Hi guys and girls,
Today, i'm writing my first post on this wonderfull forum. I have a problem.
I have very bad network sensivity on every Android phone i have. I'm kinda new to android but i know at least a minimum.
The questions:
If i buy a phone in a country and then take it to another country, can it lead to bad network?
Can the baseband version of a phone be good in one country and bad in another?
Are the OTA updates specific to a country (scandinavian android updated in a non scandinavian country) or are they different from a country to another?
The actual situation:
I live in Belgium but i'm norwegian and i'm used to Norwegian keyboards with Æ, Ø, Å characters) so I have bought my a SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro in Norway, but i think after i did the 2.1 update in Belgium i got bad network. Now i got a HTC Desire Z also bought in Norway and had perfect network in norway, i updated to the 1.72 still in norway and still had perfect network. Then i came back in belgium and had bad network. Then i updated to 1.82 and then to 2.42 (the gingerbread version 2.3.3) and i still have thebad network problems in Belgium. The rom is still the scandinavian/nordic and i was wondering if there is a different baseband version in the ota update from norway and the one from belgium eventhough its still the scandinavian sense rom.
If this is the answer to my problem.
Since i'm on a gingerbread Desire Z, how can i change the baseband version?
I guess i'll have to root, Is there a easy way to root a GB DZ?
Info:
Android: 2.3.3
Baseband version 12.56.60.25U_26.10.04.03_m
Kernel: 2.6.35.10-g7b95729
Software number 2.42.405.2
If you need more info or anything, just ask me. I really want to solve my problem and help others maybe find an answer to theirs.
Thanks in advance,
Bendik
Anybody? Please?
I really need help on this one.
define "bad network" are you sure the carriers in each country use the same bands? Radio loads and RILs will make all the difference. Have you tried locking to 2G?
Well, by saying bad network i mean i have between 0 and 3 bars most of the time. Even with nice weather.
I have no idea if my countries carriers use the same bands. But what i discovered was that if i use my norwegian sim card in belgium (roaming or something) and i use Mobistar (another network carrier) then i have 4 bars allways. I couldn't try to roam on base (my actual carrier) or proximus (wich is the lands monopol carrier).
The thing about radio loads and RIL's i didnt understand anything.
And locking in 2G doesn't change anything.
There are three carriers in belgium: Base (my actual carrier), mobistar, and Proximus (the countrys main carrier)
I ordered free SIM cards from the other belgian carriers.
I got one from mobistar and it worked perfectly.
I haven't tried proximus yet.
Base is the one i have problems with.
So no i have another question: Is there any differences between sim cards from one carrier to another one? Except that they dont allow me to connect to other carriers than the card carrier?
I know i may be spamming a little bit but this is kinda important to me.
So please, if anyone could give answers or help me i would be thankfull.
I think that not all carriers have the same signal strength in a specific location .
In my country there is three mobile networks and in my home they are not equal in signal strength .
one with zero signal , the second with moderate signal and the last one with perfect signal even though they are equal in the street which is 10 meters away from home !!!
You said that mobistar works perfectly so maybe you should stick with them and ignore the one you use right now .
Thanks for answering me.
I really liked base because i had so really cheap bills. Instead of paying 25€ for free texts and ringing and some internet im paying 10€ with my actual one.
I mailed base in case they could help me, and after about 2 weeks i finally got an answer. Theyre working on it...
Maybe it is the 3g band. Look, here in my city, if I use 2g, it works OK but in some areas i have no signal. If I turn on the 3G, I have a very good signal in almost every corner of the city. Verifiy that.
Hello,
-The easiest way might be to contact your actual operator, they should check the 2G/3G coverage in your area. But i guess you can do this yourself, somewhere on their website they should have a map with their signal strenght.
-Change your mobile phone; try the sim card in a different phone. Does it get the same signal strenght? - With this you will determine if the problem is in your mobile phone. If you get better signal in a different phone, you may have a broken anthena in your device or you've messed up something in the settings.
