone will switch from HSDPA to 3G to Edge and back no problem. Here in town it locks into HSDPA and refuses to switch to 3G or anything else. I don't know if it means anything but it seems to get an IP address I can ping but I don't get any DNS info!.
Now how can I convince AT&T that there's a problem when their support person denies there is any HSDPA services and I should only expect 3G?