My 3G Connection is dead...

[Guest nforsans]

Hi - hope you can help me. Since Weds night I have been unable to connect my Vario II to the TMobile UK 3g?HSDPA service. The Vario II is stuck on the "Connecting" or "Locating" mode, and eventually the connection times out. I changed the DNS to the ones mentionned earlier in the forum, including another change to the 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2, in vain.

When I put my sim card into my Vario I, it works fine. So the problem is with the phone.

I have since erased my 3G settings, and re-entered them exactly as they are displayed in my Vario I, i.e. t-mobile.general.uk as APN, t-mobile and one2one as username and password, and modified DNS servers as per the earlier threads. In vain... It tries to connect, but then it goes nowhere.

What can be wrong? I have not changed any other settings since it has stopped working.

Could it be the radio?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Have you tried in a different location, in case it's just a local problem?

P

[Guest nforsans]

Thanks Paul. I have not been traveling since Wed night. I'll have a look tonight when I go out. Just a thought: the fact that it works fine on my other phone (Vario I, same phone operator) probably means it is not location-related. Am I wrong?

[Guest yrreP]

Thanks Paul. I have not been traveling since Wed night. I'll have a look tonight when I go out. Just a thought: the fact that it works fine on my other phone (Vario I, same phone operator) probably means it is not location-related. Am I wrong?

Maybe go back to basis, and create a connection with just the APN, and nothing else... no username, password, DNS etc?

[Guest nforsans]

Maybe go back to basis, and create a connection with just the APN, and nothing else... no username, password, DNS etc?

Okay - just done what yrreP suggested: just the APN and nothing else - No change: it connects okay (does not prompt for username/password by the way), then gets stuck a few seconds on "Locating", then gets stuck forever on "Opening" and nothing opens.

Any other suggestions? In case the 3G connection is dead, as opposed to GPRS (as I managed to get the connection okay using my sim card in my Vario I), how do you force the phone to ignore the 3G network and connect to GPRS instead?

I can't think of anything else - 3G v. GPRS is the only difference between the Vario I and II.

Edited October 6, 2006 by nforsans

[Guest nforsans]

Okay - just done what yrreP suggested: just the APN and nothing else - No change: it connects okay (does not prompt for username/password by the way), then gets stuck a few seconds on "Locating", then gets stuck forever on "Opening" and nothing opens.

Any other suggestions? In case the 3G connection is dead, as opposed to GPRS (as I managed to get the connection okay using my sim card in my Vario I), how do you force the phone to ignore the 3G network and connect to GPRS instead?

I can't think of anything else - 3G v. GPRS is the only difference between the Vario I and II.

Just went into the phone settings and in "band" I selected GSM instead of Auto. On the today screen, the 3G icon is now replaced by G for GPRS, and guess what? It works..!

It means two things:

- either TMobile's 3G cell does not work in my area at the moment

- or my radio has problems transferring data over the 3g/HSDPA.

I will travel later in the day so I can find out whether the problem is localised or whether it is my radio.

How can you assess the quality of the radio?

[Guest unisoft]

Just went into the phone settings and in "band" I selected GSM instead of Auto. On the today screen, the 3G icon is now replaced by G for GPRS, and guess what? It works..!

It means two things:

- either TMobile's 3G cell does not work in my area at the moment

- or my radio has problems transferring data over the 3g/HSDPA.

I will travel later in the day so I can find out whether the problem is localised or whether it is my radio.

How can you assess the quality of the radio?

Thi can also happen if a user has hard coded an IP address and DNS settings for WIFI on the M3100. For some reason it will then mess up 3G/GPRS (even if WIFI is OFF when usign 3G/GPRS). Setting to automatic resolves it for subsequent 3G use.

[Guest touficjohn]

Hi - hope you can help me. Since Weds night I have been unable to connect my Vario II to the TMobile UK 3g?HSDPA service. The Vario II is stuck on the "Connecting" or "Locating" mode, and eventually the connection times out. I changed the DNS to the ones mentionned earlier in the forum, including another change to the 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2, in vain.

When I put my sim card into my Vario I, it works fine. So the problem is with the phone.

I have since erased my 3G settings, and re-entered them exactly as they are displayed in my Vario I, i.e. t-mobile.general.uk as APN, t-mobile and one2one as username and password, and modified DNS servers as per the earlier threads. In vain... It tries to connect, but then it goes nowhere.

What can be wrong? I have not changed any other settings since it has stopped working.

Could it be the radio?

I had the EXACT same problem as you! Actually ive still got it!

Was on the phone with the T-mobile tech team for 30min. In the end they sent me a new phone. Which frankly still hasnt solved the problem cos when i pop the sim into my other 3G device it works perfectly! They were convinced it was the phone cos no one else had had the same problem and my WIFI settings are all automatic.

Sometimes it'll work over the 3G and other times it wont. I'm in central London with FULL 3G coverage and find myself stuck on GPRS...

[Guest jecuk]

Sometimes it'll work over the 3G and other times it wont. I'm in central London with FULL 3G coverage and find myself stuck on GPRS...

I have just had this happen too. Also in Central london. GPRZS works, but 3G doesn't get past locating. Tried changing the DNS back to stock and avoiding the modaco proxy, no luck....

[Guest nforsans]

I have just had this happen too. Also in Central london. GPRZS works, but 3G doesn't get past locating. Tried changing the DNS back to stock and avoiding the modaco proxy, no luck....

When it happened on Fri, I spent the rest of the day using GPRS only. Then went out to Central London, tried a 3G connection - worked fine. Back home, my 3G connection was working fine again. Don't know what happened. Maybe TMobile is doing some maintenance work on each cell/tower at a time?

[Guest touficjohn]

Yeah I spent a long time speaking to the tech team, they gave me a 2nd set of DNS servers i could try which they said were more stable. They also asked me to connect 5 times in 5 hours and get back to them about it.

Though in central London today it was fine... Odd...

[Guest jimbouk]

3G can be notoriously unreliable. Most of the networks suffer periodic cell failures and system issues.

As previous posters have said, if you haved data (and call issues) with 3G, go into phone settings and change the top Band selection from Auto to GSM.

After a few minutes, the device will log onto the gsm network and should work fine. You can change it back to auto if you need to later.

[Guest simonclark123]

I have exactly the same issue with my M3100, unlocked to T-Mobile.

Forced on to GSM, no problems.

The whole point of upgrading to the Vario 2 is surely the extra speed when surfing the net (I'd have stuck with the M500 otherwise).

I too am in London and it is *not* a coverage issue.

My unlocked M3100 (I also did a soft reset immediately before it tried to install all the Orange stuff) shows 'U' instead of 'G' all the time, so voice calls seem to work OK over 3g.

I even signed up to Modaco Plus to try the proxy server, but that didn't work either.

In any case, it *should* work on T-Mobile UTMS/HSDPA.

Does anybody know why 3g doesn't work and how to make it work?

Simon Clark

Business Telecoms

[Guest jimbouk]

O had this problem last week...maybe T are doing some work on their network or maybe their hsdpa system is suffering from teething problems?