-Ask someone around you with your carrier what strenght does he get. If it is higher than yours and you got the same strenght in more than one phone you may have a wrong sim card. The carrier should change it for you.
Check this and let me know the result I'll try to help.
bendik18 said:
Thanks for answering me.
I really liked base because i had so really cheap bills. Instead of paying 25€ for free texts and ringing and some internet im paying 10€ with my actual one.
I mailed base in case they could help me, and after about 2 weeks i finally got an answer. Theyre working on it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am very interested to find out what Base does as I am in a similar situation to you though I bought my Xperia 10 mini pro here in Belgium.
When I use my Base sim card I have problems with the signal on either of the tree network settings.
When I use my Slovenian one, I don't have any problems roaming on Base, Mobistar or Proximus.
I always get a good signal when I use my Base card in a different phone though.
Sounds like the frequency for me! Check the frequency of the 3G band for your 3 operators and then check if your cell phones can handle that.
I saw that Mobistar (/the only carrier i get good network on has another band if i understood right)
Im still contacting my actual operator about the issue and they will need another 2 weeks before they can answer me... Of course...
SIM Card in another phone, in a 2G phone SE k550 i have full network. When i lock to 2G on my Android phone, it still has sucky network.
I have a friend (OMG) on the same carrier i had network problems with. he has allways full network, i'll try to see if i can make him come over and test the network with his android phone (acer liquid metal or something)
Ok, let us know how that goes
yes,you may lead to bad network.but the chances are little
Are you on 3g only?
In belgium, Proximus and Mobistar have the best networks.
Base has 97%coverage of edge, but their 3g network sucks.
Are you certain that its everywhere in belgium that base has a bad reception?
I contacted my operator, they told me to try to lock to 2G, i tried it for an hour and still no succes. I restarted my phone after i locked to 2G juste to be sure. Still no success.
I've allready tried in another phone, in my old SE k550 i have full network allmost all the time. I've had the same problem in my x10 mini pro even after a fresh original reset. I really dont think its the phone since i have perfect network when i'm on Mobistar (another carrier that is expensive).
I have a friend that has an Acer Liquid Metal (?) and i'll try to make him come over to test his network.
I have allready changed sim card but they made me pay 10€ for that... --'
Now i'm waiting about a week for another answer from my carrier.
I hope they can do something.
I have bad network everywhere except in the subway (underground :O )
I have this bad network with Proximus and BASE.
I'm was in auto HDSPA/GSM and than tried the 2G only, and now back to auto.
When i'm in auto, i think i noticed that in the moments i have Edge i tend to get better network. But when i lock to edge/2G i still have bad network...
I tried again to lock 2G and it works with full network. Still contacting the operator.
From a quick search of the internet it appears all the providers listed use the same frequencies, 2100 for 3G & 900,1800 for 2G.
As well as selecting 2G only I would also select the mobile operator manually, instead of automatically which I believe is the default. It is also a possibility that the Android phones sold locally have a different radio version then yours that works better on the Base network, I've run into this in the past with Windows Mobile on HTC phones.
Related
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...
Hi everibody!
Sorry to ask (I did research but haven't found any related post)
I do have a Vodafone Sapain's account, roaming activated. It usually works OK, but I've found that while travelling in some countries (Uruguay, South Africa) I do get the networks names, but my Trinity fails to connect.
I tracked the problem to a certain combination of SIM cards and my Trinity, but neither my providers nor HTC seems aware of the problem.
BTW, I got my Trinity to work with some other SIM cards, both from Vodafone an a third provider, but some others failed. The same applies, I got mi current SIM to work in a friend's phone while roaming in the same country.
Of course, Vodafone says there is nothing wrong with my card nor the network in these countries.
So I guess there is some incompatability between certain SIMs and the P3600 SW (radio ROM maybe?)
Any help?
