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[Q] DTMF problem when dialing D2G GSM

I have a D2G that I'm using an AT&T SIM in for GSM use only. The phone stays in GSM mode all the time.
I'm having an interesting issue with the way the phone detects that it has completed a call.
On a normal CDMA phone (my DX) after you dial a number and hit send, the "call timer" starts counting up as soon as the phone has connected to the network and the call starts ringing. If you want (though there would be little reason to do so) you can bring the dialpad back up and start sending DTMF tones even while the other end is still ringing (hasn't answered yet).
On the D2G in GSM mode (don't know about CDMA mode because I've not used this phone in CDMA mode) when you dial a call, the call timer doesn't start counting up until the phone senses that the other end has actually answered (receives a connect signal). While the line is ringing (before anybody answers) you can bring up the dialpad, but pressing keys does not send any tones. Once the called party answers, pressing keys then sends tones.
The problem comes when trying to dial into a conference bridge where you have to enter the bridgeline passcode, or while trying to use a calling card. Both these systems appear to not send the "connected" signal when they first answer. They wait until you get connected to the desired conference call, or until you've entered all the calling card information and are rung through to your ultimate target before sending the connected signal.
Since the D2G in GSM mode is actually waiting for this "connected" signal before starting the call timer, and since it won't allow you to send DTMF tones until the call timer starts, it is basically impossible to use a conference bridge or calling card.
I have tried numerous add-on dialers, but all hand off to the OEM phone/dialer app after initial dialing. I've tried add-on DTMF generators, but of course they just generate the tones locally (speaker) and not onto the ongoing call. I've been all through build.prop, etc. looking for a setting that would tell it not to wait for a connect signal to enable the "connected" behavior and not found anything.
Putting pauses or waits in the dial string doesn't work either because the phone doesn't even start "pausing" or "waiting" until it senses that it has connected (which doesn't happen before the other end gives up waiting for me to enter the code).
That's the really irritating part. When the conference bridge or calling card system gives up waiting and connects me to the thing that tells me my time to enter the codes has expired and it is going to hang up on me, then it sends the "connected" signal and I can enter all the tones I want on top of the "please call back when you can figure out how to use a phone" message.
I've had someone running a newer firmware test to see if they have this same behavior and they do. If anyone wants to see if they have the issue, they could call the Sprint calling card access number (800-366-2255) and you should find you can't enter any tones once it has answered. Again, this is on a D2G in GSM mode. I'd expect in CDMA mode it would work fine.
Possible avenues of resolution:
Make the phone treat the call as connected immediately instead of waiting for the other end to answer
Have an external app that can send DTMF tones on an active call (Google says that is a common desire that is generally not possible)
Somehow make the built-in dialer allow number presses to generate tones even if it doesn't think the other end has answered yet
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Are you trying to say you use the phone on AT&T in USA?
Try switching phone to GSM/UMTS in settings instead of 'global' I remember having some issues with ring back tone while in global mode using GSM network which went away once I switched to GSM/UMTS only.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL

leobg said:
Are you trying to say you use the phone on AT&T in USA?
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Click to collapse
Yep. Other than the undesirable behavior of the call progress timer, it works perfect. Although the data works great, I keep data disabled because on AT&T prepaid data costs like 1 cent per kilobyte. That doesn't seem like much until you think about 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte which means you're paying $10.24 per megabyte which is insane. Fortunately I can bring up 3G Mobile Hotspot on my DX (which has unlimited data) and tether my D2G through my DX and have full Internet. It sounds retarded, but the only time I use this setup is when I need my DX to do mobile VPN for work, and then use my D2G for voice calls. AT&T prepaid is only like $1.99 a day for unlimited voice and text, and you only pay on the days you use it (which is almost never for me).
leobg said:
Try switching phone to GSM/UMTS in settings instead of 'global' I remember having some issues with ring back tone while in global mode using GSM network which went away once I switched to GSM/UMTS only.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion. Actually I was already in GSM/UMTS mode but tried switching it to "Global" mode. Unfortunately the behavior was the same.
Somehow I imagine if I trot down to the Verizon store to ask them about it they won't really be super inclined to help. I have considered trotting down to the AT&T store where I bought the prepaid SIM and seeing what they think. But I don't imagine it would be good for much other than the amusement of their confusion.

