Database Users

Changing the IMEI

Hi, I have been very happily using my XDA with a '3' SIM after unlocking it but as of this weekend, it stopped working. It will work with other network SIMs so I know the phone is fine. I called '3' but obviously they are not interested. Is it because of the IMEI? If so, I would like to find out how I can change it ... My radio was 4.21 so I downgraded to 3.23.00 and then tried XDA Manipulator but it does not show that option (flashes and dissappears) . I cannot seem to find Radio Stacks V4.06 or 4.10 anywhere ... any help much appreciated.
Details
<Wallaby 5.14, ROM = 3.17.03. Radio = 3.23.00>

How did you downgrade the radio stack, please give me the method used because I know many people will be interested, I have never managed it either.
Reference your usage of the sim from 3, I cannot see it being an imei problem, as you know the xda is not 3 compatable so it will be logging you on through a 3rd party network as far as I know. If the imei was blocked it would not work with any operator here in uk. Does the 3 sim work in another phone.?

I found GERMAN Radio Stack from this forum. (REF:http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=2185). The '3' network also uses O2 network. Have not tried '3' sim in another phone - will test tomorrow.[/b]

cruisin-thru said:
How did you downgrade the radio stack, please give me the method used because I know many people will be interested, I have never managed it either.
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Click to collapse
i have downgraded a few times, but i dont know if this method will work 4 u.
if i currently have a TMO stack, ill go to a ATT stack, then i can bak to an earlier TMO, or visa versa
i only tried this with ATTs and TMOs, never had the need to try other stacks...(or should i :twisted: )

It is possible that the phone has been blocked, I have had this problem with 2 phones that I bought as faulty, I repaired them only to find that the sellers had claimed on insurance then sold the knackered phone which had been blocked by the provider.

JUICEe - I am not brave enuff to go down that route given the dire warnings from this forum in moving from UK/Europe stacks to US ones.
crusing-thru - Given that XDA works perfectly ok with 02 SIM, and '3' SIM works fine in 3' phone, I believe its something about the '3' SIM/Network and not the phone that is preventing me using it in my XDA at this time.
Tx for the interest, hope you were able to downgrade using the German stack. It works fine with O2 SIM.

It is strange though that the sim was working fine then doesnt work in xda but still works in another phone. Have you tried an orange or t mobile sim in the phone? If you are positive that 3 uses O2 as a patch network then ignore this. Have you been to bootloader and inadvertently changed gsm to 900 only, if 3 uses an 1800 network this would explain it, if you havent been to bootloader then I have no idea and if as you said the people at 3 are not interested I would consider dumping them as a service provider.

"Hutchison 3G has agreed to share network facilities owned by UK operator mmO2 to ensure rapid time to market even before its own network is complete, with customers roaming between Hutchison's limited 3G network and mmO2's existing second generation network. Hutchison's right to let customers roam with at least one existing competitor's 2G network is part of the 3G license and enforceable by law."

3 have locked the SIM, must be in one of their phones or will not work, even though it uses O2 as a voice network. Seen this problem many times, and there is nothing you can do about it. Anyone who has made it work is just lucky, and 3 will get to you in the end.
Don't ask me why they do it as to me they are restricting their own business, cos if you use your own handset, you are likely to use it more. Just ask my girlfriend who just hates her nec 606 and hardly uses it!!

Hi,
Basically what happened was that O2 complained to '3'. People were getting the cheap tarriffs from '3' and using them in 2g handsets.
O2's opinion was those people 'should' be using O2 as their provider if they are just using the 2g voice part.
'3' realised that if this becomes wide spread, although they will still make a % off the voice call in profit (after paying O2 for using their 2g network), they wont be acustoming people to using any of the 3g functions.
Really they would be hindering the progression of users from 2g to 3g, which may end up costing them alot more ultimately.
In my opinion it was most likely O2 threatening to take action too.
Really their marketing stratedgy is to give out cheap voice calls, to get the 3 phone in your hand... then they bombard u with offers to try video calls etc etc eventually 'in theory' u get used to these services.. same old story.
I havnt monitored the message, but from what i can tell they are using one of two things to stop the phones working:
1) capability messages from the phone restricting the phone from completing authentification because it isnt '3g' capable. That could be done as part of the auth process, raising the required capability to 3g.
2) Using the SAT (sim application toolkit) capability to talk to the USIM and dissable it.
Although SAT and USIM are not actually compatible, you can talk to a USIM through a SAT phone with limited functions.
If they're using (1) your **** outta luck really. But if that were the case you would expect everyone to be knocked out within the space of a month max (when they update the hlr records). Did you just get your 3 card?
If its 2.. you may be able to try an OLD handset that isnt SAT capable, just to prove the point.
I'm leaning towards (2) because i do know that on many nokia's if u type a number as soon as you boot up the phone it will work.
Also if u leave a digit on the screen.. say 0 as soon as u end that call it will still work when u dial the next number.
Clear the digit and not type one quick enough and you gotta reboot before it'll work again.
Sounds like the nokia firmware blocks access to the sim for other processes, in anticipation of reading the KC and doing an auth when u make the call.
Toxic.

