Country-locked phone? - XPERIA X1 General

Hi there.
I have a friend who has an X1. He is reporting that the X1 is working with his O2 sim card and working on Vodafone however it isnt working with his Latvian sim card (in the UK) (i.e. Tele2 and LMT). Are there any settings you need to change in order to enable roaming? Is it possible for a phone to be country-locked?
Thanks,
Lawrence

It might be the phone is locked..then again it might not be.
What does he see when he puts in the card? How long do you wait while it searches for a signal? (Sometimes when I'm roaming it takes a few moments -in egypt I think I waited 2 minutes - it might take longer for Latvia to register for one or other reason).

thanks for your quick reply!
I dont think it is locked because it works on both O2 and Vodafone fine. I bought the phone from vodafone and all of their phones come unlocked.

its more likely that the phone isnt using the correct setting for the service provider... usually when the phone detect a new sim it will ask you if you want to change your settings... your friend may have missed it and didnt change the setting so it didnt work

Roaming is enabled by the origin network, not by the phone.
There is a chance that some of the UK networks don't allow those SIMs to roam on their network, but you would need all 4 for them not to work.

another reason could be too old incompatible sim card
people have from time to time reported rather old sim cards being
incompatible and solved it by getting newer sim card from their operator

Related

handbook?

Hi Folks
Does anyone have a soft copy of the handbook for the Universal they could post or mail me? Love to have a read.
Also, for the 3G calling, does it use a sim or usim?
cheer
Brett
mavrik64 said:
Hi Folks
Does anyone have a soft copy of the handbook for the Universal they could post or mail me? Love to have a read.
Also, for the 3G calling, does it use a sim or usim?
cheer
Brett
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3G traffic (be it data or video) always require a USIM. If you don't have any, you cannot get onto the 3G network. I'm actually having this issue, as I travel to the UK a lot, where T-mobile has a live 3G network. As I do not have a USIM (since T-Mobile NL doesn't offer 3G yet), I cannot roam onto their 3G network, only onto GPRS...
Bugger...
My operator (Telenor in Norway) enables the customers to use their OLD SIM cards and still have full 3G access!
My SIM card is from 2004, but customers may use cards that go back to July 2000 on the 3G network..
There has been some Over The Air updates, but these might be for something else..
The user only gets a SMS saying: "You SIM card has been updated, please reboot your phone."
So we can use the same SIM on a new and old phone, 3G or no 3G...
http://www.manuals.t-mobile.co.uk/start.asp?manual=1217
Not 100% what you're after, but hope that helps.
stamppot said:
3G traffic (be it data or video) always require a USIM. If you don't have any, you cannot get onto the 3G network. I'm actually having this issue, as I travel to the UK a lot, where T-mobile has a live 3G network. As I do not have a USIM (since T-Mobile NL doesn't offer 3G yet), I cannot roam onto their 3G network, only onto GPRS...
Bugger...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'm using a 4-year-old T-Mobile SIM in my JasJar, and I'm getting 3G access with absolutely no problems...
I didn't think there was such a thing as a USIM exactly? I got the impression that a "USIM" was just a normal 3v SIM card which has been enabled for use on the UMTS network. And that's done by pressing a button at T-Mobile 'Command Centre'...
'3' here in the UK make a big deal about USIM cards, and how you have to have one to use a 3G phone, but that only seems to apply to their handsets, because they put about 800 billion security locks on each of them. In my experience, Vodafone and T-Mobile don't require you to upgrade the actual SIM card at all, and I assume that Orange and O2 are the same.
sub69 said:
Well, I'm using a 4-year-old T-Mobile SIM in my JasJar, and I'm getting 3G access with absolutely no problems...
I didn't think there was such a thing as a USIM exactly? I got the impression that a "USIM" was just a normal 3v SIM card which has been enabled for use on the UMTS network. And that's done by pressing a button at T-Mobile 'Command Centre'...
'3' here in the UK make a big deal about USIM cards, and how you have to have one to use a 3G phone, but that only seems to apply to their handsets, because they put about 800 billion security locks on each of them. In my experience, Vodafone and T-Mobile don't require you to upgrade the actual SIM card at all, and I assume that Orange and O2 are the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, you learn something new every day... It could be that one can indeed update the SIM to a USIM with a OTA update, I just hadn't heard about that before. I might put in a phonecall to T-Mobile...
Thanks for the heads-up!
I'd better just point out that my last post was entirely guesswork on my part, based on the fact that my old T-Mobile SIM, and my sister's (3-year?)old Vodafone SIM both work perfectly in 3G devices.
In my case, I never even told T-Mobile that I'd bought a 3G phone, the SIM just worked on 3G from the second I put it in, so no OTA upgrade needed? (Of course, maybe they gave us UK customer's an upgrade one night without telling us?!)
My sister got an official Vodafone upgrade to a 3G phone, so they may have done an OTA thingy at the time, but the actual physical card is the same...

