what defines a phones bands? - General Questions and Answers

what hardware component makes a phone have certain bands? be it 3g or for voice. what makes a phone have at&t bands of 850/900/1800/1900 MHz or at&t 3g bands instead of tmobiles 3g bands? Is it true that there are currently no phones that FULLY work on 2(or more) different networks, including overseas? I know you can get the iphone on tmobile but its not fully capable because you dont have 3g. how far are we from being able to pick our phone then the carrier instead of picking a carrier and then choosing one of their phones?
Also, it seems that at&t's 3g bands are listed as "tri band global" as apposed to tmobiles that only have 2 and are not listed as "global". does that mean that at&t's bands are more capable and may work in areas over seas? wouldnt that mean that at&t has the most advanced cell technology(or at least the most capable) in the country?

no one knows???????????????????????

the crystals inside the cpu often made by qualcomm decide the band supported

Rudegar said:
the crystals inside the cpu often made by qualcomm decide the band supported
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that sucks. so its all up to qualcomm(or the maker of the cpu) and the politics if we ever get a fully supported device?

a big whoop for the UK all our carriers use the same bands

Related

Which phones are capable of using Tmobile 3G network

As the title indicates I am curious if there exists any phones outside of those offered by Tmobile that are capable of using its 3G network (1700 & 2100 MHz). None of their 3G phones catch my eye and am curious if anyone can point me in the direction of some other possibilities.
Thanks for your time...
Jay
Att and tmobile use different bands for 3g.... so i know none of att's will work. (alltel i really doubt, but would have to look it up) Cell providers do it on purpose to lock there services to there own phones for good.... So you'll probably have to switch providers or settle for 2g speeds
I have not seen any devices outside of Tmob usa that have their strange 3g 1700/2100 combined bands...unfortunately!

US Cellular TP2 works with ATT 3G?