Droid 2 Global is configured so it doesn't get service with any GSM/UMTS provider located on the teritory of the United States of America. How is yours working on AT&T is really a huge surprise to me and many other members of this and other online forums.
This so called "band lock" (google for Droid 2 global band lock) can reportedly be circumvented, but there is no publicly available method to do it. Unless you got yours 'band unlocked', it is not supposed to get any service from neither AT&T nor T-Mobile. Or maybe you bought it from someone who was working on this 'band lock'
Could you share more info with us?

leobg said:
Droid 2 Global is configured so it doesn't get service with any GSM/UMTS provider located on the teritory of the United States of America. How is yours working on AT&T is really a huge surprise to me and many other members of this and other online forums.
This so called "band lock" (google for Droid 2 global band lock) can reportedly be circumvented, but there is no publicly available method to do it. Unless you got yours 'band unlocked', it is not supposed to get any service from neither AT&T nor T-Mobile. Or maybe you bought it from someone who was working on this 'band lock'
Could you share more info with us?
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Click to collapse
The phone has been unlocked with the TBH/DBU unlock. It is running 2.4.29 firmware and has to stay on 2.4.29 for the unlock to be preserved. The unwanted call progress behavior (the purpose of my original post) has been tested and confirmed on another phone running 2.4.330 so it's not a 2.4.29 issue. I'd bet that all of the Blur dialers probably do the same thing (disable tones after Send and until the call progress timer starts running). Just in CDMA mode the call progress timer starts running as soon as the call starts ringing and in GSM it waits for an actual connect signal. The D2G is truly like two complete phones in one, so seeing this type of disparity in behavior between the two different modes (I assume when in CDMA mode it would work just like all other CDMA models and not have the issue) isn't really surprising at all. I would expect that anybody who is using the GSM mode of their D2G would have this issue when dialing into a conference bridge or calling card provider where the "connect" signal is not given until after all of the secondary dialing has been completed. It would seem however that this issue would have come up before since I can't be the only person that works for a huge company and spends most of his day dialed into conference bridges for meetings (and might just want to dial into those meetings from his spiffy GSM phone).
I've been though the AOSP source for the phone/dialer before (when troubleshooting something else), so when I get a chance, I'll go through again and find the section where it enables and disables the tone sending. I'd guess it would be trivial to remove the part that disables tones during the period between Send and call-progress-timer-start, compile it, and just replace the dialer on the phone. I've been through all the build.prop and everything else hoping a setting would jump out at me, but no luck.
About the TBH/DBU unlock -- after the unlock there's nothing special about sticking an AT&T, TMobile, etc. SIM in there, but I only have first hand experience with the AT&T. I just went into the local AT&T store and told them I wanted to buy a prepaid SIM. They asked what kind of phone and I think I told them I had a Samsung Captivate (not that it really matters). The SIM was basically free and I put $25 on it. Stuck it in the phone, changed to GSM/UMTS mode, phone blurred while it was changing modes, and now has AT&T banner on the lock screen. Pretty much a non-event.
I didn't get a chance to go down to the AT&T store yet, but I plan to. If nothing else I'd like to test calling into the same Sprint calling card number from another GSM phone -- especially an Android phone if they have a working model there -- and see if it too has a problem.
Sorry for rambling. I hope I addressed your questions.

My friend MotoCache1 is the "other" member of TBH, just an FYI!
We haven't discussed the status of the band unlock on XDA out of respect for the rules here regarding paid services.

