Database Develop

Cannot make calls while on 3g. Tmob advised me to switch to GSM as the solution!!

grrr
what a **** workaround!
that was their response... a **** workaorund that degrades my service..
anyone else had this or any thoughts on it?

Don't switch to GSM, switch to AT&T!
I am not a fan-boy for any of the carriers, but I must say that over the years I have gotten excellent service from ATT - except for when they changed to Cingular, which was a collection of regional companies with regional problems and inability to service - IMHO - a truly mobile client (like I live on the East Coast, but kept a west coast cell number - Cingular couldn't understand or deal with that one)...and the coverage is now better than Verizon's (not to mention the phones and the fact that you can do high-speed data and a call at the same time).
Did T-Mob start pro-rating their release contracts yet?

Don't know.
Am in the uk so cannot get at and t..
boo!

yep, get the same issues, whereabouts are you? im in rainham, and have to turn off the 3g to get reliable incoming calls and make calls, dont have to go too far and it works ok!
romford / ilford seem to be ok with 3g switched on.

I'm in Ilford and when set to Auto band miss calls intermittently so can't use that setting reliably. I wondered if there was a way to set the phone to use only 3G so it doesn't keep trying to switch between 3G and GPRS?

I'm from Indonesia and discovered that sometimes when my network switches me to 3G automatically, I can't receive or make voice calls.
So, I went to phone -> menu -> options -> band -> select network type to GSM istead of AUTO or WCDMA
Unfortunately, I left the 3G coverage area before I had a chance to see if it made any difference

fil said:
yep, get the same issues, whereabouts are you? im in rainham, and have to turn off the 3g to get reliable incoming calls and make calls, dont have to go too far and it works ok!
romford / ilford seem to be ok with 3g switched on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, in central London - have been ranting about this for some time over at Modaco eg here. Not a clear answer apart from perhaps swapping the handset but its hit and miss
Its a really severe problem and I'm losing the plot a little with it. Gutted.

BTW, if you need a way to quickly switch between the two modes, read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=345524

There are about fifteen threads about this on here and on Modaco. Its a fact of life with 3g and HTC devices.
It is primarily down to relationship between the network cells and the device.
3G cells are notoriously unreliable and need a lot of maintenance - if you report a problem cell to your network, they may check it out - although they use their own testing to determine which cells need fixing.
Some devices do have weaker transceivers and hence the odd occasion where a device swap helps - but 99 times out of 100 its the network cell. And thus the reason that users find their device works fine on 3g in another location.

Diamond and UMTS is working fine? (Or worse than Cruise?)

Hello I bought the Diamond yesterday, I'm very satisfied except for the UMTS signal.
I already have a Touch Cruise (it didn't work in UMTS so HTC repaired it on warranty and now it works like a charm).
In the last 48 hours I had Diamond and Cruise one next to the other, and Diamond has always 2 lines less:
* when Cruise is in HSDPA with 4 lines, Diamond is in HSDPA with 2 lines
* when Cruise is in HSDPA with 2 lines, Diamond is in GSM.
Is this normal?
Many thanks in advance.
J.

Everyone has it i have also a TC and indeed, its shows always 2 lines more then the TD.

Same here my htc diamond has always two lines less than my htc kaiser.
The diamond has really a poor UMTS signal reception. I hope they will be able to boost it with a new ROM.

Same here
before with TC i got 2 lines 3G now non

Thanks for your feedback!
So it seems to be a common problem.
Today I checked during all the day, moving from a city to another city, half the time the Cruise had more lines, half the time they had the same.

Other feedbacks? Thanks

same problem here in austria. before i had full signal with my sony erricson t650i, now with the touch diamond i only have the half signal strength...

Well, it doesnt give many bars, but it works like hell here.
When using it as a modem (I often do on the road) I get speeds upto 150kb/s for browsing and emailing and that is just perfect for everything.

My 3G Reception is also VERY Bad.....
I´m using the latest Radio ROM 1.00.25.03.
Because of this weak 3G Recepion the Diamond changes to GSM very often, this eats the Battery up in about 6-8 Hours.....Even if I don´t play around much and the 3G Coverage here is excellent.....
Diamond: 1-2 Bars
Nokia E51: Always full Bars (-87dBm and up)
Hopefully Reception will be better with a new Radio ROM.
If it´s an Antenna issue.........DAMN!!!
I never had a Mobile with THAT bad 3G Reception.
BtW: GSM Reception is fair to good.... could be better also....

