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Where I live Cingular has leased their service (towers) to a company called Edge Wireless. Edge Wireless is called a partner company to Cingular. They use the same equipment . Anyway, this means that Cingular won't sell me their phones or their cell service. I am forced to buy these things through Edge Wireless (whatever happened to a free market?).
What I'd like to know, is can I buy a Cingular 8525 (aka Hermes/TyTN) and use it with Edge Wireless service? My current phone is a Nokia 2260 (very old CDMA phone). It doesn't have a SIM. How do I go about making sure that I can:
1) Get a Cingular 8525 to work
2) Get a SIM for it from my provider Edge Wireless
I'm kind of new to all of this. I just want to use an 8525/Hermes/TyTN and I'm trying to find a way to do so.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
If you want to use an 8525 on another network, you'd need to get it unlocked first, as it's currently locked to Cingular. After it's unlocked, you're free to use it on ANY carrier in the world that supports GSM.
But this IS Cingular's network (or is it?) That's really what my question is about. It's Cingular's equipment (towers and such). When my friend (who has a Cingular phone where he lives visits his phone says "Cingular" on it. Mine says Edge (I'm referring to the network. Neither one says ROAM.
It's all pretty confusing to me.
Thank you for the help.
why not just go out of town and get cingular service? Im always a fan of cutting out the middle man. Also since EDGE is a partner that means cingular may own the towers, but they have an agreement not to sell cellular service there (im sure the fcc is to thank for this, something about allowing other companies to compete blah blah blah, i work in a similiar enviroment, however in telco world this is considered a CLEC competative local exchange carrier, im sure its different for wireless). Since EDGE is leasing then neither of you will roam while in the area...
shogunmark said:
why not just go out of town and get cingular service? Im always a fan of cutting out the middle man. Also since EDGE is a partner that means cingular may own the towers, but they have an agreement not to sell cellular service there (im sure the fcc is to thank for this, something about allowing other companies to compete blah blah blah, i work in a similiar enviroment, however in telco world this is considered a CLEC competative local exchange carrier, im sure its different for wireless). Since EDGE is leasing then neither of you will roam while in the area...
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I was concerned that I would get my service canceled if I did this.
I'd tried to take advantage of a deal at Amazon.com for the 8525 for $190, but since my credit card address was out of the area, they said it wouldn't work most likely...
Over the last few weeks Ive noticed that I can no longer get Edge data on my 8125. It seemingly happened overnight. Ive been in Florida and Chicago and both coverage maps show Edge as being available and Ive used it in the past. Therefore, Im thinking its some type of internal issue with my device. I can only receive GPRS. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Please help.
hayseed said:
Over the last few weeks Ive noticed that I can no longer get Edge data on my 8125. It seemingly happened overnight. Ive been in Florida and Chicago and both coverage maps show Edge as being available and Ive used it in the past. Therefore, Im thinking its some type of internal issue with my device. I can only receive GPRS. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Please help.
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I have had loss of Data entirely with some of the new radio/wm6 combos
it is usually solved by soft reset.
what GSM version do you have 2.19, 2.25, 2.47, 2.61, something else?
I have had dataproblems with 2.47 and 2.61 but then again i got wm6 at the same time so it could be that.
Post the rom version you are using also.
Im using ROM version 2.25.11.1 WWE. Not sure what GSM version. How can I tell?
hayseed said:
Im using ROM version 2.25.11.1 WWE. Not sure what GSM version. How can I tell?
Click to expand...
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when it loads up
IPL x.xxxx
SPL x.xxx
GSM x.xxx
OS x.xxx
Just so you know the GSM = Rodio version
The thing i have noticed is that things get messed up on WM phones just like they do on windows computers. Flashing a phone can make problems go away. I am addicted to flashing my phones. recently I have been doing it at least once a day. If you have wireless active sync and a big storage card flashing your phone doesn't slow you down a bit.
I guess what I am saying is try reflashing your phone, or changing the radio only or a simple hard reset, then see if you get your edge back.
I lost my Edge data too
Around the first of February, my phone quit receiving edge data in my home town. icould receive it fine in other areas, but it just went away at home.
four calls to cingular all said the same thing. "We don't offer edge in your area". This despite the fact that I've been using it and paying $45 per month for the past 5 months.
