Does anybody have a GSM phone that supports the 850MHz band? I have T-Mobile service in the US on my T610. My house has no service. However, according to this website, T-Mobile has a roaming agreement with Dobson Communications which brands their service as Cellular One around here and seems to be the primary wireless provider in the area. What's moronic to me is that CellOne is strictly GSM 850 which T-Mobile offers no phones for in their store.

So, I want to know if getting a quad-band phone will allow me to roam on CellOne at my house. Does anyone have a phone lying around that supports 850MHz GSM and also happens to be unlocked that I can test with? Yeah, I know, long shot.

How about this one Link

Well, I woldn't expect anyone to lend me a phone like that since it's probably their primary mode of wireless communication. But, yeah, that would work.

Ahh I missed that part I just remembered reading this phone was unlocked and quad band.

Cingular T616's come unlocked. (Or at least did a few months ago) You can generally pick them up for sub $100 prices on the used market. From everything I've read, T-Mobile does everything in their power to not sell or let you use GSM850. (They don't want you to taste the sweet taste that is being able to talk on your phone indoors for fear you'll grow acustomed to it)

Matthew

The T616 would be good for testing here, but keep in mind it is still a tri-band phone that lacks 900mhz. So, it will be less then perfect if you use it in Europe.

I think that is T-Mobile's issue with 850. AT&T pushed ahead with it, instead of trying 900 GSM here, something almost every GSM phone supports. T-Mobile on the other hand has lots of international customers to worry about, and until common replacements across the board are quadband, they need to keep the majority of their user base happy. I think if it was still Voicestream, they would have gone 850 as well.

You can always buy a GSM850 phone from a third party reseller like GSM Phone Source. Many of the new higher-end Motorola phones are quad-band, as are pricier things like the Trio 600 or 650. T-Mobile does offer the Motorola V600 as well as the newer A630. Both are quad-band from the factory, but I've read that T-Mobile "disables" the GSM850 support, but that reflashing the firmware restores the functionality. Or something weird like that. The sorts of places that you can read about it (e.g., HowardForums) are so full of noise and so lacking is clue, that it's hard to know the extent to which these stories are true.

I think that GSM900 (the original European standard) uses frequencies that are open in the U.S. GSM900 cel towers would be fighting with our cordless phones. GSM850, on the other hand, uses the original frequencies used by U.S. analog cel phones.

<Devil on shoulder mode>

You know you want the new Motorola RAZR V3! Just purchase it!

</Devil on shoulder mode>

The RAZR is very, very tempting. The devil on one shoulder says I should get a RAZR because the new family car (shudder) is likely to be an Acura TL, which has all kinds of nifty Bluetooth support and the touch stainless steel construction. Gotta have a Bluetooth phone, right? If you get it with a Cingular plan, it's $500. Getting the phone unlocked from GSM Phone Source is $650. Ouch. Prices will probably go down in the spring. I probably need to go to a Cingular store and play with the RAZR in person. I want to see how well-built it is.

The devil on the other shoulder says that I want a Treo 650. Synchronization with Outlook on my PC is one of the key features of my current phone that I would want, and the Treo isn't a tank like all the other PDA phones.

The angel sitting in the middle points out that my Nokia 5100 is still a perfectly good phone, and does a great job of withstanding abuse. I can buy a Nokia Bluetooth adapter for the phone that will at least let the Acura act as a headset for the phone, even if it can't dial the phone or display the incoming phone numbers. Also, I really like the Nokia UI. This might lead me to a Nokia 6230 ($390 unlocked, good GUI, supports Bluetooth, but not quad-band, and not ruggedized).

Maybe I just need to sell my left kidney and get a Vertu.

Since this thread is still on the 1st page, I guess I'll give an update.