Poor 3G signal
That's right,
I have also very poor 3g signal, even though I live in the city area. I have also missed incoming/outgoing calls because the poor 3G signal.
That's not nice

same prob here (big city)
switched manually to gsm not to loose calls

Are you sure this is just 3G and not worse reception in general (ie due to smaller antenna in Diamond)?

in gsm mode i never experienced any trouble with calls.
in auto mode diamond switches to 3g (half signal strength), but one can't call me

wcg-tom said:
in auto mode diamond switches to 3G (half signal strength), but one can't call me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uh, this sounds even worse. Having a bad reception is one thing but showing a "fake reception" is a complete different level of bug.
Just to ensure that I did not get you wrong: You see a 3G reception (e.g. 2 or 3 bars) but the phone does not receive incoming calls and the caller is redirected to your mailbox instead?

foo said:
Uh, this sounds even worse. Having a bad reception is one thing but showing a "fake reception" is a complete different level of bug.
Just to ensure that I did not get you wrong: You see a 3G reception (e.g. 2 or 3 bars) but the phone does not receive incoming calls and the caller is redirected to your mailbox instead?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, got me right.
in my case it's not the mailbox, just a message ("not available" or something like that) because of my settings, but that's petty.
thats why i manually switched to gsm. for using 3g (internet) i have to swith this back again.
annoying!

wcg-tom said:
in gsm mode i never experienced any trouble with calls.
in auto mode diamond switches to 3g (half signal strength), but one can't call me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This should not happen, even when I have the minimum bars in 3G or H others can call me.
When you have full bars in 3G does it work?

same here, although i found that switching off umts and just using plain 3g solved the issues.

jwalker said:
This should not happen, even when I have the minimum bars in 3G or H others can call me.
When you have full bars in 3G does it work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes. when it's stable at full bars or even H, i can use it.
but i deacivated 3g anyway because of powersaving. only using it for web access.
there's a tool for switching 3g in comm manager easily, now i'm happy so far.

So, is it phone or is it just peace of s***?
Hi All
Do you have any fresh idea could it(lousy 3g signal) be hardware or software related issue?
The globe is full of small 3g phones without that kind of problem. That's why I really hope this issue could be fixed with the new ROM radio version...???
I hope I'm right, because if the pain is hardware related, we all have bought pretty expencive peace of crap -not the phone. It is not acceptable if the incoming / outgoing calls are missed!

Same problem, poor 3G reception .
Cruise was far better for receiving 3G signal.
Hope it is software only....

Orange Uk 3G not allowing calls and delayed txts anyone?

hi i have a touch diamond orange variety and when i travel to scarborough uk i dont get calls and will just get a txt 2hrs late saying missed call and i cant send msgs out.
ive tried my htc tytn 2 and thats the same and i tried my bros omnia and thats the same.
i was wondering if anyone else had same problem either in scarborough or anywhere else on orange uk?
ive tried numerous different radios etc
thanks for any help
rich

I'm on Orange in the UK and swapped to 3G as soon as I did I couldn't make any calls, turned out all my Phone settings were changed. On the services tab check Call Barring, Call Forwarding etc. I've gone back to my old sim only because the receiption for 3G was rubbish in my area. Hope you have better luck. tallen3

What do Orange have to say about it?

They blamed the phone, I managed to change the settings myself, Orange were less than helpful but probably about average for a phone company.

I was asking the OP!
But yes, unless you can actually see the mast with your naked eye 3G reception is a known issue with the Diamond. I have set mine to GSM only.

allenf said:
But yes, unless you can actually see the mast with your naked eye 3G reception is a known issue with the Diamond. I have set mine to GSM only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Orange 3G works fine for me without seeing the mast - even indoors. But that can't be the problem because if 3G reception is to weak or not available then it should revert to GPRS or Edge automatically and will still allow calls.
To the OP - is it all of Scarborough or just particular parts? Does it happen anywhere else in the UK?

peterc10 said:
Orange 3G works fine for me without seeing the mast - even indoors. But that can't be the problem because if 3G reception is to weak or not available then it should revert to GPRS or Edge automatically and will still allow calls.
To the OP - is it all of Scarborough or just particular parts? Does it happen anywhere else in the UK?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem I have with 3G on my Orange Diamond is that although the phone just clings onto 3G indoors (about 1 mile from the nearest 3G mast) it drops down onto GSM as soon as I make a call - with associated momentary call interference - and drains the battery a lot quicker on standby (I'm syncing with Exchange every 15 mins 07:00-17:15 Mon-Fri).
If I'm 50 yards away from the mast I get HSDPA, which is handy when I'm in my car queueing at the tip, not...

