BB Tour 9630, No 3g? only EDGE

[snatale1]

I've got a 9630 that I just put on TMO, it started life with VZW I unlocked it and activated it today, at first at my signal bars it said egde, after a few minutes that changed to EDGE, but never 3g. It is a 3g phone, that worked fine with VZW. My GF has a TMO branded BB and thats always on 3g, I checked my phones specs and it says it does GSM 850/900/1800/1900 HSDPA 2100. The CDMA radio is off, and I tried setting it to 3G only to see what happens and it just says searching for UMTS. Under Mobie network in my settings it says *NONE* but theres two options for TMO, T-Mobile 310/260 and T-Mobile 310/490. Anything to do with it?

[bolthead]

The Tour 9630 does not have the T-Mobile 3G bands (1700/2100) so all you will get is EDGE

[snatale1]

The Tour 9630 does not have the T-Mobile 3G bands (1700/2100) so all you will get is EDGE

It doesn't have 1700 but does do 2100, do you need both?

[bolthead]

You got it, T-Mobile uses AWS for their 3G

"AWS is actually a set of paired bands, meaning it consists of two bands: one for base stations (towers) to transmit to mobile terminals (phones) and another band for phones to transmit back to towers." ~ Phonescoop

[snatale1]

figures.....thanks

[xtrchessreal]

Yeah same issue for me, I tried T-MObile and Simple Mobile, now Im on Cricket but can't get the Gmail to work. I don't flippin understand this. TMO drops calls all the time, same for Simple Mobile (they use TMO network so it makes sense). Cricket seems to be pretty solid so far except for the Gmail thing.

[snatale1]

Thats weird, Are you using the app? no call quality issues with TMO here.

[xtrchessreal]

FYI: my 9630 Tour was VZN as well then put on AT&T/TMO/Simple Mobile/Cricket. The EDGE network was all I ever got with ATT/TMO/SiMO. On SiMO itd showed as "edge" not "EDGE" as it was with ATT and TMO. I researched that as best as I could and found that the 9630 is only 2G for SiMO because of the same issue pointed out above no 1700 Hz. I thought the "edge" issue was due to that as well but have learned that is indicative of something else - I can't recall right at this moment. In any case no 3G on TMO or SiMO, so I decided to go back to a CDMA network. After looking at VZN and Sprint prices I looked at Cricket. Its one headache for another. Now I get "1xev" instead of 1XEV so I am trying to figure what that means and at the same time trying to get Gmail to work with LogicMail - my settings are not right it just indicates its connecting never connects. I can fly on the web however, it is as good as it was with VZN maybe better. I found a good article on data network tests that PC Mag did across the country. Cricket is the most consistent high spreed data carrier, with the numbers to show it. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364263,00.asp This test was done on the data networks only btw.

The dropped calls I had were bad, as many as 4 times dropped in a ten minute period while talking from home. TMO and SiMO were the same on that point. I could watch the bars go out, starting with 3 bars it frequently went to the tiny 1 bar and then it would pop up to 3 and then out completely leaving sos in red letters for about a minute. Then it would reconnect at 3 bars never 4 "and the number 5 being right out" (monty python holy grail reference, lol)

IMO all carriers that make a claim to provide a specific type of service should also be required to provide it to any capable phone regardless of where it was purchased so long as you are paying to be on their network. The support for this should be in place when they launch it.

[snatale1]

Ya, thats screwy, i asked the same question to TMO, for a while I had edge instead of EDGE, tech support said lowercase meant a weaker signal for data where the bars where for voice. Seems right I usually only have lowercase when I'm in a weak signal area, prob the same for EV, Although they resent SB's and it doesn't seem to happen as much. Have you tried Boost CDMA, I'm thinking about giving them a shot, theres custom SB's here on the site for 9630s. Sprints not the best carrier going around here but in most places there pretty close.