Can I use another phone to connect my phone to the Internet?

Hey,
My friend's phone has (free) Internet access. I doubt it's free but I know she doesn't have a data plan, and she claims she isn't getting any usage charges for accessing the Internet. She's had Cingular for a few years now. Do they offer pay-as-you-use Internet?
Anyway, I'm wondering if I could somehow establish a connection with her phone and then access the Internet. Possibly Bluetooth? I'm using the Wing (HTC Herald).

Generally phones that have BT can function as BT modem. The paring on your side should be pretty straight forward but setting up your friends phone (not a WM device right?) depends on its model.

Yeah I posted the message because I couldn't get it working. I thought I had everything set up correctly on my phone. I probably... I just have to set hers up correctly. She has a Nokia N75 - http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=products,n75
Anyone have any experience with this?

Cingular does have pay as you go, it is very expensive like 1.5cents per k. This ads up in an awful hurry. If this is a new account for your friend, you should check online and see if she is racking up data usage. If so add a data plan before the billing cycle ends. Can be done through cs and they will make it retroactive.

N75 should work as a modem with the HTC Wing without a problem.
I rarely come up to see a data plan in US that have unlimited data access btw
Oh also btw, theres a simpler solution to just insert your friend's sim card into your T-mobile Wing (as long as its unlocked ). Cingular and T-mobile both use GSM anywayz (not like Sprint or Verizon using CDMA).

how to activate Mytouch 3G without a data plan, even a sim card

I am about to purchase a Mytouch but according to what I have heard, you can't go pass the welcome screen without a data plan. Is that correct ? If it isn't, can anyone tell me how to activate it via Wifi using ADB like the process for G1 ?
Thanks a lot

I had the same problem when i first got my phone because i bought it on craigslist (no contract). If you know anyone that has Tmobile with a data plan u can use their sim card to activate your phone. As long as you get past signing in with google you should be good. Please Root your phone in future to avoid having this problem again.

young3g said:
I had the same problem when i first got my phone because i bought it on craigslist (no contract). If you know anyone that has Tmobile with a data plan u can use their sim card to activate your phone. As long as you get past signing in with google you should be good. Please Root your phone in future to avoid having this problem again.
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Thanks for the reply, I thought nobody would answer this ! I knew this, but what I am asking is: How to activate it via adb or something that can be done on G1.
Thanks in advance

te_quiero_forever_girl said:
Thanks for the reply, I thought nobody would answer this ! I knew this, but what I am asking is: How to activate it via adb or something that can be done on G1.
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried following the steps outlined here?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=452316
What I gathered from that tutorial is that the 'unlocking' is simply a record added to a database in the phone, which you can get around if you root the phone and manually add it yourself. Haven't tried this though.

te_quiero_forever_girl said:
Thanks for the reply, I thought nobody would answer this ! I knew this, but what I am asking is: How to activate it via adb or something that can be done on G1.
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out this thread if your'e still having trouble. There is a software for rooting your phone. (Relentless rooter plus).
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=556200

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your replies ! The methods u guys offered are pretty much how to root a magic, means that I must have my phone activated first,lol
Thanks again

First, I do not know how to active the G2 with a SIM, or via Wifi rather than via APN. (I'm trying to do the same thing myself at this time, and still seeking the solution).
BUT... I have found a baby step. I see that when you turn on the phone, it comes up to a starter screen which shows you the green Android, and the two selections, Emergency Dial, and, Change Language. I find that if I click on the "MENU" button, it pops up a tab at the bottom of the screen that says APN. This allows me to change the APN settings. Worthless without SOME data plan, but, it might be helpful to someone trying to use an alternate provider's APN settings (along with a SIM sled / flexible PCB (sold on several sites) behind the SIM to 'unlock' use with an alternative carrier, such as AT&T - easier to borrow an iPhone SIM with a Data plan, as there are more of them). Just a thought.
Just a note, I have already changed my phone from "Donut" to "CupCake", and my goal is to go to "Root". My current HBoot is 1.33.0006 (my phone has the 32B motherboard).

i got past the welcome screen without a data plan. We have 3 mt3g in my house and we all got past the welcome screen.

