vB Easy Archive - so what is the story with the V801SH?

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so what is the story with the V801SH?
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Posted by: mrcrispin

As I mentioned in another thread, SoftBank made me upgrade from my V801SH to a 812SH. I don't particularly mind, as the 812SH is a much better phone; but I'm curious as to the reasons why the V801SH won't be usable any more.

The letter (and the notice on SoftBank's Japanese web page) said that due to a network change, the web and mail features wouldn't work any more. That doesn't really surprise me, since the V8 series had their own funky web/mail and I wouldn't be surprised if SoftBank wanted to retire it. I don't have mail/web, so that wouldn't matter to me.

However, they also made it clear that voice services and overseas access would also be affected. That bewilders me. Overseas, it would use GSM, and as far as I know the V801SH is an ordinary tri-band (900/1800/1900) phone in GSM mode.

Now, if I had to change my SIM (I still am using a Vodafone Japan SIM) I might understand there being some issue. But no, they just had me move my SIM to the new phone.

Posted by: mrcrispin

PS: I see on SoftBank's Japanese language pages that V801SA customers were forced to upgrade in January. Nothing on the English pages.

Posted by: aw614

just unlock it and use it on regular us networks then

Posted by: mrcrispin

Quote:

Originally Posted by aw614

just unlock it and use it on regular us networks then

In fact, I just did unlock the V801SH today (paying $31 for the cable and unlock software), since otherwise (being locked to a network that no longer works with it) it was a useless brick.

To my dismay, the unlock changed the IMEI!

I had heard rumors that unlocking a V801SH makes it "unreliable". Sure enough, after inserting a new SIM, and entering the SIM PIN, sometimes it reboots and prompts for the PIN again. With one particular SIM, it seems to do this always. Unlocking also does nothing about the phone's prompting, every time you press a menu button, to contact Vodafone Japan's defunct servers to set up the phone's network connections...

So, after all this, I have a tri-band GSM phone that doesn't like all SIM cards, is irritating to use, and is of questionable legality due to the changed IMEI. On the other hand, I have a defunct Dobson Cellular One SIM which it likes, so if nothing else it can be used as a camera and media player...

Posted by: AL9999

Yeah I remember reading that they were retiring all the VGS-branded phones due to 'network improvements/changes'. They started with the very old ones (V-N701, V-SA701, V801SA) before they finally disabled the V801SH more recently. I don't know why network improvements cause a phone to be disabled altogether; like you I can understand if it was because VGS Mail itself was being retired, but they don't have to make the phone useless altogether. Oh well...

As for why it can't be used overseas, well, I'd assume Softbank's network would probably tell the overseas one that the subscriber using that V801SH shouldn't be allowed to connect to its network. Whenever you make/receive calls while global roaming the calls are routed from the home network to the local one, so Softbank could easily cut the service by disabling that routing.

Posted by: mrcrispin

Quote:

Originally Posted by AL9999

Yeah I remember reading that they were retiring all the VGS-branded phones due to 'network improvements/changes'. They started with the very old ones (V-N701, V-SA701, V801SA) before they finally disabled the V801SH more recently. I don't know why network improvements cause a phone to be disabled altogether; like you I can understand if it was because VGS Mail itself was being retired, but they don't have to make the phone useless altogether. Oh well...

The first that I heard about it was in February, when I got the letter. I thought that it was something specific to the V801SH; there was nothing on the English page, and when I looked on the Japanese page I just saw the info about the V801SH. I didn't look far back enough; I just found out today that the V801SA is also affected.

Bummer. I bought a V801SA on eBay from a returning expatriate a couple of years ago, and my Significant Other uses it (with a rented USIM card at 105 yen/day -- much cheaper than renting a phone) when she's with me in Japan. Guess we'll have to find a different option.

Posted by: AL9999

Yeah... only solution is to get one of the older handsets, there's probably a good deal for a used 705SH or something on Yahoo Auctions Japan now.