I think I must have been getting a signal from a third party and that party no longer plays nice with ATT.
zanda61 said:
Around the first of February, my phone quit receiving edge data in my home town. icould receive it fine in other areas, but it just went away at home.
four calls to cingular all said the same thing. "We don't offer edge in your area". This despite the fact that I've been using it and paying $45 per month for the past 5 months.
I think I must have been getting a signal from a third party and that party no longer plays nice with ATT.
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How can you tell the difference aside from the speed of it. If you have the reghack to make the "E" icon appear does it change to "G" when you have no EDGE?
I don't think I have ever not gotten EDGE anywhere I have been. I am just kind of curious how you know that you aren't getting it.
I'm curious too
My phone always showed an "E" for edge data just about everywhere I went (I live in SE Kansas). Around the first of February, the "E" changed to a "G" and the data rate slowed to the range called "unusable". I bought the "unlimited" data package and was using the phone to stream xm radio for about 30 minutes a day.
After the "E" went away where I live, I took the phone to Kansas City and the "E" returned, so I don't think the phone was having problems. According the Cingular's service maps, my town is in their "extended" area, meaning I'm probably roaming on someone elses tower (probably Alltel). I noticed that Sprint and Alltell recently inked a deal to share their towers and I notice that both Sprint and Alltell offer their 70k bandwidth data in my area. My guess is Cingular decided I was being a little too "unlimited" so the gave me the axe. I called and cancelled the $40 per month charge.
I've talked to people in Rural SE Kansas who have been called by Cingular and told they are being dropped as a customer because they are making a high percentage of their calls from towers that aren't owned by Cingular.
I've made a big investment in phones with Cingular and will stay on as a customer. My hope is that they'll roll out the data carpet here again soon. If not, I'll switch to Sprint or Alltel....I just hate that little antenna though.
alltel and Cingular
Say what. Altell and Sprint run off of a diffrent network technologies than GSM. I'm sure this might have been do to some roaming agreements expiring. I know that some T-mobile roaming agreements have expired with Cingular and they probably arn't going to renew them. You were probably roaming on another providers network but I can guarantee that it wasn't sprint, verizon or alltell they are not gsm
sandrobber said:
Say what. Altell and Sprint run off of a diffrent network technologies than GSM. I'm sure this might have been do to some roaming agreements expiring. I know that some T-mobile roaming agreements have expired with Cingular and they probably arn't going to renew them. You were probably roaming on another providers network but I can guarantee that it wasn't sprint, verizon or alltell they are not gsm
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An interesting topic, I knew that the formentioned companies were not GSM, however I just got thinking about roaming and coverage with GSM. Does anyone have definative list of what GSM companies have roaming agreements with what other companies and how that works?
I use a company called UNICEL they have the lock down in my area, Vermont, being that vermont and other areas that UNICEL covers are heavily trafficed by tourists that use Cingular or T-Mobile I know that UNICEL has gotten good roaming agreements with them. In fact I have even gotten access credits when my data didn't work on Long Island, NY for an afternoon (I thought that was pretty cool that UNICEL gave me money back on my nation wide data when I was on Cingular's network)
Anyway I wonder if little old UNICEL has such nice arangements in place with other little providers. Perhaps I try to get that info and start a thread about it so others can give info about there networks. It could be a pretty good or at least interesting network.
zanda61 the other thing I find interesting is that your "home area" is not in the Cingular network, I have known quite a few people that have been dropped for doing this. How are you able to maintain your plan? Do you frenquent an area that has Cingular coverage and make calls there?
Phone Home
When I signed up over the telephone, the sales rep said nothing about me not being in their "home" area. I simply made the assumption that they wanted the business so they were offering phones nationwide. We have a family plan with rollover and rarely use our monthly allotment of minutes. Also, my daughter lives in KC so she makes all of her calls on the home network.
We've been customers for about 4 years now and they've never said a word about our usage habits.
I know Sprint and Alltel use cdma phones, but they are the only other carriers in this area. I don't know that much about the radios other than they use a different frequency. But don't they both offer phones with radios that will work at different frequencies?