As the title reads out, I was wanting to know if the USCC TP2 will ever work on 3G because Edge is getting a little slow... I have seen the "G" up on my bar before but quickly goes away, so that leads me to believe that it could be possible.
Also, I heard that hardware is compatible with the 3G network. So please, could someone that knows more into this tell me if anything will work or even MIGHT work?
Thank you so much!
-Cyanide
i would also like to know because i just unlocked the us cellular touch pro 2 for use on att. but when i try the internet it just says dialed 777 failed
Hey, in order for that dialed 7777 error to go away, you need to add ATT internet settings instead of the original carrier settings.
So do this...
Go to your Data Connection options
Add New Connection
Then Put this in for the info:
wap.cingular for the APN
[email protected] - username
CINGULAR1 - password
That should work, of course there is an ATT data cab somewhere, but thats how you set it up manually, I hope this helped!
Cyanide
thanks man i really appreciate. kinda new to this but not really. last windows mobikle phone i had was a touch pro. and i bought an iphone after. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. now ive forgotten everything
for some reason it wont go E to G and i cant use certain att features like being on the phone and internet please help
cyanide77 said:
As the title reads out, I was wanting to know if the USCC TP2 will ever work on 3G because Edge is getting a little slow... I have seen the "G" up on my bar before but quickly goes away, so that leads me to believe that it could be possible.
Also, I heard that hardware is compatible with the 3G network. So please, could someone that knows more into this tell me if anything will work or even MIGHT work?
Thank you so much!
-Cyanide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
G = GPRS
E = EDGE
G = Slower than EDGE and nothing to do with 3G.
You're not going to get that phone to work on ATT 3G/UMTS. The band support simply isn't there.
gamescan said:
G = GPRS
E = EDGE
G = Slower than EDGE and nothing to do with 3G.
You're not going to get that phone to work on ATT 3G/UMTS. The band support simply isn't there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Based on phonearena's tech specs though the TP2 cant even reach full 3g on verizon's network. Here is the link to some verizon phones:
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/HTC-Touch-Pro2-CDMA-phone-p_3710.html
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Palm-Pre-Plus-phone-p_4347.html
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Motorola-DROID-phone-p_3853.html
Same shows true for both sprint and AT&T versions as well.
So what is required of the phone to reach 3G at all?
cyanide77 said:
So what is required of the phone to reach 3G at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone has 3g capability, it is not accessing the full power of the network due to hardware though. If AT&T nerfs their non-iPhones to EDGE then that is what you will max at. If you look at the palm pixi or pre it has faster data speeds because of the hardware. In other words i'm not really sure if faster speeds are capable (due to hardware restrictions) and on AT&T i'm even more unsure because of how their apple contract is structured.
Ah that sounds really crazy! Lol, I wish things were simple. And now, I am noticing my Multimedia Messages aren't going though, I am not sure what that is from though. Anyone have a clue on that?
burtonsnow8 said:
Based on phonearena's tech specs though the TP2 cant even reach full 3g on verizon's network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you talking about? The CDMA TP2 can very well reach 3G speed (EVDO Rev A) on Sprint and Verizon. It'll also reach 3G speed on European WCDMA/UMTS networks. The ATT TP will reach 3G speed on ATT and European WCDMA/UMTS networks.
The statement above doesn't make any sense.
cyanide77 said:
So what is required of the phone to reach 3G at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All that's required is that you use a version of the phone on a network with a compatible band. The ATT, TMO, Sprint, VZW, etc. TP2s will all reach 3G ontheir respective networks with no problem. When used on other networks the phones may or may not have support for the 3G band used by the network. If it doesn't have the band support then it's not going to work.
burtonsnow8 said:
The phone has 3g capability, it is not accessing the full power of the network due to hardware though. If AT&T nerfs their non-iPhones to EDGE then that is what you will max at. If you look at the palm pixi or pre it has faster data speeds because of the hardware. In other words i'm not really sure if faster speeds are capable (due to hardware restrictions) and on AT&T i'm even more unsure because of how their apple contract is structured.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please stop making stuff up. This is absolutely not true. The TP2 is not "nerfed." You just need to use the correct model (ie ATT version) on ATT if you want 3G on ATT.
