3G requirement and frequencies

[thenoobkid]

Hey everybody. I'm new here and i recently switched to tmobile.
I was wondering if any of you had trouble connecting to the 3g network. In my city it is active and I have the 3G capable Sony ericsson K800i, but i wont connect!

Is it something with the frequencies of the network and the phone? what is wrong here?
thx.

[analogs]

At this point, all you really need to know is that if you want to use a 3G phone on T-Mobile's network, it has to be a T-Mobile branded handset. Unlocked 3G-capable phones from Europe will work on AT&T because they use the same frequency spectrum (2100 MHz) but not T-Mobile.

Advanced Wireless Services - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Wireless_Services)

AT&T had enough money to buy up this frequency in the US. T-Mo didn't.

[thenoobkid]

thx
i went to the tmobile store and they told me that even though it support 3G, it must be T-mobile branded. Anything in the future? upgrades? im pretty pissed because i could have gotten a $150 g1 because our contract recently activated

[analogs]

It's technically possible, although extremely unlikely, that someone could come out with a phone that supports both AT&T's 1900/2100 MHz frequency and T-Mobile's 1700 MHz. Again, the chances of such a device are pretty much nil since there's no demand for one. Unless T-Mobile suddenly decides to abandon their recently implemented 3G network and starts licensing users to roam on AT&T, there's no way your K800i can communicate on T-Mobile's UMTS network.

[sweetrevenge]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/hspr-H102; Blazer/4.2) 16;320x320)

The sony frequencies for 3g are the the same as the tmobile 3g frequencies. for tmobile it needs to be either 1700 or 2100 if I'm not mistaken.

[tzsm98]

T-Mobile 3G runs on 1700/2100MHz aka AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) Band. The handset uses 1700MHz to broadcast and the base station uses 2100MHz to broadcast. The device has to have both frequencies to operate on T-Mobile's 3G system. At least this is my understanding of the technical literature I've read.

There are a limited number of AWS Band device types available. All seem to say "T-Mobile" on them.

Yes, it would be cool to have a 850/1900 WCDMA 1700/2100AWS device. Such a device would cover the full North American 3G spectrum. It should have dual SIM support and QuadBand GSM as well. If it said "Nokia" on the front it wouldn't bother me any.

[analogs]

Not to beat a dead horse but just so everyone is clear on this, ONLY phones officially available through T-Mobile USA are compatible with their current 3G network. There are NO exceptions to this rule right now and this is unlikely to change for a very, very long time. This is because no other carrier uses the same frequencies.

You can use European unlocked GSM phones to your heart's desire but you will NOT get 3G from T-Mobile (just GPRS/EDGE).

[anny]

T-Mobile suddenly decides to abandon their recently implemented 3G network and starts licensing users to roam on AT&T.

[tzsm98]

T-Mobile suddenly decides to abandon their recently implemented 3G network and starts licensing users to roam on AT&T.
If you've seen that announcement please link to it. It you are wondering about what would happen if that announcement were made it means many folks would have handsets that are T-Mobile 3G ready because they have unlocked/unbranded handsets they prefer to the the devices T-Mobile makes available. I can see it as a stop gap measure but with all the money they sank into AWS licenses I doubt very much they are going to drop AWS Band IV roll out. Latest word is they plan to double the amount of population covered this year.

[cwilliams706]

Some of you have the 3G frequencies for both carriers mixed up:

AT&T Mobility uses 850/1900 for 3G
T-Mobile USA uses 1700/2100 for 3G

[Philip]

There is more to this issue than what bands T-Mobile has license to operate on. In most metro areas, the limited spectrum they own is pretty much saturated. In order to even launch 3G they needed more spectrum. There are essentially no 850 or 1900 licenses available. They purchased as much of the AWS spectrum as they could hobble the cash together to buy. So, now they are deploying. T-Mobile still has 2G customers, so they are keeping them on the legacy network until they have enough people ported over to the AWS spectrum to start turning down those old sites and bringing up new ones on the old spectrum. Because there was no 850/1900 available, we have wait as they go through the painful process of upgrading. Its going to take a while.