I had a SonyEricsson T226 that was network locked to Cingular that I decided to put some thought into unlocking. Well, I unlocked it and it still can't see Cellular One. I don't get it. The T-Mobile sim has entries for CellOne as an acceptable network. The only wireless provider that has service at my house is Nextel, and even then it's very low signal. If I go a quarter mile down the road, I have full signal. It's crazy.

My next step is to get a 3-watt booster to try out. If that works I will probably hook it up to a repeater.

Anyone in the market for an unlocked T226 (850/1900MHz GSM) upgraded to the latest firmware I could find?

Has anyone tried the Motorola V551? That one is a quad-band too..

I've seen some mumbling on forums that the V551 and V600 are roughly the same inside. People are flashing one phone with firmware for the other. I suppose it really comes down to build quality and fashion issues.

Bloody hell! My celphone decided that today was a good day to die. It was just sitting on my desk and turned itself off. The power key wasn't working. I pulled the battery, waited a few minutes, and tried again. The lights turn on for about half a second and go black. This now occurs every time I press the power button.

That Motorola RAZR is looking more attractive every minute.

I just got off the phone with T-Mobile's retention specialist. She pointed out something I didn't know before. Anybody gone to Amazon.com looking for cel phones? They've got stunning deals, but all including service. You can get a Motorola RAZR for $370 (versus $500 at the Cingular web site). Interesting stuff!

Yeah, Amazon has some amazing deals as long as you don't mind rebates. The one thing to be aware of is that if you cancel your service before your contract is up, you may get a charge back from Amazon in addition to the cell phone company's early termination fee. This applies to any reseller that is giving additional discounts.

Amazon gives you the rebate up front and then charges you back if you cancel within, I think, 6 months. Some other resellers that offer rebates don't give the rebate at all until you send them a bill 6 months later showing you kept the service. Basically, they are passing on the rules of the kickback they receive from the cell company for a new sub.

Okay, folks, puzzle out this consumer choice. My wife has Cingular with an old TDMA phone that needs to be upgraded to GSM. I have T-Mobile, and my GSM phone just crapped out today. After much phoning and Amazoning, here are the options.

T-Mobile:

- I "upgrade" my phone to a Motorola V600: $169
- I buy another V600 through Amazon for my wife: $-25 (yes, negative after rebates)
- They give me my first and sixth month free: $-70 now, $-70 later

Net out-of-pocket now (post rebates and such): $74

Cingular:

- My wife "upgrades" her phone to a Motorola V551: $0 (a "courtesy" upgrade)
- I buy another V551 through Amazon for me: $0 (after rebates and such)
- They matched the sixth month free: $-70 later

Net out-of-pocket now: $0


Alternatively, I could spend $370 out of pocket and have a Cingular-branded Motorola RAZR via Amazon. After that, the calling plans are exactly the same. Same minutes, same cost.


T-Mobile Pros:
- I get to keep my grandfathered international roaming rates (notably cheap incoming rates in Western Europe, typically $0.20/minute)

T-Mobile Cons:
- More money up front
- No (cheap) availability of the RAZR

Cingular Pros:
- Less money up front (probably some hidden activation and garbage fees)
- V551 > V600?

Cingular Cons:
- $1.29/minute roaming in Western Europe


Put all of that together, and the only real unknown is how much I really need the grandfathered cheap international roaming. I probably go to Europe once every year or two for a week on average. I'd like to be able to call home every day or two for 15 minutes, so call that 60 minutes of air-time per trip. The Cingular penalty for me is then roughly $70/year. On the other hand, the RAZR discount is $300 relative to the street price.

Sounds like Cingular wins, and that's without even getting some kind of pre-paid wireless SIM card while I'm in Europe. Virgin Mobile seems to charge £10 ($19) for the 60 minutes I think I'd need. Are prices similar in France, Germany, and other parts of Western Europe? Luckily, even if I couldn't get Cingular to unlock my phone, I've still got my trusty old Ericsson T28W in the closet to call into duty (which I'm doing right now, in fact).

Thoughts?