Well, that explains the things
Btw- mine is on Rogers Canada, i can use comma to add pause to dial extensions conference bridges without issues.
However, when I try my Telus Canada sim in, when I dial number, dialer says hang up, 00:00, then connects the outgoing call, sort of like a call back service, but without ringing back - hang up, then the very next second call connects and phone issues ring back tone. But this "hangup" on the middle prevents me from dialing extensions or conference bridges bu using pause in the number dialed. Everything else is fine (data, messaging/etc). So it is kind of crippled on Telus. Wonder if it is the same thing you get on AT&T.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL

Hmmm. Interesting. Forgive the ignorance, when using Rogers is that CDMA? Or are you using GSM for both carriers?
I tried the same scheme, using commas in the dial string, but unfortunately the phone doesn't ever get to the part after the commas because it waits for connect before continuing the dial string. I don't get the hang up behavior you describe though. I'm a complete newb to GSM, so what I'm about to suggest may be stupid, but I wonder if the carriers have any sort of call handling parameters that are stored on the SIM?
I happened to be in a VZW store to get an extended battery for my DX and asked them if they had a demonstrator D2G in GSM mode so I "could test a bug I read about on the Internet". Moments after the question left my mouth I realized I was stupid for asking it, and he confirmed that by saying "no, we can't use the phones in GSM mode because GSM on that phone doesn't work in the US". Oops, duh.
He asked what the bug was and I told him. He said that he hadn't heard of that, but it sounded like something that would be fixed in a software release. He looked to see if any such releases were listed for the D2G, but found none. Surprisingly (to me anyway) there is a recent release listed for the D1 to fix an "unwanted recipients" problem (for messages), and some other thing (I don't recall).
I'm at Bike Week right now (sitting in the bath tub typing this on my DX -- yay Swype) but will give the AT&T store a shot when I get back. I'll also borrow a buddy's Tmobile SIM and see if it behaves any differently. He has an actual Tmobile branded android phone, (a Samsung, but I don't remember which one right off) so I can do the conference bridge test on his phone too.

Both Rogers and Telus now sport GSM/UMTS (Telus only UMTS) networks. Gone are the days when Rogers had CDMA network, almost 10 years now. Telus still has CDMA alive, but they are phasing that out. My CDMA radio is sleeping, until I get to the States next time I guess (my D2G is active on a pay-go plan) I will be doing some travelling in May/Jun across Europe, so I will try with european sims too.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL

leobg said:
Both Rogers and Telus now sport GSM/UMTS (Telus only UMTS) networks. Gone are the days when Rogers had CDMA network, almost 10 years now. Telus still has CDMA alive, but they are phasing that out. My CDMA radio is sleeping, until I get to the States next time I guess (my D2G is active on a pay-go plan) I will be doing some travelling in May/Jun across Europe, so I will try with european sims
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Thanks for the details. Interesting that you see two completely different behaviors just by changing the SIM. That leaves the question of whether the difference is due to the way each network is handling the call progress, or if it is some sort of information on the SIM itself that makes the difference.
I looked into SIM editors to see what sorts of things the various editors claimed to be able to read/edit on the SIM. I haven't seen anything along the lines of call processing characteristic parameters, etc., so I'm leaning toward the difference being in the signaling received from the network. I'll be able to get a better idea of what's going on when I get back home and can experiment with a Tmobile SIM, and/or put my AT&T SIM in another phone and see what it does.

OK, back from Bike Week (last week actually) and grabbed a T-Mobile SIM. Really odd results. The very first call I dialed on the T-Mobile SIM, the call timer started immediately, and I could send DTMF tones immediately. Every call since then has exhibited the same behavior I was seeing with the AT&T SIM -- the call timer doesn't start until a formal connect happens (which the calling card and conference bridge sites don't send upon initial connect -- thereby preventing sending the tones to access the service).
I spent just a little time going through the source code of: [platform/packages/apps/Phone.git]/src/com/android/phone/CallTime.java and found the spot where the call gets switched to "active":
Code:
/**
* Sets the call timer to "active call" mode, where the timer will
* periodically update the UI to show how long the specified call
* has been active.
*
* After calling this you should also call reset() and
* periodicUpdateTimer() to get the timer started.
*/
/* package */ void setActiveCallMode(Call call) {
if (DBG) log("setActiveCallMode(" + call + ")...");
mCall = call;
// How frequently should we update the UI?
mInterval = 1000; // once per second
}
I started looking around to see "who" all calls that and right off I only see CallCard.java calling it. I was expecting to see it called somewhere in PhoneApp.java (after observing a connect or something), but it's not called there.
There's lots of hunting yet to do, but I wanted to post progress in case anybody out there cares.
In some hunting I happened to stumble on a pretty detailed page outlining the exact same problem on an iPhone. It's understandable that this type of problem might exist and persist on a closed source device like an iPhone. Fortunately, something like this should be very solvable on an open source device.
I haven't had my buddy with a T-Mobile issued Android phone (Samsung Vibrant) test this yet. That's on the "to do" list.
More updates as I have them.