hi i finally had a call from orange they now say its scarborough that doesnt have enough 3g masts and they have planning permission in for some more.
its strange everywhere else is fine even when i have lower 3g signal than scarborough.
they recommend i leave my handset on auto which doesnt work so was told everytime i go to scarborough manually turn phone to 2g.
not a perfect soloution, and i wonder why scarborough is like that? ever since they activated the hsdpa.
thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

If your phone won't auto switch between the two then it is faulty and Orange should sort it out shouldn't they? Or is it not their phone?

peterc10 said:
If your phone won't auto switch between the two then it is faulty and Orange should sort it out shouldn't they? Or is it not their phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well it does switch between but i have a two bar 3g signal and it doesnt work for calls as explained and therefore wont switch to 2g.
thanks for all your help btw its not just my fone its most win mobile fones that my family and friends have.

(Poll) What's your opinion on 3g?

As far as making and receiving phone calls, do you use 3g? Any phone I've ever seen that uses 3g absolutely sucks. My dad's phone, my mom's phone, my girlfriend's phone, my phone. What happens is the call either doesn't go through. If you listen to the dial tone it has a small click right before each tone, if I hear that, it mean's the call isn't going through.
My mom and girlfriend have gone through replacements on their phone, but the 3g still sucks. I've even noticed they don't get that great of reception.
Even on my Tilt, if I switch to 3G i only have 2 bars and apparently people have complained of calling me but I never received the call. Now with Edge, I have full bars, and no one ever complains about the call not going through.
So what's your guy's take on 3g?

Similar to what you've experienced. I generally leave mine turned off the majority of the time, since I have the WiFi running when I'm at home anyway. I turn it on only when I need to browse the web or something when I'm out and about.
Not to mention the immense battery drain that 3G demands. My battery life is dramatically better on Edge as opposed to 3G.

Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G) can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.

Chainfire said:
Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G), plus the Touch HD, Omnia and i780 can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't experience network issues as bad as the OP seems to have, but I've always had terrible battery life on my Tilt and my iPhone, my two most recent 3G devices. My 8525 was actually very good on the battery with 3G running all day long, never had a problem getting through the day.
Maybe the intermittent GPS usage on the latter two? I don't know.

Chainfire said:
Your provider needs to update/fix their network. This is not a device issue, it's a network issue. Proper 3G (well, 3.5G / HSPA, not just UMTS per se) should also use less power than GSM / EDGE for transfers... (in watt/kbps, though)
I know for a fact that all devices in my signature (that support 3G) can work perfectly with 3G on a proper network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should go in and ask them about it, just to see what they say. Ask them why the new and greatest 3g is worse than edge. I have AT&T, I live in Washington, and I live right by a Cell tower too (only a 2 or 3 blocks away from it).

I woudln't mind using it for data but the fees here are prohibitive for private use. We use it on our work phones for data and it works well on Telstra.

mikeeey said:
I should go in and ask them about it, just to see what they say. Ask them why the new and greatest 3g is worse than edge. I have AT&T, I live in Washington, and I live right by a Cell tower too (only a 2 or 3 blocks away from it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They'll probably say it ain't so Thing is, when 3G first got rolled out here, we had much the same issues. The big providers here spent some $$$ to replace "faulty" hardware at the towers, and voila, the problem disappeared (2 years ago?). Seems many 3G networks around the world have similar issues to the ones you described in the opening post. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the 3G cell-tower hardware manufacturers - probably the cheapest and hence most used - makes some really crappy equipment. I could almost imagine that manufacturer is Qualcomm
In all seriousness though, all I know for sure is we had these issues here too, and they fixed them by fixing the towers. (Though of course there is some difference between different devices and how well they do 3G)

From talking to some guys at work Telstra's 3G network has been pretty much flawless for them asides from cost issues associated with Telstra.

I live in indonesia and never have any problem with 3G,. , the only problem is, its expensive,. lol,.

I am in NZ
No problems with 3G whatsoever. Have Imate JasJar - loving every second of it.

New Jersey, USA
3G has always seem pretty good around here in New Jersey with AT&T, but I'm 25 minutes from New York, so imagine how many towers they have on the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut). Very rare to lose 3G reception (exept on the iPhone 3G that everybody complains about losing it often). But important to mention also is that Kearny, town where my sister lives, I lose reception a 100%, my phone's reception just dies, and when I switch it to GSM instead of 3G...voila. Full signal strenght.

wow.. the results turned out quite different than I imagined.
Obviously it's just in my area that 3G sucks. I really wish they would fix this, considering that every phone released now is 3G...and you think someone would notice... well, I'm sure if I wait long enough people will start to notice, but who knows,