cyanide77 said:
Ah that sounds really crazy! Lol, I wish things were simple. And now, I am noticing my Multimedia Messages aren't going though, I am not sure what that is from though. Anyone have a clue on that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is simple. Stupid simple.
If you want 3G you buy the version of the phone that supports the 3G band that your carrier is using.
As far as MMS, you need to make sure that your account is data enabled and that your phone has the data settings for your carrier loaded.
I found a cab that worked for my ATT MMS settings, that was no problem, but like I stated, I have a US Cellular TP2, so it is not a Tilt 2 (ATT) or I would not be posting in the CDMA section of the TP2 forums.
As far as I know the US Cellular device (TP2) has the hardware requirements of ATT 3G network, and I am asking why will it not work up to 3G speeds? Only thing I could think of is that there is not a specific radio for this yet, or something... because the specs of the USC TP2 does in fact work with the 3G bands of ATT.
So what is stopping the device from connecting to it?
cyanide77 said:
I found a cab that worked for my ATT MMS settings, that was no problem, but like I stated, I have a US Cellular TP2, so it is not a Tilt 2 (ATT) or I would not be posting in the CDMA section of the TP2 forums.
As far as I know the US Cellular device (TP2) has the hardware requirements of ATT 3G network, and I am asking why will it not work up to 3G speeds? Only thing I could think of is that there is not a specific radio for this yet, or something... because the specs of the USC TP2 does in fact work with the 3G bands of ATT.
So what is stopping the device from connecting to it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to all of the hardware specs, none of the TP2 CDMA variants support the 3G bands used by ATT. It will not work because it is simply not compatible.
If you want to use it in Europe or Japan, you'll get 3G. But as far as using it in the US on ATT or TMO, you're only going to get EDGE speeds because those are the only US bands that it supports.
The only versions of the TP2 that support ATT's 3G bands are the ATT version and (if launched) the Australian GSM version. The CDMA versions, the Euro version and the TMO US version will not support ATT 3G.
gamescan said:
According to all of the hardware specs, none of the TP2 CDMA variants support the 3G bands used by ATT. It will not work because it is simply not compatible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All the specs I read, the Verizon CDMA phone supports Quad band GSM
GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
CDMA dual band (1900/800 MHz)
UMTS European/Asian 3G (2100 MHz)
Does this not cover the 3G bands ATT uses? I thought it was 1900?
x51 said:
All the specs I read, the Verizon CDMA phone supports Quad band GSM
GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
CDMA dual band (1900/800 MHz)
UMTS European/Asian 3G (2100 MHz)
Does this not cover the 3G bands ATT uses? I thought it was 1900?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GSM = GPRS (2G) and EDGE (2.5G)
UMTS = 3G
ATT uses GSM 850/1900 for 2G/2.5G and UMTS/WCDMA 850/1900 for 3G.
If you use a CDMA Touch Pro 2 on ATT it'll work on 2G/2.5G (since it is compatible) but it won't work on 3G since the band support isn't there.
If ATT used UMTS 2100 it would work.
so will the US Cellular TP2 ever be able to get 3G from ATT network? or will it always be limited to Edge?
cyanide77 said:
so will the US Cellular TP2 ever be able to get 3G from ATT network? or will it always be limited to Edge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Edge.
If you want to use a TP2 on ATT with 3G, get the ATT version.
If you want to use a TP2 on TMO US with 3G, get the TMO US version.
gamescan said:
Edge.
If you want to use a TP2 on ATT with 3G, get the ATT version.
If you want to use a TP2 on TMO US with 3G, get the TMO US version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TMo US uses UMTS 2100 for 3G so you should be able to get 3G on TMo but not ATT.
piedra92 said:
TMo US uses UMTS 2100 for 3G so you should be able to get 3G on TMo but not ATT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TMO US uses UMTS 1700.
While it technically uses both 1700 and 2100 channels, UMTS 1700 is not the same as UMTS 2100 (used in Europe).
So no, the Sprint TP2 won't use UMTS 2100 on TMO US. It'll just use Edge. Now TMO UK (or anywhere in Europe) it'll get 3G because there they use UMTS 2100.
so there is no way???
i was checking ht cell and in the bands it says umts 850 but nothing happens thats too bad. it lloks like im gonna have to buy a at&t one to be able to work