I just got past the activation screen, but without any magic. The version of firmware I have on my phone (HBOOT-1.33.0006) is likely newer than the one which allowed you to skip authentication without a data plan... I suspect this maneuver / inconvenience was added to the later versions of the firmware for exactly what it tried to require of me - to verify that I am a supposedly new customer, or an existing customer with a 3G data plan.
I was able to activate the phone the first try using my TMobile SIM which has a 5.99 TMobile Web (aka T-Zones) plan on it. That SIM worked for about 1 hour with data access, then MAGICally, the data stopped working, though the phone still worked as a phone.
I read up, and discovered this likely had something to do with the Donut / Cupcake installed on the phone by TMobile. I feel that during the one hour working time, the phone somehow auto-updated something to recognize the level of my SIM / data plan was too low.
Regardless.... I borrowed a co-worker's TMobile SIM - he had NO DATA PLAN... It allowed me to authenticate the G2 via Edge / GPRS / HSDPA. I glean from this that upon receiving an UNKNOWN, but active TMobile SIM card, the phone somehow allows that SIM access to data long enough to activate the phone. But for a SIM the phone has seen before and disabled, the disabled SIM remains disabled for data.
Next step... Root the phone, and swap out the ROM to something that doesn't lock me into requiring another activation via Gmail account (I hear that Hero may be a good ROM...). Crossing my fingers...

NEED HELP - i was reading above hoping that someone would ahve the same issue as me or well to be specific my gf.
She just got a mytouch a few days ago and got it to activate fine and all without having a data plan at all. I tried using her phone and all too and it worked perfectly although today whenever she tries to make a phone call it routes her to tmobile and she can only receive texts and not send them.

gKNOWS said:
NEED HELP - i was reading above hoping that someone would ahve the same issue as me or well to be specific my gf.
She just got a mytouch a few days ago and got it to activate fine and all without having a data plan at all. I tried using her phone and all too and it worked perfectly although today whenever she tries to make a phone call it routes her to tmobile and she can only receive texts and not send them.
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Click to collapse
Did she pay her cell phone bill?

hello to everyone. I live in Brazil and I am having the same problem. My friend bought a htc mytouch 3g in the United States. Now when I turn it on it is asking activation system. How can I do now? I am in Brazil. Look how that is the mytouch trying to turn it on.
http://www.youtube.com/maicoalvim#p/a/u/0/sp_x74-ptRA
Thanks!
Maico

There is in fact no way to activate your plan without a plan. What I did was spend $60 for a single month of the plan, activate the phone, and then cancel it, and it worked fine.
However, if you can find some way to get Cyanogen on your phone, (you can't use the 1-click root application and install the cyanogen recovery image, though without having access to the phone), the newest Cyanogen has a little button to bypass the stupid activation mode, so you'll never need a plan again.
Trust me, it took me 3 months of trying to get it working without a plan.
Edit: Oh, actually if you have a friend with a plan that has a t-mobile phone with internet access (only certain ones work, though, not the sidewinder) you can steal their sim card for a few second and activate it that way.

[Q] A complete beginner to Android - Nexus S

Hi,
Please excuse me for being a n00b and my lack of knowledge about the Android OS but I just brought the Nexus S today (my first smart phone) and I'm after confirmation from someone that I actually brought an "unlocked" Nexus S.
I'm from Australia, visiting the States and I brought the Nexus today. My plan settings from home was set to roaming and I could connect to ATT mobile with my old phone, however when I placed my sim card into the Nexus, I'm not sure if I'm connecting to a network. (I haven't tried calling anyone cause I don't know anyone here and I don't want to rack up a massive phone bill for international calls.)
Under settings, I can see T-mobile and ATT as networks and when I click on one of them, I get the message that it is "Registered on network", however I can't seem to see the usual carrier logo on any of my home pages...so am I connected ?
The receipt from Best Buy said that I brought a phone without a plan but there was a T-mobile sim card in the box it came with, so did the employee give me the wrong one ?
Apologies for the long rant and thanks in advance !
Cheers,
Edit*
Oh yea I should include that I'm not connected to any wifi or any data connection hence all my home pages are saying that I can't connect to anything.. but still, shouldnt the network logo show up ?

No, they gave you the right one...... and also, you are connected.
All boxes come with a tmo sim in there.... the only thing I didn't like that was missing was the different earphone gum size (i'm a small sized and it only comes with a medium one, which means it falls off =( ,,,sucks ) besides that ..............I LOVE MY PHONE!!