I can't remember the last time I had problems with 3G. though I remember before Cingular got bought by AT&T and they were just rolling out there 3G, I used to have problems then, I guess it was due to them configuring/re-configuring the towers. I think the engineers were just going by what the manual said, which weren't the best settings for each area.
I'm on 3G all day everyday on the hour and it's good. even when I'm in the basement and have 1 bar I still receive all my calls and I can make calls. though on this 1 bar I sometimes have to repeat myself every 1.5 minute, but I don't complain about that because it's 1 bar and I'm in the basement. at my friend's apartment I'm the only one that get signal, nothing else work there, not T-Mobile, not sprint, not verizon, not alltel, not vergin nothing else only AT&T works and I get 3 bars of 3G there. I always laugh because he has to leave his phone by the window and use his blue tooth.
I honestly don't think you're by a 3G tower because you should be getting way more than 3 bars. also ask them about the issue you're having AT&T is a good company they will listen to you. call them and open a ticket (before this they will have you go through the basic steps, restarting by removing the battery, etc) tell them you've done that multiple times and yet you have the same issue so it must be a network issue. have them escalate the ticket (they will send an engineer out and he/she will call you, they will work on the towers around your area). don't forget to be polite, no one likes a hot head.
in roughly mid year last year I was only getting edge at my job even though it is a 3G area. at home inside my house had full bars, so I called them up and they worked with me. the engineer stayed in my area roughly 2 weeks to deal with the issue. after that I've had 2 bars of 3G in doors at my job.

Manual network/antenna selection possible?

I use my nexus one on ATT - in my area, there are two antennas.. ATT's "preferred" antenna which barely gets any signal at all (resulting in dropped calls every couple of minutes), and there's a "roaming" antenna which gives me full signal and works great. The problem is that when I'm on the roaming (good) antenna, the phone gets a tiny bit of signal from the "preferred" (bad) antenna, switches me over then my calls drop.
I had a Palm Treo which had a hack to manually select the antenna I wanted to use, which worked GREAT. Does a similar hack exist for the nexus one/android?

interesting.... didn't know we can select antennas

there should be a way to hack radio module to allow cell tower override, i have exactly same problem. there are three cells around my house, one nearby and two far away. for some stupid reason phone switches to different cell tower and i lose my network.
in battery use, i have cell standby as my biggest battery hog. cell standby over 25%

I'd be willing to pay for this hack.

has anybody ever found a way to do this?? I just moved further out into the country to get away from the city, and i am one tower too far away to be in the local calling area to all my contacts. lol and i know I'm BARELY into the other towers coverage area. So, if i could tell my phone to stay locked on to a particular tower, and actually get a signal (It switches towers when i still have 3 bars of signal, and I live about a mile further down the street from where it switches) I can avoid long distance charges. I haven't been able to find anything anywhere to be able to do it, but I may be using the wrong search terms. I'm not completely up to snuff on most technical terms. Thanks in advance.

I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone

can anybody confirm this? what antenna on N1???

mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U could very well be correct! Sounds logical. I've been exploring a handful of VoIP options that ya can use from your Android/WM device using your Data connection/WiFi.
I spent a bunch of time reading and researching, and just installed one called Nettalk. No local phone number for incoming calls, but the app is free, and u can make calls to anywhere to/from any Canadian area. The app looks just like the regular dialer, and works pretty decent. So, when somebody calls, I'll just select 'reject call with message' (if calling from a cell) and say I'll call rite back, or if calling from a land line, I'll just send it to voicemail and call back and presto... problem solved. There are a few other options available, where u pay anywhere from $5 a month, to $30 a month and you still using your Data/WiFi connection, but u get a local calling number for contacts to call, and doesn't matter where your phone is, it will receive the call free of long distance charges. Problem is, i haven't found any that have the city I'm from in their numbers database. So for now, I'm going to see how this system works out.

mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both the handset and the base station "handle" hand offs. The handset has a programmed minimum signal level, below which it will essentially request a hand off if one is available. The network can switch the handset to another tower for load balancing or other reasons if it determines that the handset (or the carrier's business interests) is better served by another tower. It's a two way system. If the network wants to move you on to another tower, but the phone won't get a lock, you stay on the original tower.
The problem with the OP is that his SIM (which is programmed with carrier preferences) keeps pushing him off roaming and into the actual AT&T network. Basically, AT&T has its network set up so that any level of AT&T signal is preferable to any level of roaming. It does that to save money on roaming costs, since AT&T handles you for free while you're on their system, but has to pay a few cents to have the roaming partner host you.

Maybe
I think Tasks can do that.

samsung has that feature but i have to find for other handsets