vB Easy Archive - True or False: In order to take advantage of "smartswitching," your phone needs...

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True or False: In order to take advantage of "smartswitching," your phone needs...
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Posted by: Supratik

Hey guys,

I recently went to a local store to get my Razr unlocked and flashed to latest firmware. When asked if I wanted Cingular-branded or OEM-branded, without hesitation I said OEM-branded. I have a Nokia branded 6230, and I absolutely love it. The guy at the store, however, said that, in addition to a 64k sim card, our phones need to have a Cingular firmware on them to take advantage of the smart-switching that is slowly going into effect across the nation.

What's smart-switching? As Cingular Orange and Blue perform their final technical mergers, smart-switching is where your phone, on its own, looks for a "stronger" network, and if it finds one it automatically logs onto that one. This means if you have 4/5 bars on a Cingular Orange tower, and then the phone searches and finds a 5/5 bar Cingular Blue tower, it'll automatically switch to Cingular Blue.

Now, my apartment is oriented such that the Cingular Orange signal is too weak for a coherent conversation but too strong for the signal to disappear completely which would allow my unbranded 6230 (with 64k sim card) to switch to Cingular Blue's much stronger network. Luckily, the 6230 has a modification that can be done to it to re-enable the disabled network selection menu. So usually, when I walk into my apartment I switch over manually to Cingular Blue (aka AT&T).

This of course presents a problem for me; i.e. whenever I get a new phone for which such a modification does not exist. Hence, smart-switching would be ideal for me since once I enter my apartment, after a few minutes the phone would do the searching thing and find the stronger Cingular Blue signal WITHOUT having to wait for the Cingular Orange signal to fade out (which I normally had to do before I found the network selection menu modification).

To my knowledge, again, my unbranded Nokia 6230 with 64k SIM card does NOT do this.

When I stick my 64k sim card into the unlocked/flashed to latest Cingular firmware (but oddly enough, lacking the retarded Cingular bloatware, the guys at the store did a good job), initial tests showed that usually the Razr always got 3-4 bars of reception in my apartment. There is no way, of course, to tell what network the Razr is on, and I've always understood the Razr to have similar quality of reception to the 6230. The only answer to this question that I can think of is that the Razr is performing the smart-switching.

What does this mean? Is this true? Do my phones need to have Cingular firmware as well as the 64k sim card to take true advantage of the network? Does this mean that I really can't buy unbranded phones directly from the manufacturer?

Or is my Nokia 6230's OEM firmware just too old in general? I have 4.43, and I believe the latest is 5.50.

Thanks.

Posted by: gps

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supratik

What's smart-switching?

In house, this is known as "load balancing". It's NOT to get you on the strongest tower. It's for Cingular to have the ability to force you onto 850 or 1900. This is only being used in LARGE cities where system busy's are prevalent. For instance, if San Francisco is is reporting a lot of blocked calls on their 850 band, and the 1900 band isn't, they can force your phone to 1900 first and then to 850 if 1900 isn't available. They want to BALANCE their tower load to make use of all of the towers they have.

Hope that makes sense.

Posted by: boston_errol

I believe the smart switching they are alluding to is ENS. ENS is basically the load balancing/fast switching between the cing/blue networks (its in the FAQ here). However it is to my understanding that if your area is integrated or after integration, ENS becomes an entirely moot point.

Posted by: bobolito

Yep! we're talking about the lovely ENS here!

Posted by: GigabyteGurus

Quote:

Originally Posted by gps

Cingular load balances customers between NETWORKS (i.e. between the Blue and Orange networks). They actually program your SIM over the air to prefer one of the two networks all the time. It has nothing to do with what frequency you are on. Some markets don't even have 850 MHz but they still have load balancing. Load balance will be going away once the network integration is complete and there is one network.

Posted by: kdenninger

Yep.

It only helps during integration.

Basically, there normally is one network number your phone considers "home", which is set in the SIM. ENS allows the phone to consider two networks "home", and to switch between them exactly as it would if they were one.

Its a kludge that was put into some phones specifically to cover the Cing/AT&T merger, and once integration is complete will be of no value.

Posted by: pcardoza

THERE IS NO SIM / PHONE / FIRMWARE COMBINATION THAT SEAMLESSLY SWITCHES BETWEEN BLUE AND ORANGE! ENS does not do that. The 64k SIM does not do that. ENS load balances ONLY within the home network that is programmed into the 64k SIM. So, if your 64k SIM/ENS phone is programmed to favor Orange, ENS will manage capacity loads between orange towers only.

Unless you live in an area where specific towers routinely run short of capacity, I see no benefits to us users for ENS. If the closer tower is 90% loaded and a remote tower is 40% loaded, I don't want to be switched off to the weaker signal, do you????

Posted by: bobolito

Quote:

Originally Posted by pcardoza

If the closer tower is 90% loaded and a remote tower is 40% loaded, I don't want to be switched off to the weaker signal, do you????

Assuming both of those towers are in the same network and when you try to dial the phone can't get a voice channel because it is full, then you get switched automatically anyways with or without ENS.

Posted by: pcardoza

Right, that's why I used the 90% - 40% example......

Posted by: tyterydez

I recently switched to cingular from the dreaded suncom. lol But there is definately one thing I am missing a lot. My choice of network. Previously with suncom when I didn't have a strong signal I had a ability to select any GSM network in my area in network selections. And now I find out that cingular has disabled this function?!?! Well I have a Nokia 6102 and a moto mpx220. I read in the first thread that apparently some phones have the ability to change this. Does anyone know how I can enable network selection on either of these phones? I am generally quite happy with my service and reception until I'm at my house and then I have no signal with cingular.

Posted by: blkballoon925

Quote:

Originally Posted by tyterydez

I recently switched to cingular from the dreaded suncom. lol But there is definately one thing I am missing a lot. My choice of network. Previously with suncom when I didn't have a strong signal I had a ability to select any GSM network in my area in network selections. And now I find out that cingular has disabled this function?!?! Well I have a Nokia 6102 and a moto mpx220. I read in the first thread that apparently some phones have the ability to change this. Does anyone know how I can enable network selection on either of these phones? I am generally quite happy with my service and reception until I'm at my house and then I have no signal with cingular.

It can be done on the MPx220 with a registry editor.
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=509783

Posted by: tyterydez

thanks!! i'll try that!