T-Mobile is deploying 1900MHz HSPA/4G

[ilvla2]

Everywhere i've been with T, it's always been at least a 3.6Mbps network, and to be honest i've not gotten 3.6 for about 3yrs or so.. It's all been at least 7.2

You'd be hating mobile life if you came up here with them If maxing out at 100 Kbps down is okay, then you're good, otherwise, better come with VZ, AT&T or USCC.

[c-f0o]

Hey guys, I've been following the thread for the past 15 pages or so...

I have an international galaxy s3 (i9300) and T-Mobile service. I live in southern california (roughly 15 minutes from downtown LA). Does my phone automatically pick up T-Mobiles 1900mhz 3g spectrum when its available or do I have to search for it constantly in mobile data?

[the_Inquisitor]

As long as you haven't disabled UMTS (which is also called 3G or WCDMA) your phone will automatically register on any supported and allowed UMTS network once it comes up. Just make sure your phone is set to "WCDMA preferred" under Settings | Wireless and network | Mobile networks | Network mode
On some operator-crippled phones these settings may be hidden and instead you may access them by dialing *#*#4636#*#* then scrolling down where you'll find a drop-down menu where you can also select "WCDMA preferred".
However so far there hasn't been any report of 1900MHz UMTS coverage from California: http://www.airportal.de/

[the_Inquisitor]

If I recall the requirement was to be able to support video calling. Remember that? It was supposed to be the next big thing.

The only thing big about UMTS in the early days was the size of phones. In May 2004 I bought on of the first UMTS handsets that were available in Germany, a Samsung Z105, and I sold it after just two days as it was big and heavy, battery lasted less than 24 hours, UMTS coverage was patchy and there was nobody to video-call while Internet access was prohibitively expensive. But indeed it was video calling that operators believed would change mobile telephony, which of course didn't happen with prices of >€ 0.50/min and because of the privacy issues when you call on speaker in public and the inconvenience to unearth your headset upon each video call.

[ac21365]

Howdy all. I've been following this thread for a while and figured I'd chime in. I Have an old HTC FUZE that I was considering using when my last Verizon contract was up (because it appeared Verizon was about to wait til after its no-grandfathered data deadline had passed.), but they didn't, thankfully.

Anywho, out of curiosity I went and nabbed a T-Mobile sim card and scoped out the west, north-central and northwest sides of town looking for 1900mHz UMTS. Unfortunately, I only found EDGE on the towers I hit. I remain hopeful that T-Mobile will continue rolling out on their 1900mHz band. I'll chime in and update the site if I happen to catch it turned on here.

[jarrodpd]

According to the airportal.de site there is 1900 3G south of Orlando Fl.

[the_Inquisitor]

Those of you with Samsung smartphones running Android (except for the Galaxy Nexus) can find out the used UMTS frequency band by dialing *#197328640# and selecting Debug Screen / Basic Information which will show one of the screens below (or similar on other models). Note that you need to be registered on the UMTS network for this (usually indicated by "3G", "4G" or "H" next to the signal bars) - otherwise you will see GSM specific information.

Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Note


Band 1 = UMTS 2100 (Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania)
Band 2 = UMTS 1900 aka PCS (Americas)
Band 4 = UMTS 1700 aka AWS (North America)
Band 5 = UMTS 850 (Americas, Asia, Oceania)
Band 8 = UMTS 900 (Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania)

[ilvla2]

Those of you with Samsung smartphones running Android can find out the used UMTS frequency band by dialing *#197328640# and selecting Debug Screen / Basic Information which will show one of the screens below (or similar on other models). Note that you need to be registered on the UMTS network for this (usually indicated by "3G", "4G" or "H" next to the signal bars) - otherwise you will see GSM specific information.

Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Note


Band 1 = UMTS 2100 (Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania)
Band 2 = UMTS 1900 aka PCS (Americas)
Band 4 = UMTS 1700 aka AWS (North America)
Band 5 = UMTS 850 (Americas, Asia, Oceania)
Band 8 = UMTS 900 (Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania)

My Galaxy Nexus shows UMTS:3 when connected to my AT&T Microcell, which operates on 1900.

[the_Inquisitor]

According to Wikipedia UMTS Band 3 defines a frequency range around 1800 MHz which is not used in the US since it is allocated for Federal Government use while outside the US it is widely used for GSM. Also afaik there is not a single UMTS network nor any UMTS handset that would run on this band. Operators (like T-Mobile in Germany is already doing) will very likely skip UMTS as an evolutionary stage of their 1800MHz spectrum and instead will directly deploy LTE once they rededicate these frequencies used for GSM today - so UMTS 1800 will never become reality I think.
"UMTS:3" probably indicates something different. Could you post a screenshot of what you see? Just press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons for about a second until you see the screen turn into a photo.

[ilvla2]

According to Wikipedia Band 3 defines a frequency range around 1800 MHz which is not used in the US since it is allocated for Federal Government use. Also afaik there is not a single UMTS network nor any UMTS handset that would run on this band. Operators (like T-Mobile in Germany) will very likely skip UMTS as an evolutionary stage and instead will directly deploy LTE once they rededicate their 1800 MHz frequencies used for GSM today - so UMTS 1800 will never become reality I think.
"UMTS:3" probably indicates something different. Could you post a screenshot of what you see? Just press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons for about a second until you see the screen turn into a photo.

I thought it was weird too, here's the screen shot-

[the_Inquisitor]

Does this screen actually come up after dialing *#197328640#?

Perhaps "UMTS:3" is a wrong spelling of what was intended to be "UMTS/3G" or so.

[DRNewcomb]

According to Wikipedia UMTS Band 3 defines a frequency range around 1800 MHz which is not used in the US since it is allocated for Federal Government use while outside the US it is widely used for GSM.

Band III = 1800 MHz GSM band used outside N. America. Government usage of this band in the 1980s is why the US allocated 1900 MHz rather than being the same as Europe. The remaining Government usage was moved off this band to make way for AWS. Essentially the lower end (1700 MHz) of the AWS band is where the problem was.

[MrObvious]

That may not be the band but rather the network type. If you look at build.prop there will be a default network type equals blank line. For my phone I have to make sure I change it since the Droid 3 naturally prefers CDMA/EVDO mixed. But since I am on T-Mobile I have to change it to 2 which is 2g.

Sent from my XT883 using HowardForums

[cmstlist]

Just to be clear, the codes posted here for "Samsung Galaxy" phones do not apply to the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus runs a stock Google firmware, while the field test screens are part of Samsung's TouchWiz overlay. The Galaxy Nexus is currently not capable of providing the same level of detailed info.

UMTS:3 means it's a UMTS network and the 3 just represents some sort of ranked revision number. When I was using HSPA+ in the States, it said HSPAP:15. Although it looks like the revision number has been stripped back out of the firmware as of Jellybean.

[yoshiki2]

how do i check on my lumia 710? It's a pntaband phone..