By the way, thanks for writing back. I hope I haven't hijacked this thread but this stuff is fascinating to me.
I have an ADP1 on AT&T. If i enable data roaming, can T-Mobile charge me for using their network?
I heard that the G1 may connect to T-Mobiles exclusive band (be it 3G or whatever) and hence T-Mobile may bill AT&T who will bill me. Is this possible/has this happened to anyone?
Is it wise in this case to enable data roaming?
Data Roaming is only allowed if ATT and T-Mobile have a contract to share networks. I doubt they do since usually you only do that if you don't have service in that area. And usually it goes both ways.
neoobs said:
Data Roaming is only allowed if ATT and T-Mobile have a contract to share networks. I doubt they do since usually you only do that if you don't have service in that area. And usually it goes both ways.
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Ok, so I've had data roaming on for the past couple weeks, am I going to be looking at a $9000 dollar bill? (Also, have enabled 3G mode)
So you have a G1 with AT&T and you get 3G???
Binary100100 said:
So you have a G1 with AT&T and you get 3G???
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Yes, I get 3G all the time
Oh snap.. You probably connected to T-Mobile's 3G...
bull****.
i have att and a adp phone. live in a tmo 3g area...get nothing.
Easiest way to figure it out is going to be contact AT&T but from the last I heard none of the carriers charge roaming fees because none of the carriers use roaming. Now I know some areas they might but for the most part they don't share networks anymore.
liar..... prove it with pics
I recommend EVERYONE turn of Data roaming on their phones.
It's mega expensive,, and IMO the phone should default to data roaming off.
I ended up with an extra $2k in charges for 10 days up in Canada.
someprogr said:
Yes, I get 3G all the time
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He's probably connecting to some poor guys unsecure wifi network.
However this guy is saying that he can connect but it's fairly inconsistant:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=490696
Not sure about that guy's 3G claims. I'm on ATT. I have the normal unlimited data and text plan. According to the service rep (I called) roaming in the US is free. In the contract there's some stipulations as to how much they will allow you to roam, data and voice. It's some percentage of your usage. When I'm in San Diego, I roam on TMO 3G sometimes, and I've never been charged extra. I wish there was a way to force roam. Of course the phone companies still have roaming agreements. ATT phones will ONLY roam on TMO (and vice versa). They're the only GSM providers in the US.
So I'm from Belgium, Europe but am going to study at Northwest Missouri State University from January till the end of April, but of course I need a mobile provider while I'm there, but since I know **** about the carriers in the USA, and well, websites of the carriers don't always mention everything, I'm just asking you guys, which mobile provider and/or plan should I take for those 5 months?
I don't care if it's prepaid or a contract or whatever, as long as it stops after 5 months.
I've got a HTC Sensation, so would like some data with that.
Thanks in advance for responding!
then ur only choices here in the USA is T-Mobile or At&t. If u like to pay more u can go to att and can get 3G data due to the tmobile us frequency is 1700 so you may only get EDGE speed. But with tmobile prepaid cost $50 a month for unlimited talk text and data (i believe 2GB).
your not going to be able to get contact cuz u need a SS# and credit.
t-mobile is great since its parent company its t-mobile deucthe telcom
Sprint, never had a problem
A: Verizon
Sent from my Dinc2
He needs a carrier that uses GSM. Verizon and Sprint are not the droid your looking for.
It doesn't matter if it uses gsm or wcdma i bought my sensation on ebay from usa, it was branded and stuff, so i think it would work with any provider in usa.
You won't actually be able to use Verizon or Sprint with the Sensation because CDMA technology requires completely different radios. To be able to use either standard, your phone would have to be a (what CDMA providers in America call) "world phone", like the iPhone 4S or the Motorola Photon.
Since you already have a phone, you could do either a T-Mobile value plan or a Simple Mobile unlimited plan. Both run on T-Mobile's network, so the coverage should be exactly the same. T-Mobile isn't the absolute best carrier, so I'd check coverage in the area that you'll be spending the most time in. However, T-Mobile's 4G and 3G speeds are pretty good, and better than AT&T (the only major GSM alternative) in most places. I have no idea how (or even if they offer them) AT&T's SIM card-only plans work.