[Q] Is the international HTC One S version compatible with any carrier's 3g speeds?

I have both the T-Mobile and the international unlocked version. I have the latter because, in my excitement, I didn't take care to find out if it will work on T-Mobile's 3G speeds. To my dismay, it doesn't, and I have an extra phone.
I'm wondering if it will work on any other carrier's 3G/4G data speeds. Searching forums and support threads haven't gotten me any answers. Any help at all would be appreciated.
I bought mine in Britain and am using it quite happily here in Japan. T-Mobile USA has a relatively rare frequency band internationally; I think as long as you have 2100MHz and 900MHz bands, which this phone has, there should be an operator in almost every country that the phone will work on. In fact, it should work on most operators in most countries.
The phone has 850/900/2100 MHz bands for 3G; T-Mobile runs "4G" (actually 3G) on 1700/2100 aka AWS - this requires BOTH bands to be present in the phone, which is why the One S doesn't work. T-Mo USA also has 1900MHz, again not present in the One S. Can you get EDGE 2G data, which should be possible on 850MHz?
In the USA, it should work on AT&T, as they use 850MHz for 3G. Maybe you can find someone who will lend you a SIM to check it.
In Europe & Asia, it should generally work no problem.

LTE Radio Bands

Forgive me if this is a trivial question, but since European carriers such as Vodafone and O2 Germany also have the dual-core version of the HOX, is it possible to flash a european radio and use the European LTE frequencies? Or are the frequency bands hard-coded into the chipset?
It was my assumption that the US and European LTE variants used the same hardware components, but were just set up to use different LTE bands.
Frequency support is set in hardware.
redpoint73 said:
Frequency support is set in hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thinking more about this, I'm still not convinced it's impossible to flash a european radio on the HOX to swap LTE bands. Unless the physical antenna is different, I'd think that it's a possibility.
With my other phone, the Samsung Skyrocket, we can flash T-Mobile radios to gain support for the 1700 AWS band. The chipset supports it, and it just took a radio flash to activate it. AFAIK, you can't use 1700 and LTE though - that or a radio with support for both doesn't exist.
I guess it depends on what chipset the German One XL uses..but I'll wait to see if someone has luck before I risk my own One X.
The hardware is different, as I already said.
The Skyrocket (and a few other AT&T phones, like the Galaxy Note) included the AWS band in hardware (likely due to the now defunct merger with T-Mobile that was going on at the time). The hardware was there, but AWS was simply not enabled in software. Hacks to make AWS work on these phones just enabled the software side for what is already supported in hardware. Without the hardware already being there, no amount of radio flashing will create support for frequencies not already there.
Its possible that some bands are "hidden" in the same way that AWS was for the Skyrocket. Lots of folks here on T-Mobile are hoping the same AWS support is possible on our phone. But if the hardware is not already there (such as for different LTE bands, as you are asking for), you can't make it happen by flashing radios. In the case of AWS, AT&T had a reason for including support (T-Mobile merger). They don't have a reason for including support for LTE bands willy-nilly, just for the sake of doing so, without any tangible (monetary) reason.

Any chance to enable all LTE frequency supported by MSM8960?