I just switched to Cingular because I'm hoping to get better signal. As it is now with T-Mobile, I have 0 signal at home and very weak signal at work (goes in and out of service). So, I figured that it couldn't get any worse. We'll see what happens in my situation once I actually get the phone. I chose another SonyEricsson phone (T637) because I love my T610 and I can unlock and upgrade SE phones.

The only downside that I can see to Cingular is most of the phones you get from them are 850/1800/1900MHz. Since you're talking about newer Motorola phones, you have quad band which allows 900MHz reception in europe. I only go to europe about once a year (for the empeg meet, of course), so when I go I will probably just bring my T610 with me which has 900/1800/1900.

If I were shopping for a wireless provider today, I would go with Cingular because of the merger with AT&T. From some coverage maps I've seen on Howard Forums, it looks like they absolutely dominate the metro NY area now compared to T-Mobile. They also support EDGE which you can use if you have a data plan and your phone is equipped. The SE phone I just bought isn't but at least the ability to use the network is there already. I used the GPRS connection through T-Mobile a lot when it was free. Now that they killed that (it seems since I can't get on anymore), I really miss it. I took Amtrak business-class (110V power at every seat) from Providence, RI to New York a couple months back. I was surfing the net almost the entire way through GPRS. That was awesome. I am tempted now to try it on a plane while keeping my phone in my pocket out of sight. It's too bad I'm too paranoid to actually attempt to get away with it.

Using a phone on a plane isn't a good idea. If you're high up then you'd be visible to quite a few cell sites at once and they really don't like that since you'd be taking up a chunk of spectrum in each cell.

Yeah. I don't believe the excuse about how it could affect the navigation systems. You'd go off course everytime you flew over a cell antenna and really beware if you flew over a radio transmitter If the low power transmitter in a mobile phone could screw up the avionics that badly in a plane then I definitely don't want to be in it!

I vaguely remember somebody saying the EM fields generated by the phone can interfere with the compass. I don't degauss the TV everytime I walk past it with my phone in my pocket so it can't be that either...

I had a friend flying lufthansa five or six years ago who was told to turn off her CD player because it was against the rules to listen to it at any time durring the 12 hour flight. She said she'd put it under her jacket and kept listening as "she wasn't going to bring a 747 down with a CD player".

I don't beleive a phone's going to cause any problems for anyone but the cell phone companies, and they should stop relying on the FAA to help them out. Determining that a phone is traversing cells at 400mph isn't dificult.

Matthew
(who turns his phone off like a good little sheep every time he gets on an airplane)

Yeah. Just checking the number of cells that can see a particular phone would work as well. If it's visible to a large number of widely dispersed cells then you know something is going on.

You telling me that I can't use my mobile phone when I've lit the JATO on my truck with the bullet as a replacement fuse whilst trying to clean the chrome with foil and cola? Damn...

That's great that you're switching too, Rob. I ditched TMobile a few months back, and I'm very happy. I didn't go with Cingular at the time, because they had crap coverage. The only problem I see with the merger is that I've heard bad things about Cingular's phone support and the same about AT&T. Sprint has given me fantastic support over the phone.

Anyway, I don't think I could be much happier with the reception I get with Sprint. In my observations, every place that I had good reception with TMobile has been the same or better with Sprint, and I've gotten full reception with Sprint in places where I got no reception with TMobile. My TMobile phone seemed to only get good reception if you were within a mile of the tower with no hills or trees in the way. With Sprint I've gotten reception pretty much anywhere but places where you wouldn't really expect to get service, like parking garages (although I get great reception in the garage under the Kennedy Center).

Quote:
The Mythbusters should see if they can bring down an airliner with a cell phone.

They could definitely test that myth. It's not like the myth requires them to be in the air to test it, and they've been to plane graveyards before. I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem getting airliner parts they could test this on.

It appears the question of cell phone use on planes is being reconsidered:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50320-2004Dec9.html