3 Network uk

Has anyone managed to get there artemis working with a 3g sim card? ie.e the 3 network in the uk? www.three.co.uk? sometimes known as hutchinson 3g?
i spoke to a mobile phone shop in southall (middlesex) and they said its possble but £50!!!!
patterns said:
Has anyone managed to get there artemis working with a 3g sim card? ie.e the 3 network in the uk? www.three.co.uk? sometimes known as hutchinson 3g?
i spoke to a mobile phone shop in southall (middlesex) and they said its possble but £50!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not tried it, but UK O2 Orbits are not network locked, you can put any SIM in - although with it not being a 3G device, there seems little point in putting a Three SIM in as it will just drop back to whichever GSM network Three piggybacks on (O2 I think). I'v just bought a three sim for £1.25 on ebay, so I'll load it up and see what the coverage is like near me - I only get intermittent t-mobile in my place...
it used to be possible but then 3 started to locking their sims so they only worked in 3g phones
aha!
im not so fussed about the 3g coverage its more being able to use that sim card in the phone, whethe rit roams off of o2 or etc. i got my phoen unlocked (originally t-mobile compact 3) and its the only simcard that doessnt work - thats why im suspicios of this shop[ who says they can doo it for £50
please keep me updated as to how your simcard goes, and if anyone knows a way of doing this im all ears!

Roaming problem

Since some months I'm in Egypt for business reasons. I don't use my hermes very often here, because I'm having some duty phones. More or less I'm playing around with it, every now and then I'm turning the radio on to look for text messages from good old Austria.
I'm using an Austrian ONE Sim card and roam with Vodafone Egypt. In the place where I'm leaving I have 100% net.
Some days ago - I was testing S2U2 - I noticed that I can not call my hermes while the Austrian Sim card is inserted. I tried it with two different duty phones with Egyptian Sim cards, I tried it with another phone with an Austrian Sim card in it, its always the same: "The number you've dialed is incomplete". Of course the number is not incomplete. I can make phone calls from my hermes with the Austrian Sim card in it, but I can not call it. BTW: I tried it with UMTS on and off, same result. Its working fine if I insert an Egyptian Sim card, so apparently its a roaming problem.
Its not that important, because I don't use roaming with my hermes (too expensive, thank you very much ONE *ggg*), but I'm curious whats going on. Guess its a problem caused by my home provider?
Any ideas?

[Q] Constant roaming with local SIM Card...

My Original HD2 got screwed just before Christmas (Faulty LCD and Digitiser).
As a replacement, I bought another one from ebay. Mint condition.
The phone works PERFECTLY in every way except one....
For some reason, my phone thinks its roaming CONSTANTLY, and if I turn off the 'data connection while roaming' then I cant connect to the internet.
This isnt actually a phone fault, but seems to be directly related to the SIM card.
Im living in Ireland and have a Meteor SIM which shows as roaming CONSTANTLY. Tried it with WM factory rom, energyrom, Android from SD card and Nand. All OSes show it as roaming even though Meteor is an IRISH company, and I bought the card in a local Carphone warehouse.
If I change the SIM to a vodafone (Ireland) one, or Tesco one, they show correctly as non-roaming.
Is there a possibility that the phone has some sort of ID which the Meteor Sim is reading but the others cant?
If not, Is there anything I can do to the SIM, or any phone settings that I am missing in order to get this issue resolved. Starting to annoy the HELL out of me.......
What network do Metior use? I had a similar problem with a 3 sim card. This kept coming up as roaming although I was only local. The 3 shop said that if you lose a 3G signal it will show as roaming and transfer you to a partner network ( 3 use orange) could it be similar with your sim?
May well be. The area I am in is low on 3g coverage from Meteor, and drops to Edge.
FINALLY got in touch with customer services at meteor and they hadnt a clue why I should show as roaming, but my bill shows NO roaming charges and infact the account wasnt even set up for roaming.....