[tzsm98]

There is more to this issue than what bands T-Mobile has license to operate on. In most metro areas, the limited spectrum they own is pretty much saturated. In order to even launch 3G they needed more spectrum. There are essentially no 850 or 1900 licenses available. They purchased as much of the AWS spectrum as they could hobble the cash together to buy. So, now they are deploying. T-Mobile still has 2G customers, so they are keeping them on the legacy network until they have enough people ported over to the AWS spectrum to start turning down those old sites and bringing up new ones on the old spectrum. Because there was no 850/1900 available, we have wait as they go through the painful process of upgrading. Its going to take a while.

T-Mobile still has 2G customers because it doesn't have the 3G network in place to off-load them and not everyone has an AWS capable device. I SIMed up my Nokia 3555b this evening to see if 3G had some how crept into Oklahoma City in March as was rumoured in another thread by a 3G optimist. Didn't happen.

Even when they get the AWS network rolled out as long as they offer 2G devices without 3G capability 1900 MHz is going to be important to T-Mobile.

AWS is not only more spectrum, it is different spectrum. It's not like adding a second story to your house. it's like buying the house two houses down the street and two houses up the street from where you live now so when the kids move out and get married you get to see the grandkids a lot.
1700AWS 1800GSM 1900GSM 2000??? 2100AWS

I was told by a 611 CSR OKC wasn't on the list for 2009 so I got a Nokia 5610d-2b XpressMusic and I'm happy with it. When I need fast down loads or to tether my laptop I use my AT&T SIMed Nokia N78 which gets 3G.

[Philip]

T-Mobile still has 2G customers because it doesn't have the 3G network in place to off-load them and not everyone has an AWS capable device. I SIMed up my Nokia 3555b this evening to see if 3G had some how crept into Oklahoma City in March as was rumoured in another thread by a 3G optimist. Didn't happen.

Even when they get the AWS network rolled out as long as they offer 2G devices without 3G capability 1900 MHz is going to be important to T-Mobile.

AWS is not only more spectrum, it is different spectrum. It's not like adding a second story to your house. it's like buying the house two houses down the street and two houses up the street from where you live now so when the kids move out and get married you get to see the grandkids a lot.
1700AWS 1800GSM 1900GSM 2000??? 2100AWS

I was told by a 611 CSR OKC wasn't on the list for 2009 so I got a Nokia 5610d-2b XpressMusic and I'm happy with it. When I need fast down loads or to tether my laptop I use my AT&T SIMed Nokia N78 which gets 3G.


T-Mobile's whole network is setup differently than the AT&T/Cingular/at&t network, so I wouldn't expect any phones designed to work on their network to also work on T-mobile's. I would even go as far as to assume that the existing phones that work on the T-Mobile European 3G networks won't work on the US market. I hope I'm wrong. The other GSM provider in the US had an excess of capacity when they started launching their 3G offerings. T-Mobile on the other hand has not had this luxury. They didn't have service nationwide, not so long ago. As they grew, they had to take what was leftover or buy smaller carriers, just to get the spectrum, which is why they have anything at all on the 850mHz spectrum - it came with the licenses they acquired. Since there wasn't much in the way of available bandwidth in the new markets they did what they could, quickly saturating the available spectrum with 2G customers. When the AWS block became available, T-moble was first in line and would not be deterred. The markets that launched were the most saturated. They needed voice bandwidth first, it was determined to be not even enough for enhanced data services. Slowly we are seeing 3G capable data devices, like the G1 and new Sidekick, but T-Mobile focus was to improve voice availability. Now that the buildout is well underway, we will see more devices, but they will no doubt be different that other GSM carriers, since T-Mobile's network is configured differently.

[tzsm98]

Not to beat a dead horse but just so everyone is clear on this, ONLY phones officially available through T-Mobile USA are compatible with their current 3G network. There are NO exceptions to this rule right now and this is unlikely to change for a very, very long time. This is because no other carrier uses the same frequencies.

You can use European unlocked GSM phones to your heart's desire but you will NOT get 3G from T-Mobile (just GPRS/EDGE).

It looks like the Nokia N900 will support T-Mobile 3G. According to the Nokia site
"Optimized for 3G networks on WCDMA 900/1700/2100 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900"

So, there still doesn't seem to be a device that is 3G capable across T-Mobile and AT&T networks. This device is notable for utilising T-Mobile 3G bands and not being offered, at least not yet, by T-Mobile.