So what I've figured out on this is that you pretty much just can't use conference bridges or calling cards on a GSM phone. I've used my Tmobile and AT&T SIMs in a bunch of phones now:
1. Droid 2 Global
2. Droid Pro Global
3. Motorola Napoleon
They all do the same thing. Heck, the Napoleon isn't even Android - it's Windows Mobile. I also tried with my friend's Samsung Vibrant (which he has on Tmobile) and it does the same thing -- call timer never starts running and if the call timer isn't running you can't generate tones to put in your access code for the conference bridge, etc. Apparently the AT&T iPhones do the same thing, so again, this is a GSM thing.
Which begs the question again -- doesn't anybody with a GSM phone need to call into conference calls? I was under the impression that most big companies used conference bridges for most of their meetings.
Anyway, when I get some time I'll get back to taking a stab at hacking on the dialer -- just no free cycles to tackle it right now.

It must be something with that conference bridge you are trying it on. I know many phone switches do not connect the call while you are in the IVR/menu trees - it is usually done in order to avoid inaccurate call metrics on the receiving end. We are running a contact centre in our company and I know how important this is (and we do it to - we don't connect the call until operator answers the call). Billing is not supposed to start until call is connected on the receiving end. Apparently GSM operators like T-Mobile and AT&T care about call connect parametter and Verizon is simply ignoring it, I guess.

[Q] Enable VVM (visual voicemail) via registry ?

Now with Mango, you can have the cool built in Visual Voice mail in Mango/Tango. I am running a custom rom and I would like to enable the software to test with my carrier if it will work.
I can call up my carrier (or go online) and enable it but, the feature does not show on my phone (SPark_W, AKA Verizon Trophy).
I just want to know if it's possable to enable it so it shows up in the call settings, so I can enable it to see if will work. It just does not show in my call settings like it should.
Any idea ?

Bump, does anyone know how this feature is enabled on the phone ? (not talking about carrier, assume the carrier has the feature active)
I still would love Visual Voice mail on my phone but, I enabled it (via my carrier) and my Tango (Spark_W) does not show the option in the call settings...IS there a hack or driver to enable it ?

There are multiple VVM protocols, and they are not intercompatible. It's entirely possible that Verizon does not support the one that WP7 uses. It works fine on T-Mobile, but that's the only US carrier that I've heard of it working on yet (though there may be others).

GoodDayToDie said:
There are multiple VVM protocols, and they are not intercompatible. It's entirely possible that Verizon does not support the one that WP7 uses. It works fine on T-Mobile, but that's the only US carrier that I've heard of it working on yet (though there may be others).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As no one is really sure, I would like to see if it was just verizon not enabling the feature because of testing or not. Just say for example that Verizon MIGHT support the protocol but, it does not show on my phone, how can I enable it so it shows and is ready to test ?
Just want to know 100% that it does not work and most of my reasoning for it is Verizon not having major support for this 1 model they carry.

Comunicate without standard network.

13I find myself with a few phones handed down to me, and I am often in areas where there in no mobile phone network available,
I am curious as to weather or not these Android phones (on which I have gained root access) could be perhaps booted to a system that allows communication directly between the phones instead of via the non available mobile network.
If I remember correctly, an article I read some years ago described an open source project designed to offer telecommunications using the transceiver in each phone to create a network for areas that had no other available network.
If anyone could point me to some information on the above described network, or just using these as "walkie talkies" I would very much appreciate it.
I was not able to find much in the way of relevant information, but Wikipedia says,
Developments
Some cellular telephone networks offer a push-to-talk handset that allows walkie-talkie-like operation over the cellular network, without dialing a call each time. However, the cellphone provider must be accessible.
Motorola has IDEN cellphones (e.g., i867) that can have 15 conversations over each of 10 900Mhz channels (see Moto Talk) between compatible cellphones without using the cellphone network or a base station. This is very useful outside the range of a cellphone provider as well as reducing network charges.
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Click to collapse
Smartphone apps
A variety of mobile apps exist that mimic a walkie-talkie style interaction. They are marketed as low-latency, asynchronous communication. The advantages touted over two-way voice calls include: the asynchronous nature not requiring full user interaction (like SMS) and it is voice over IP (VOIP) so it does not use minutes on a cellular plan. Applications on the market that offer this walkie-talkie style interaction for audio include Voxer, Zello, and HeyTell, among others.[7] An application that offers this style of interaction for video is Glide.[8]
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Click to collapse
Nothing in this seems to be what I am looking for.