Dual Sim networking

Hi people,
I've searched the forum for an answer to my question, no joy so here goes on a new thread.
I recently bought myself a Chinese dual sim smart phone, named "Longhorn" (no sniggering!), but pretty sure it's better known as a STAR MTK6573. Great phone for the money, 1GB processor, all the bells and whistles. My problem is that I want to use two sim cards, one from a British network, one from a Norwegian network. Right now I'm in Norway and the Norwegian sim is working faultlessly, the British sim works when the phone is switched on first, but then after varying amounts of time the British sim drops out of service. If I turn the phone off, then restart the UK sim comes back into service but again goes off after some time, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours.
I've looked through the sim related settings but can't find a solution, and even contacted the British network operator to see if they know any answers - they don't.
I'll be going to the UK shortly so it'll be interesting to see if the Norwegian sim starts cutting service when I'm there, in the time being does anyone have any ideas for a permanent solution?
Thanks to all for reading, and musing on the problem, in anticipation.
Jon
modelman1968 said:
Hi people,
I've searched the forum for an answer to my question, no joy so here goes on a new thread.
I recently bought myself a Chinese dual sim smart phone, named "Longhorn" (no sniggering!), but pretty sure it's better known as a STAR MTK6573. Great phone for the money, 1GB processor, all the bells and whistles. My problem is that I want to use two sim cards, one from a British network, one from a Norwegian network. Right now I'm in Norway and the Norwegian sim is working faultlessly, the British sim works when the phone is switched on first, but then after varying amounts of time the British sim drops out of service. If I turn the phone off, then restart the UK sim comes back into service but again goes off after some time, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours.
I've looked through the sim related settings but can't find a solution, and even contacted the British network operator to see if they know any answers - they don't.
I'll be going to the UK shortly so it'll be interesting to see if the Norwegian sim starts cutting service when I'm there, in the time being does anyone have any ideas for a permanent solution?
Thanks to all for reading, and musing on the problem, in anticipation.
Jon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try switching the SIM-Slots ?
Are both using same freq ?
Did you used Sim-Turbo or other "perfect unlockers" ? <- im asking because after using one of those "great" inventions my SIM started to droping signal on diffrent phone (like the X-Turbo/X-Sim/Sim-Turbo) install some junk on sim...
Dual Sim
sapsa said:
Did you try switching the SIM-Slots ?
Are both using same freq ?
Did you used Sim-Turbo or other "perfect unlockers" ? <- im asking because after using one of those "great" inventions my SIM started to droping signal on diffrent phone (like the X-Turbo/X-Sim/Sim-Turbo) install some junk on sim...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for your answer. I haven't installed any sim "enhancing" software, and the phone is brand new. Swapping the sim slots doesn't seem to make a difference, even though only one is WDMA. I think the problem is to do with roaming from my UK sim, when the signal strength drops out the sim loses service to the roaming network, but doesn't reinstate the service when signal improves.
Update
OK, so a little progress was made! The phone only has the option to set one of the SIMs as 3g. The local SIM was set as the default and therefore had the 3g setting applied to it. If I force change the 3g to the roaming SIM the roaming SIM stays in service for longer, and is more stable but still loses service periodically (at least twice a day). Any further suggestions?
Dual Sim while roaming - solved
modelman1968 said:
OK, so a little progress was made! The phone only has the option to set one of the SIMs as 3g. The local SIM was set as the default and therefore had the 3g setting applied to it. If I force change the 3g to the roaming SIM the roaming SIM stays in service for longer, and is more stable but still loses service periodically (at least twice a day). Any further suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I now have a working dual sim phone using two networks from two different countries. My initial headaches were all caused by the overseas network SIM. Either faulty or incompatable but after a SIM swap from the network company it now works faultlessly.

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