Regards.
EXACTLY the same problem
I got exactly the same problem - Trinity + Dopod WM5 ROM + Orange FR.
When in Greece, I do "select networks manually", I get Vodafone, Tim, COSMOTE - it could connect only on COSMOTE. With the same SIM card using an ancient Nokia, I could connect to Vodafone with no problems whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like new technology creates more problems rather than solving them.
Please, could someone help, it was a very frustrating experience.
realn said:
I got exactly the same problem - Trinity + Dopod WM5 ROM + Orange FR.
When in Greece, I do "select networks manually", I get Vodafone, Tim, COSMOTE - it could connect only on COSMOTE. With the same SIM card using an ancient Nokia, I could connect to Vodafone with no problems whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like new technology creates more problems rather than solving them.
Please, could someone help, it was a very frustrating experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never got it fully right, but since I've changed to Movistar the problem seem solved.
I'm almost sure that the problem lies in the "hidden sw" the telcos are putting into the SIMs, but they will never admit......
I use Vodafone Romania as home network and I have travelled in over 25 countries in and outside Europe, with no problems at all.
You might want to check on your Radio and try another version, see if that helps.
Sometimes it helps to manually select operator (there is the option to "Set networks"), and check list of operators to see if the one you want to use is on the allow list.
tnyynt said:
I use Vodafone Romania as home network and I have travelled in over 25 countries in and outside Europe, with no problems at all.
You might want to check on your Radio and try another version, see if that helps.
Sometimes it helps to manually select operator (there is the option to "Set networks"), and check list of operators to see if the one you want to use is on the allow list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do travel every year about as many countries as you, usually with more than one phone and more than one SIM, and I can garantee that operators behave differently, even different SIM types from same operator behave different.
Not an easy answer to a complex problem.
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
Hi!
I just got my HTC Touch HD a few days ago.
But some reception problems annoy me.
The phone is originally from Orange UK. Unlocked via Code.
Its now used with 3 Austria. 3 Austria has its own UMTS net and as fallback uses a GSM net from a different provider.
It often happens, was also like this with my previous Nokia, that when there is no more reception with 3G, GSM from the other Provider was OK.
Now with the HTC, when there is no 3G reception, the phone DOES NOT switch to GSM.
More interesting:
When I have bad 3G reception (2/4) and I start a call, the switchover to GSM is done (4/4 reception) automatically ("3 3G" -> "3")
Settings for Band are "Auto" and "Auto". When I set there "GSM", no net is found, even though the GSM net is strong there.
The phone is hardspl and I tried "Laurentius26 Touch HD L26_THDV6" and the german stock ROM from the Wiki. Its on all the same.
Is my phone defective?
I tried all 3 radio roms from here, since its doing GSM switch when I initiate a call when logged in in 3G, I dont think so.
But what else could it be? A problem with the "foreign" GSM net?
3 Austria also offers the phone here, so everyone with it would have the same problem.
Is it worth a try to flash back to stock Orange UK and undo the hardspl?
Plz Help
Best regards
I know, I provided lots of Information.
But please help me out.
Till Sunday I can decide to send it back to the eBay shop for minimal costs. If its defective.
Bye
Hi again.
After lots of hours of testing and flashing and testing I decided to try a different SIM card (this 1 yr old, originally tried 3.5 yrs old) of the same provider.
With that card, GSM is working.
So, is it a problem with the SIM in general. Are there some settings I can modify? Or need I get the provider to replace it against a new one?
The originally card works with UMTS and GSM in a Nokia N73, strange.
Bye
Hello, I've exactly the same problem, but in Italy...
My operator is H3G and when i can catch the 3g signal it's all good... wen it comes to roaming with the operator TIM (in GSM) i can't register on the net... (of course i can with a different phone)...
My touch HD worked a charm so far (i've bought it approx 5 months ago), but now i've got this strange problem... any advice?
Thanks
Velio
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.