Thanks, I search some more and found this page:
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans
So the unlimited web & text with 100 minutes talk $30 plan would be perfect?
Even though I feel they are the better carrier, AT&T likely wouldn't be a viable option as their prepaid plans do not support smartphone as well as the others.
Postpaid could be an option, but they would likely want a cash deposit since you lack a social and credit history.
yes but NOTICE AFTER 2G tmo slows your data but ur school must have wifi networks built in so that wouldn't really be a problem and u can enable wifi calling at the store (free calls) or use google voice to call
xtrem88 said:
yes but NOTICE AFTER 2G tmo slows your data but ur school must have wifi networks built in so that wouldn't really be a problem and u can enable wifi calling at the store (free calls) or use google voice to call
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WiFi calling still uses plan minutes.
I'll probably call with skype, so that isn't a problem, I've also noticed on the tmo site that tmo has a fast mobile connection at northwest missouri state university, is this 3g?
Its 4g 21 or 42 mbps
Sent from my SGH-T839 using XDA App
I was a 4 year subscriber to T-mobile. I had very good coverage but at the end of my contract i decided to go the prepaid route. First i went with Myfamily service from Walmart - powered by T-mobile. I didn't like the service. It didn't use typical the T-mobile APN network connection. I had trouble connecting to the service. Returned it without loss of money. I went with ATT's prepaid service. Super quick setup and out the door. I get dropped calls, out of service issues, weak connection signal. Tried 15 different modems with no success. Went to return, no refund. If the service is working they won't refund. I said the service is intermittent, so if it works half the time it is good enough for no refund. Jerks cost me $50 bucks. Went back to T-mobile but prepaid this time. APN settings are the same but now my signal is weak. My home use is near non-existent because of out of service issues.
Does prepaid set you up as a low priority on their network? My contract signal was 89 db 12 asu from home. My prepaid signal is 113 db 2 asu.
One thing that it could be but haven't tried yet is my build. I am running CM10 nightly. I have searched and found nobody else with similar issues but I am ready to go back to Froyo and test the theory. I believe the real problem is prepaid
T959 Vibrant
CM10
Semaphore kernel
KA7 modem
Prepaid service is the same tier as contract through T-Mobile. Try kb5 modem and see if it helps. I'm on the same plan as you and couldn't be happier, except for the fact there is only edge coverage where I live.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda premium
It depends on the phone hardware and radio and probably other factors. I put solder on the contacts of the Vibrant antenna and my signal has been improved. Then I bought a nexus S with weaker signal. Depends on the location it fluctuate from -120 to -75db.
Sent from my LG Nexus 4
So I went back to Froyo and confirmed that the CM10 build isn't the issue. I never had an issue making calls or network connectivity on contract, with the same phone. While you may be correct that prepaid isn't a lower tier, I bet that there is more than just Edge network available but prepaid limits you.
jpatt said:
So I went back to Froyo and confirmed that the CM10 build isn't the issue. I never had an issue making calls or network connectivity on contract, with the same phone. While you may be correct that prepaid isn't a lower tier, I bet that there is more than just Edge network available but prepaid limits you.
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No, I am positive that there is only edge (2g) where I live. I've checked all T-Mobile coverage maps and spoke to tech support. If I drive 4miles east I get hspa. They do not limit or decrease network access to their prepaid customers. Prepaid is a large marketing point for T-Mobile.
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Ok, so maybe I don't know your area. What is common knowledge is that phones typically "downshift" to slower data protocols (1xRTT, EDGE) when 3G service is not available. I believe they are downshifting prepaid.
Nothing else can account for having the same carrier, the same phone, contract account had no issues, the prepaid account have mobile network not available.
My wife has the Lumia 710 on T-mobile contract. While it is a 4G phone, you would think the distance from a cell tower dictates connections issues, which she has none and my 3G does.
Honestly prepaid and contract should be no different. Hopefully you get straightened out. The only thing as far as service/downshifting that I'm aware of is throttling which happens when I reach my data limit. However it doesn't effect signal strength, only the speed.
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