vB Easy Archive - Can the v3x have the 850 band enabled?

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Can the v3x have the 850 band enabled?
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Posted by: BD@ubc

Has anyone tinkered around with this? If this thing had the 850 band this is a great option for a phone.

Posted by: hfelsh

Moto's own website for the V3x (LINK) does nto state what band(s) the phone is set to. One would think that since it is built upon the V3 base, it will support the same bands: 850, 900, and 1800, making it a "world phone".

Consider what I posted in the V3x colors, unlocking thread: (edited in part to applyt o this question)

"Sir Issac Newton's third law of physics states:

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

Ergo, if a phone (or in this case, a certain band) can be locked, it must start it's life as unlocked. So if it is locked, it can be unlocked again. It is not possibe to lock something (a phone, a drawer, you car, a broadcast TV show, et. al) and set it so that it can never be unlocked again. That is impossible.

The only question is how. Someone will come up with a process, be it software, hardware, or some combination thereof."

Posted by: cellaradar

Quote:

Originally Posted by BD@ubc

Has anyone tinkered around with this? If this thing had the 850 band this is a great option for a phone.

I totally agree. I was trying to decide either V3i or V3x for a friend, and the V3x would have been perfect if it had 850 band. now I might have to consider buying a V3i because quadband is the most important feature.

btw.. I dont think you can add 850 band to a phone. unless you modify the hardware.

Posted by: intrepidusa

Quote:

Originally Posted by cellaradar

If there were/are any intentions on bringing this phone to the US market then 850 is already in the phone and just needs to be activated through the seems. I have not seen however any news about this phone coming to the US anytime soon, but it would work just fine on T-Mobile so there is at least one carrier that it is ready for...Cingular is another story because of the 850 issue, but if Moto played this smartly the 850 is there (just like the E398 which has all 4 bands there, it is just made carrier specific by seem editing which of the lower 2 bands you activate). I hope they played this smart as I want to see this phone in the States as do a lot of our clients here.

Posted by: chorro

I thought Cingular phones switch to the 850mhz band when the signal on the 1900mhz band gets too low?

Hopefully Tmobile will add the 850mhz band to their networks.

Posted by: kaneman

The V3x is a WCDMA/UMTS 3G phone that's not designed for use in the US and is quadband (900/1800/1900/2100). So, while it'll work on 1900 for roaming purposes, there's no 850. Should they come out with a US version, it'll have 850 and will likely drop the 2100Mhz world WCDMA band.

Posted by: jdvoracek

Quote:

Originally Posted by cellaradar

btw.. I dont think you can add 850 band to a phone. unless you modify the hardware.

i remember a while back that some folks with tmobile v600's had to do a seem edit to enable the 850 band if they wanted to keep the tmobile flex. the phone was capable, but the tmobile firmware disabled it.

Posted by: intrepidusa

Quote:

Originally Posted by chorro

I thought Cingular phones switch to the 850mhz band when the signal on the 1900mhz band gets too low?

Hopefully Tmobile will add the 850mhz band to their networks.

T-Mo will not add 850...they are locked into 900/1900 as per their frequency allocations...that is the problem in America...NTIA and FCC never standardized and it is causing grief for the consumers but it is great fo rthe carriers as there is more bandwidth and channels for them to use in their band. The V3x will work just fine on T-Mo and you will get the advantage of the WCDMA for Europe along with the other bands for Euro and Asia.

Cingular phones will switch to 850 when there is no 1900 signal available and vice versa...some areas are only 850 and some are only 1900 depending on the buildout and local area restrictions.

Posted by: phidauex

T-MO does have roaming agreements with LOTS of 850 providers however, so having 850 on a Tmo phone is a big bonus. You can tell that Tmobile is phasing out all their non-850 enabled phones in favor of models that have it.

If you go to compass.t-mobile.com you can see the coverage map which now shows most of their 850 service area (again, provided through roaming agreements, not native coverage). Its a lot of landscape, for sure.

peace,
sam

Posted by: intrepidusa

True they have great roaming agreements with 850 carriers and that is great for the customers. But their selection of phones is another story, 3 out of 14 current models are Quad band phones and they sacrifice their own 900 network on 4 models for phones that will use 1900 and roam onto 850 everywhere else...very strange seeing how the same model phone is available in 900/1900 from the manufacturer. Does T-Mo not trust their own network coverage? You won't see a 900/1900 phone on Cingular's web site. The roaming agreements are great but you lose out on your data and I-Net connection if you roam over to an AT&T or Cingular tower in the middle of something due to address conflicts. Here in Florida T-Mo is 1900 everywhere so you don't even use the 900 band and that is a nice thing...but where they had to split up area with a mixture then the customer loses out and that is truly not fair at all to them having purchased a phone from their carrier that does not even work on their own lower band network.

Posted by: scotty2

there are *NO* 900mhz towers in the US.
it is an international only band, as 900mhz is an unlicensed frequency in the US used by cordless phone manufacturers and other unlicensed wireless devices. that may change in the future, and the spectrum is auctioned off frequently. also, tmobile has it's own 850mhz towers as well as roaming agreements to use other companies.

Posted by: s700

So it looks like basically v3x cannot be unlocked for 850 since there is nothing to unlock

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaneman

The V3x is a WCDMA/UMTS 3G phone that's not designed for use in the US and is quadband (900/1800/1900/2100). So, while it'll work on 1900 for roaming purposes, there's no 850. Should they come out with a US version, it'll have 850 and will likely drop the 2100Mhz world WCDMA band.

Posted by: spins1232001

Found this on the Cingular site listing GPRS coverage:

http://www.cingular.com/download/GPRS_coverage_leg.pdf

In the legend it denotes what is 850/1900Mhz or just 1900Mhz in the US for Cingular. Don't know if this helps any but just FYI.

Posted by: intrepidusa

Hey folks...hot off the presses as of 20 December 2005...T-Mobile will try to obtain and buildout 850Mhz network expansion so that they can offer 3G services in the US by 2007...there are a number of articles out there on the web on this as told by the VP for Engineering of T-Mo...

Posted by: BD@ubc

http://www.mobiledia.com/phones/motorola/razr-v3x.html

Has it listed that it has 850.... can anyone confirm this?

Posted by: intrepidusa

Rumors of Cingular picking up this phone were around but never had any inkling that they were true...I hope this is accurate and they made an 850 model...can anyone get confirmation...I am calling this morning but no one is around at Moto go figure with the Holiday...how dare they take a day off.