have you tried restarting your phone? my phone sometimes crashes and restarting works perfectly, try it seriously

There may be apps that provide Walkie Talkie like functionality over Wifi, but I think you need to distinguish what you are doing over wifi, bluetooth, and cellular. I'd go with one of these. You might even be able to setup some kind of mesh-based network using wifi - depending on the area you are trying to cover.
iDen and other carrier based PTT solutions are based on connectivity to cellular networks, and won't help you here. Additionally, most GSM networks are not outfitted with native PTT functionality. You are best working with Local Area Networks (LANs, like WiFi) or Personal Area Networks (PAN, like bluetooth)
WiFi and Bluetooth operate on spectrum which is unlicensed and available for public use - with some restrictions, such as power output and the like. Anything you could coax out of WiFi or Bluetooth should be fine.
Cellular, on the other hand, is an entirely different breed. Cell networks are generally regulated and licensed by relevant government authorities. Trying to setup your own cell towers is likely illegal in most countries without licensing or regulatory approval - with a few exceptions, like carrier sponsored micro cells. That would include tampering with the cellular radios in most devices.

3234
Yes,,, the legal issue is something I had not yet considered and you make some important points.
It is likely that even if I find the information on the project I mention above I will not be able to do anything other than learn a little from it, that's OK.
You mention IDEN as being carrier based, as far as I can tell IDEN is one of the few that is not.
From my previous quote
Motorola has iDEN cellphones (e.g., i867) that can have 15 conversations over each of 10 900Mhz channels (see Moto Talk) between compatible cellphones without using the cellphone network or a base station. This is very useful outside the range of a cellphone provider as well as reducing network charges.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is more info on this at this site .wikipedia.org/wiki/MOTO_Talk ( need to make more posts before I can give a link ).
I do however note that some carriers do not allow this feature to be used, or limit its use.
MOTO Talk also works only on some specific Motorola phones, reading between the lines there seems to be some hardware as well as software that is unique to these models.
I'm most interested in the open source project ( I think it was open source ) that I read about some years ago, perhaps it is on SourceForge?
I have trouble finding a useful search string for Google, any suggestions?

[Completed] GSM on Samsung Tab S2

Hello everyone, my name is Ryan.
Purchased a Samsung Tab S2 with the intention of using it as a replacement for my phone. The tablet currently has a data share plan on it with my Note 4 for Bell Mobility in Canada.
My plan was to switch the two SIM cards out into one another so my phone has just the data, and my tablet has the data, calling, and SMS. I was under the impression from the sails person that I could replace EVERY function of my phone with the tablet. Unfortunately calling seems to be... less than an option. I didn't realize that they would have disabled the function entirely from the device. Even under "Mobile networks" and "Network mode" I only have the option of using either: LTE/WCDMA (auto connect) or WCDMA. Where my phone (despite now having the tablets SIM card with only data sharing (does that matter?)) has the options: GSM only, WCDMA only, WCDMA/GSM (auto connect), and LTE/WCDMA/GSM (auto connect).
My question is, due to lack of info on Bell website about specifications for the device, does the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (Model# SM-T817W, Android version: 6.0.1) support GSM calling? It seems to not support it directly through software, or avoids it some how. So, does it have the capability of making/receiving calls? I am NOT looking for a VoIP program, I simply want to use the calling that I pay for on my tablet instead of on my phone.
If it DOES have the capability to do so, but is lacking the software/firmware to do so, how would one go about installiung that? I would prefer if I could, not to install an entire OS, as I saw that the Tab 10.1 I think it was had something that just unlocked calling on it, see link for info.
See: Can't post link because I am a new, sorry.
Thanks
Ryan