Before you left Australia, did you call your carrier and had international roaming activated? On most networks, without international roaming on, you won't get a signal.

[Q] Question about Data plan and Rooting

I have a T-mobile Unlimited Web+ 400 free messages and the issues is this plan is paid for by my company and I cannot change the plan, currently data works on my HD2 with Android.. I want to know if the data will work on a rooted myTouch 4g without changing to Android data plan? Can anyone explain this to me??

If I understand things correctly -- and I may not -- a GSM carrier's "plan" is tied to the SIM card.
With that assumption, you can move the SIM card from the HD2 to the MT4G without T-Mobile's involvement. Whatever agreements you have with T-Mobile will remain in force, assuming the phone is capabile of providing those services. You could also go the other way, and move the SIM to a lower end "feature phone" and be limited to text only, as such a phone doesn't have Data capability. But you or your company would be paying on the same plan.
If you are switching SIMs for any reason -- for instance, keeping the HD2 as a personal phone, then T-Mobile would have to provision the new SIM. Using this scenario, they might recommend moving the HD2's SIM into the MT4G for use as your business phone, and putting the MT4G's SIM into the HD2 and provisioning it with a personal plan.
Rooting and using a custom ROM have no bearing on your carrier plan. Unless you need to return the phone for some reason, in which case restoring stock software is advised.

Thank you
jggimi said:
If I understand things correctly -- and I may not -- a GSM carrier's "plan" is tied to the SIM card.
With that assumption, you can move the SIM card from the HD2 to the MT4G without T-Mobile's involvement. Whatever agreements you have with T-Mobile will remain in force, assuming the phone is capabile of providing those services. You could also go the other way, and move the SIM to a lower end "feature phone" and be limited to text only, as such a phone doesn't have Data capability. But you or your company would be paying on the same plan.
If you are switching SIMs for any reason -- for instance, keeping the HD2 as a personal phone, then T-Mobile would have to provision the new SIM. Using this scenario, they might recommend moving the HD2's SIM into the MT4G for use as your business phone, and putting the MT4G's SIM into the HD2 and provisioning it with a personal plan.
Rooting and using a custom ROM have no bearing on your carrier plan. Unless you need to return the phone for some reason, in which case restoring stock software is advised.
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Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the quick reply.. My main issue is, T-mobile has different data plans for different category of phones, I currently use an HD2 like I told and the data works.. But when I tried using the same SIM in Android it did not work.. I was wondering how T-mobile will know what type of phone I am using...
I don't know how data works on HD2 (on Android).. I totally agree with your explanation, as I am not going to buy a myTouch 4G on contract from T-mobile, I am going to buy it off Craigslist so there will be no T-mobile involvement.. I called up T-mobile to check if I can change my data plan but they said I can't as only my Company can do that.. I cannot ask my company to change the data plan as that is out of the question..
I know its really a strange situation I am in, I am getting a my phone bill paid by my company and I have a data plan so I wanted to know if I can really make good use of it..
Thanks once again...

Hmmm. If the SIM from the Windows phone does not work for you in the Android phone, then there must be more to provisioning of "Data" than the SIM alone -- but moving the SIM should work fine for voice, sms, and mms (which don't use "data" services).
As I suggested, I might have been wrong.

the difference in data plans is nothing more than a marketing scheme. all you have to do is put the sim card from the HD2 into the mt4g and enjoy it, there's nothing else to it. That's the nice thing about using sim cards, no need to call the carrier to activate different phones, just pop your working sim into any phone(as long as it's unlocked or from the same carrier).

erickdj said:
the difference in data plans is nothing more than a marketing scheme. all you have to do is put the sim card from the HD2 into the mt4g and enjoy it, there's nothing else to it. That's the nice thing about using sim cards, no need to call the carrier to activate different phones, just pop your working sim into any phone(as long as it's unlocked or from the same carrier).
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Click to collapse
But anush.isaac has already reported that the SIM did not work in the Android phone. Hmmm.... he also said he is =going= to purchase. So I do not know what Android phone he tested the SIM in. If it was another carrier's locked phone, then that would be the reason for a failure.

jggimi said:
But anush.isaac has already reported that the SIM did not work in the Android phone. Hmmm.... he also said he is =going= to purchase. So I do not know what Android phone he tested the SIM in. If it was another carrier's locked phone, then that would be the reason for a failure.
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Click to collapse
actually, I can report, having come from a blackberry with a blackberry data plan, that it DID take a call to t-mobile to get switched to an android data plan before my internet would fully work on my new (then) g2. Currently loving the mt4g, though. and t-mobile never charged me any extra for the switch, it was just a matter of making things right in their system to get it working.