Dear All,
I recently got this device in Hong Kong and is hapi with its performance!
But I am still wondering if this device could actually use the LTE available in HK?
I knw the msm8960 claimed to be capable of utilizing all frequency of radio,
so is it possible that there is some soft lock in the baseband?
Could i flash the baseband or replace the modem driver from other device to access other frequency?
any idea is appreciated!
Thanks!
Vasco
I think it has to modifiy the ROm and the hardware
I tried to figure out, if our Photon Q is supporting more LTE bands than 1900 MHz (#2 or/and #25).
-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#Frequency_bands_and_channel_bandwidths
On some sites there are reports for having another band. (Have to search again, I think it was 850 MHz, #26 or 700 MHz, #12/#17/#29.)
I have also searched for supported frequencies for MSM8960.
I found some BlackBerry devices based on that SoC and 2 different versions of supported LTE bands.
One version (UK) supported 4 in europe used bands und the other version (US) supported 4 in US/Canada used bands.
I think that the Photon Q is like the BlackBerry US version and supports 4 LTE bands in US/Canada.
If you need a few sites, I will search again and show it to you.
The strange thing is, if I set to LTE only (via 4636) I can see all 4 carrier (germany).
We have 3 bands with LTE on it, but I can only get signal to max 2 of them.
Band 3, 7 and 20 (1800, 2600, 800 MHz).
The weird thing is, that on band #20 (800 MHz) only 3 carrier are active, so it has to be band #3 or #7.
Maybe I'm missinterpreting things and thats just a sideeffect of crossing bands of LTE US and UMTS Germany.
On stock ROM there was another "secret phone code" to see what the phone-part is doing. (From qualcomm I believe.)
I think I will test it some other day, to see which band is active.
At last, I was never been able to "login" or "register" into my carriers network within LTE.
Please discuss about that possibility, I really want to find out, which frequencies are supported by our phone on LTE.
Loader009 said:
I tried to figure out, if our Photon Q is supporting more LTE bands than 1900 MHz (#2 or/and #25).
-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#Frequency_bands_and_channel_bandwidths
On some sites there are reports for having another band. (Have to search again, I think it was 850 MHz, #26 or 700 MHz, #12/#17/#29.)
I have also searched for supported frequencies for MSM8960.
I found some BlackBerry devices based on that SoC and 2 different versions of supported LTE bands.
One version (UK) supported 4 in europe used bands und the other version (US) supported 4 in US/Canada used bands.
I think that the Photon Q is like the BlackBerry US version and supports 4 LTE bands in US/Canada.
If you need a few sites, I will search again and show it to you.
The strange thing is, if I set to LTE only (via 4636) I can see all 4 carrier (germany).
We have 3 bands with LTE on it, but I can only get signal to max 2 of them.
Band 3, 7 and 20 (1800, 2600, 800 MHz).
The weird thing is, that on band #20 (800 MHz) only 3 carrier are active, so it has to be band #3 or #7.
Maybe I'm missinterpreting things and thats just a sideeffect of crossing bands of LTE US and UMTS Germany.
On stock ROM there was another "secret phone code" to see what the phone-part is doing. (From qualcomm I believe.)
I think I will test it some other day, to see which band is active.
At last, I was never been able to "login" or "register" into my carriers network within LTE.
Please discuss about that possibility, I really want to find out, which frequencies are supported by our phone on LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Loader009,
Thanks for your information! I'm really impressed that you could actually search the carrier in 'LTE only from Germany!
Could you please share the version of ROM you are using?
And if possible, any screenshot? I really want it can be used in HK with LTE(1800, 2100 & 2600Mhz)
Also do you have more information about the secret phone code? I think it would be interesting
Actually, I noted that xt925 and xt905 are using the same chip MSM8960 with LTE usable in HK.
Is there anyone can locate the radio/baseband of their rom and port it for XT897?
I am willing to try it with my machine.
If this work, I think we could use this photon q all over the world!
Any idea?
Regards,
Vasco
disablewong said:
Dear Loader009,
Thanks for your information! I'm really impressed that you could actually search the carrier in 'LTE only from Germany!
Could you please share the version of ROM you are using?
And if possible, any screenshot? I really want it can be used in HK with LTE(1800, 2100 & 2600Mhz)
Also do you have more information about the secret phone code? I think it would be interesting
Actually, I noted that xt925 and xt905 are using the same chip MSM8960 with LTE usable in HK.
Is there anyone can locate the radio/baseband of their rom and port it for XT897?
I am willing to try it with my machine.
If this work, I think we could use this photon q all over the world!
Any idea?
Regards,
Vasco
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course, I was just blind guessing the hardware for xt926 and xt907 are using the same hardware.
If not, there should be one chip controlling the modem channel of the device to be replaced.
But WHICH ONE???
Any expert in this area can solve this question? I am a dummy for radio stuffs
This seems like it's getting pretty interesting.
Sent from my XT897 using Tapatalk 2
Dear all,
I'm also very interested in this topic since I imported a Photon Q to Germany and was wondering if it's possible to use the local LTE 800/1800/2600 bands.
I think the first thing we have to find out is whether the hardware is capable of using other bands than the 1900 band listed on the Motorola website. As Loader009 states he could see LTE carriers which are known to use different bands I assume the hardware can do it. Otherwise the carriers wouldn't have been listed, right? Maybe someone from another country with different frequency bands can check and confirm that he can see those carriers as well?