XDA Visitor said:
Hello everyone, my name is Ryan.
Purchased a Samsung Tab S2 with the intention of using it as a replacement for my phone. The tablet currently has a data share plan on it with my Note 4 for Bell Mobility in Canada.
My plan was to switch the two SIM cards out into one another so my phone has just the data, and my tablet has the data, calling, and SMS. I was under the impression from the sails person that I could replace EVERY function of my phone with the tablet. Unfortunately calling seems to be... less than an option. I didn't realize that they would have disabled the function entirely from the device. Even under "Mobile networks" and "Network mode" I only have the option of using either: LTE/WCDMA (auto connect) or WCDMA. Where my phone (despite now having the tablets SIM card with only data sharing (does that matter?)) has the options: GSM only, WCDMA only, WCDMA/GSM (auto connect), and LTE/WCDMA/GSM (auto connect).
My question is, due to lack of info on Bell website about specifications for the device, does the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (Model# SM-T817W, Android version: 6.0.1) support GSM calling? It seems to not support it directly through software, or avoids it some how. So, does it have the capability of making/receiving calls? I am NOT looking for a VoIP program, I simply want to use the calling that I pay for on my tablet instead of on my phone.
If it DOES have the capability to do so, but is lacking the software/firmware to do so, how would one go about installiung that? I would prefer if I could, not to install an entire OS, as I saw that the Tab 10.1 I think it was had something that just unlocked calling on it, see link for info.
See: Can't post link because I am a new, sorry.
Thanks
Ryan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
upon searching i couldn't find the exact version of your device model. are you sure that it supported voice calling and the salesman confirmed this?
Would it be possible to call samsung customer care to confirm the model you have does support voice/gsm

S6 unable to see test mobile network

I'm building a test mobile network on some laptops and with a software defined radio based on Open AirInterface (is googleable, but I can't post the link cos I'm a newb) code, and I have this up and running. Additionally, I've bought some programmable SIMs to work with it on a bunch of phones. The information on these I've added into my HSS implementation. The Country Code/Network code deployed on the SIMs is 901/70 - so it doesn't interfere with commercial networks.
I'm testing with a bunch of phones in an isolation chamber, and my end goal is to shift the network into something I have a license for and "go public", but this network will have a low channel bandwidth (3MHz or 1.4MHz in Band 3 LTE). Not many phones have supported this, so I started with a 5MHz channel, which most do support - and I've successfully connected an S4 and a Nexus to my little network. However, when I tried the S6 with a SIM that worked in another phone, it cannot even see the network. I've seen hints of Samsung doing operator whitelisting, but would like to know if this is the case and, if possible, how to add my operator codes into the whitelist.
So far, I've tried the following:
a) "*#0011#" puts you into ServiceMode where you used to be able to enable/disable frequency bands and other such settings with the "Q0000" menu entry - but it looks like Samsung have squished this, also I know the phone has Band 3 operational as I can put a commercial SIM in it that runs on that band. I've not found any way of actually modifying any settings within this mode.
b) I found the file "/system/etc/apns-conf.xml" which contains a list of operator APN addresses - I updated mine to contain my settings, but no joy, and if I "reset to default" my APN settings, my settings are not picked up and I have to manually add my APN (but at least that stays selected)
c) I found some databases in "/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/", in particular "nwk_info.db" and added my network details to it. The phone then changed from basically saying I was only able to make emergency calls to "Selected mobile network (901/70) unavailable", which kind of at least hints I've moved it in the right direction
The S6 is running a rooted factory reset, and allows SIMS from two different commercial operators on it so it should be completely unlocked. It's never been out of the country, so should have "defeated" the region locks that Sammy put on the phones nowadays (although it begs the question whether rooting the phone resets this and perhaps it's still awaiting 5 mins of calls via a local SIM?).
Does anyone know of a whitelist of MNC/MCC numbers I can add my settings to? Or any other possible solution to this?
The long winded solution is to change the MNC/MCC info on each of my SIMs, but that's a PITA and I'm not even sure it'll work yet (I will attempt to try one soon, but changing the configs on my mobile network is also non-trivial!)