jmwils3 said:
actually, I can report, having come from a blackberry with a blackberry data plan, that it DID take a call to t-mobile to get switched to an android data plan before my internet would fully work on my new (then) g2.
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Click to collapse
Thats because blackberries have a different internet plan that uses blackberry's own servers as part of the APN. If he's coming from any other phone, his current internet plan should work

cybereclipse said:
Thats because blackberries have a different internet plan that uses blackberry's own servers as part of the APN. If he's coming from any other phone, his current internet plan should work
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Click to collapse
Ok, sorry for confusing things, then. My bad.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

erickdj said:
the difference in data plans is nothing more than a marketing scheme. all you have to do is put the sim card from the HD2 into the mt4g and enjoy it, there's nothing else to it. That's the nice thing about using sim cards, no need to call the carrier to activate different phones, just pop your working sim into any phone(as long as it's unlocked or from the same carrier).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jmwils3 said:
actually, I can report, having come from a blackberry with a blackberry data plan, that it DID take a call to t-mobile to get switched to an android data plan before my internet would fully work on my new (then) g2. Currently loving the mt4g, though. and t-mobile never charged me any extra for the switch, it was just a matter of making things right in their system to get it working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi all,
Thank you very much for the much needed insight... I first apologize for confusing many... Let me tell you the updates..
* I have a data plan called T-mobile Smartphone Unlimited+ 400 free msgs
* I called a T-mobile rep and asked him if I can go to the Android plan, but as I explained earlier I don't have the permissions/authority to change plans as its under my company name and he said he will need to talk to my company's internal phone services (which I don't want to happen..)
* The T-mobile rep also told my plan will work only on Windows based Smart phones that T-mobile offers..
* Currently my data(Internet/Browsing) works with my HD2 running on Android (maybe because it still sees it as a Windows device).
* The phone I tested my SIM was the Vibrant, and the Vibrant's data did not work with my SIM.
My question now, I just Observed, mt APN says TelKila, and I do not know if this has something to do with accessing the network, with my HD2 both APNs TelKila and epc.tmobile.com work.. Let me know your thoughts on this one...

anush.isaac said:
Hi all,
Thank you very much for the much needed insight... I first apologize for confusing many... Let me tell you the updates..
* I have a data plan called T-mobile Smartphone Unlimited+ 400 free msgs
* I called a T-mobile rep and asked him if I can go to the Android plan, but as I explained earlier I don't have the permissions/authority to change plans as its under my company name and he said he will need to talk to my company's internal phone services (which I don't want to happen..)
* The T-mobile rep also told my plan will work only on Windows based Smart phones that T-mobile offers..
* Currently my data(Internet/Browsing) works with my HD2 running on Android (maybe because it still sees it as a Windows device).
* The phone I tested my SIM was the Vibrant, and the Vibrant's data did not work with my SIM.
My question now, I just Observed, mt APN says TelKila, and I do not know if this has something to do with accessing the network, with my HD2 both APNs TelKila and epc.tmobile.com work.. Let me know your thoughts on this one...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There shouldn't be a reason why it wouldn't work. Was that vibrant you tried also a t-mobile phone or was it from a different carrier? Why not go to a t-mobile store and try your sim card on one of their demo mt4g's? That's about the only way to know for sure. I used the same sim card I had on my G1 for two years on my mt4g as soon as I took it out of the box and it worked fine.

erickdj said:
There shouldn't be a reason why it wouldn't work. Was that vibrant you tried also a t-mobile phone or was it from a different carrier? Why not go to a t-mobile store and try your sim card on one of their demo mt4g's? That's about the only way to know for sure. I used the same sim card I had on my G1 for two years on my mt4g as soon as I took it out of the box and it worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the Vibrant is for T-mobile only.. When I called T-mobile they said that my current data plan only works for Windows based devices and if i want to use an Android Device I will have to change my data plan to an Android data plan that they have. Somehow T-mobile are able to find out what device I am using and they are able to filter my data service. Since I cannot change my current data plan I am stuck to using a Windows device!! BUMMER!!
If there is any workaround I will be more than happy to do it, so I can make data working on my Android phone...

I'm a T-Mobile employee (RSA), and I can confirm that the type of data plan (known as the SOC) matters. They're actually working to change that (the new "4G" SOCs work for everything except blackberry). What this also means is that if you were on a legacy/promo SOC and you change platforms, you may lose that promo/legacy rate (a good chat with customer service might help, but all the guys in the store can do is call customer service for you). I don't really know any more details as to how it works on the back end, but that's the end result.