Thus, the limitation to the 1900 band should be software-made and could be modified by a developer. I hope someone can participate at that point as I don't know much about coding...
I'm using CM10.1.
I can't remember the secret phone code, I have to do research again.
This secret phone code only works on Stock ROM. (I stupidly deleted it, when it wasn't working on CM10 anymore.)
The one secret phone code I used to force "LTE only" was *#*#4636#*#*.
Please DON'T change the baseband (don't even tap on it).
This can do problems to you. (I had to use QPST to recover the supported frequencies.)
Also, developers (afaik) can't modify the modem firmware.
We also don't even know, which LTE bands the Photon Q is capable of. (Except 1900 MHz)
I've got my 32GB SDCard back and will test it in the next few days out.
I hope I'll find that secret phone code, I'll also make a few screenshots.
Got the code!
##33284# <- ##DEBUG#
It only works on stock afair!
I'll test tomorrow, it's about 3am now >.<
disablewong said:
Dear All,
I recently got this device in Hong Kong and is hapi with its performance!
But I am still wondering if this device could actually use the LTE available in HK?
I knw the msm8960 claimed to be capable of utilizing all frequency of radio,
so is it possible that there is some soft lock in the baseband?
Could i flash the baseband or replace the modem driver from other device to access other frequency?
any idea is appreciated!
Thanks!
Vasco
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have read the "QU_SnapdragonS4_White_Paper_FNL_Rev6.pdf" and found there following entry:
-----------------------------------------------------------
• Industry’s first fully integrated 3G/4G world/multimode LTE Modem: <<<Supports all of the world’s leading 2G, 3G and 4G LTE standards>>>.
It also includes integrated support for multiple satellite position networks (GPS and GLONASS) as well as short range radios via Bluetooth,
WiFi, FM and NFC.
• Designed for speed, compatibility and power savings:
Snapdragon S4 Processor MSM8960 chipset includes the industry’s only complete platform that integrates all of the world’s leading 2G, 3G and 4G mobile broadband modem technologies on a single chip. This new integrated multimode modem is based on an advanced, programmable architecture that is performance, size and power optimized for the fastest combination of modems available for:
- LTE FDD/TDD (Cat3)
- 3G (DC-HSPA+ Cat 24)
- EV-DO Rev. B
- 1x Advanced
- TD-SCDMA
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE NFC.
Multimode/Multiband Means Worldwide Coverage.
• Support for multiple radio frequencies: Mobile broadband technologies are growing increasingly complex in their implementation. LTE is currently being implemented in over 40 diff erent radio frequency bands throughout the world. To complement its wide range of modem standards supported, Qualcomm has designed the Snapdragon S4 Processor MSM8960 CHIPSET platform to <<< address all commonly-used frequencies (from 700–2600 MHz) and bandwidths up to 20 MHz>>>, allowing its customers to address any mobile network opportunity whether the simplest single frequency implementation to the most extensive multi-frequency global mode, whether 4G, 3G or 2G.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Based on the document the chip can handle all LTE Standards, but it depends on his "advanced, programmable architecture"....as written there and how Motorola / Sprint implemented this, maybe they reduced LTE only to one Standard.
I don't have LTE in my area and so I cannot test this.
That's possibly right.
Something else:
If I remember correctly, somewhere in this forum have been said that for CDMA the internal Sprint "ID"(?) is used.
Maybe that's also the reason why I cannot connect to LTE in my area.
The phone is trying to "login" with the Sprint ID and this of course won't work.
The ##DEBUG# menu wasn't helpfull. It shows frequencies for american standards and not for GSM/WCDMA.
Also the LTE menu is also not very helpfull, it doesn't show frequencies at all.
Any News on this topic?
Maybe one of the developers can give a statement?
Yesterday I tested a LTE compatible SIM card.
My Bro has a Samsung Galaxy S4 with 4G/LTE in my area.
So I've put his SIM-Card into my Photon Q and set LTE only.
I had no luck, the Phone couldn't register into the network for this SIM.
I guess either it has the wrong frequencies or LTE is for inbuilt "SIM" (Sprint SIM?) only.
The latter. LTE is configured only for 1900 MHz which Sprint uses.
LTE is configured only for Sprint's frequencies, however, it supports the United States frequencies of PCS blocks A-G. The G Block is Sprint's current LTE channel, and they may deploy it later on Blocks A through F, depending on if they own the spectrum in a given market. The reason you see EU networks when the phone is in LTE Only Mode is most likely because the Phone still sees GSM signals, but will only connect to LTE ones from those GSM signals. Likewise, in the US, if you force LTE Only and then search for networks, AT&T and T-Mobile US will come up as the GSM carriers the Photon Q sees, rather than the LTE signals it sees.
Setting the Photon to LTE Only will not do anything for LTE in the EU. I suspect that if another carrier in the EU uses the 1900 MHz for LTE, the Photon Q will have no issues connecting to LTE in Europe. But until that time, be happy with HSPA.
Skrilax_CZ said:
LTE is configured only for 1900 MHz which Sprint uses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can this configuration theoretically be changed / other frequencies be added?
Only if you break BP security.
Skrilax_CZ said:
Only if you break BP security.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, what's that?
IIRC The only place with 850mhz LTE available is the Chicago market and currently no phones at all support it. :crying:
Not only does your phone need to support it, your PRL and cell-site does too...

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