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T-Mobile Network having serious problems?


Guest AndyO

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Anyone else having serious trouble with their VIIIs on T-Mobile?!

I've had problems maintaining signals, making and receiving calls, and with calls dropping out.

These things have been going on intermittently for at least four days - I called T-Mob who said they were experiencing problems with the network that were 'under investigation by the engineers but expected to be fixed very quickly'....well that was three days ago and it is still happening ;)

Sometimes I can try dialling about 10-15 times and then it will get through once, but often, nothing.

I had the problem in London and assumed it was a local problem with network hardware but today was up in Edinburgh - same issue with the phone showing 5-bar signal strength but as soon as I make a call it gives me that infuriating bleep-of-death and says 'call ended'. When it is on the blink no-one can call me either as it will not connect.

So in terms of serious problems I just wondered if anyone else had the same stuff going on? If this was a problem just at home in London I would have been understanding, but the fact that its on the blink in Edinburgh seems to suggest there's a nationwide network problem that has been going on for days?!

Any ideas?

[EDIT] forgot to say, this problem comes a week and a half after I had two days of 3G problems - so first their data network throws a wobbly, then the voice? Hate to say it because I love my 3 gigs of data, but I had a technically better service from Orange, even if their customer service was garbage!

Edited by AndyO
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Guest The Doctor

Had some wierd signal problems today as well, I'm also on T-Mobile but running a Vario II.

Complete loss of signal for no reason, refusal to connect to the internet etc etc.. I even reflashed my radio to make sure that it wasn't causing a problem!

Haven't noticed anything strange before today tho...

Phil

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Add me to your list of victims.

It's been pretty mild, though. Only losing signal once or twice a day.

Although, it has been going on for a while. I had assumed it was because I'm indoors most of the time :S

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Guest Retronana

Had a few issues on Friday evening, no signal or a low signal that wouldn't dial out or connect callls,, been with T-Mobile for 4 years and this is the first service supply issue I can remember.

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Yeah this has happened to me the last 3 Fridays evenings in a row ;) No signal, even if I do have signal I can't make calls, send txts, use data etc.

Last week it was telling me my text message could not be sent but actually my recepient got like 20 from me!

Edited by lozzd
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Guest creamhackered

on wed evening in the london canary wharf area there was an outage and I had major issue, no 3G data no voice calls and those on the DLR with T-Mobile using nokias and samsungs were getting network busy error messages. It was only when i got out into the suburbs that my phone returned to normal and everything was OK again. Had similar problems Friday evening too. T-Mobiles network is totally s*** and always will be

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Guest sc0user_75

Strange thing about this is it only affects certain makes!! My wifes SE was fine on Friday whilst my VIII had no signal! The phones were sat next to each other too!

Edited by sc0user_75
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Strange thing about this is it only affects certain makes!! My wifes SE was fine on Friday whilst my VIII had no signal! The phones were sat next to each other too!

I've been with T-Mobile on a Data Tariff for over 18 months now. In that time there has only be one instance with a major data problem.

This was over 12 months ago now, and on connecting no web sites could be accessed. This dragged on for 2-3 weeks! I was informed at the time a major piece of hardware had failed and had to be replaced - although this took 7-10 days to diagnose after I logged a number of problems.

I was quite surprised they had no quicker back-up plan! Of coarse, data access has never been part of any guaranteed service level - even with Orange, as Voice calls are usually under a guarantee of service.

Makes you wonder how much the carriers invest in back-up and DRC recovery equipment.

Edited by rawly
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Guest Manni01

Add me as well (I'm in north London)... I couldn't make a call yesterday, had to try 3 or 4 times before getting a connection (with 3G data off as I'm in a poor reception area, only GPRS data). It looked that the voice call was dropped everytime the handset tried to reconnect my data connection in the background (exchange email).

I'm coming from Vodafone and I have to say although I don't miss my 120MB data plan against my 3gb with T-mob, the quality of service (both technical and customer) is poor. It's taking me ages to get them to invoice and charge what they said they would (almost a half-time job over the first two weeks of my contract!).

I tried to hard reset my VIII and only load the essetial apps, but the result is the same: unreliable.

My wife now has my SE K750i, and it works fine (without a data connection), so I'm sure the VIII doesn't help. A ROM update would be welcome!

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Right, just spoken (again) to T-Mobile...getting pretty p*ssed off with their poor service here, despite loving HSDPA. But great as it is, its not worth not being able to make phone calls for :S

Basically, its 3G issue.

...I described my problem to the services folks and they called back a while later and said set the phone to GSM....well great! Can make calls again!

Only now the data connection is clearly locked to GPRS only so they can sod off if they think that's a 'solution' as I'm paying for my 3 gigs for a good reason ;)

Called back a little annoyed and got put through to technical support who said they were having no issues with their 3G network(different to the recorded messages that were on the customer services line last week)..and what postcode was I in. Told them I had been in two postcodes in London and in Edinburgh and had the same problem everywhere I went.

They then said that they need 5 examples, separated by one hour each, in the next 24 hours, of calls being dropped. I immediately said 'I can get you five examples from my call log right now as every time I make a call I have to try about 7 times'...but apparently they can't look at these calls! So despite the fact they can clearly 'look back' this evening at my calls that fail over the day, apparently they can't look back from now over the last 24 hours. Ridiculous!

Anyway, I'm now more annoyed than I was because it seems like they're not aware of the problem. :(

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Guest Swampie

Not had any issues at all with making calls, using data or anything in the nearly 2 years I've been with T-Mobile, or the last month or so I've been on 3G/HSDPA with a Vario III.

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Not had any issues at all with making calls, using data or anything in the nearly 2 years I've been with T-Mobile, or the last month or so I've been on 3G/HSDPA with a Vario III.

You'll be pleased to hear their technical support guys couldn't call me back (because of this problem) so left a note on my account saying it was 'a known issue with your handset so you may wish to speak to us for a different model'.....;)

:( that just sounds so ridiculous. Basically your phone doesn't work on 3G. Erm, no.......

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Guest gazbert
You'll be pleased to hear their technical support guys couldn't call me back (because of this problem) so left a note on my account saying it was 'a known issue with your handset so you may wish to speak to us for a different model'.....;)

:( that just sounds so ridiculous. Basically your phone doesn't work on 3G. Erm, no.......

Same problem here started last week (Sunday / Monday I think) and is still ongoing. If I drop the phone to GSM only it works. As soon as I set it back to Auto, the 3G icon appears, but I lose all of my connections. No phone, no text, and certainly no 3G.

T-Mob said there were problems last week but they were fixed. Not for me they weren't!

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can anyone confirm whether this is still an issue ? whenever i click the w'n'w button at home or at work, ie fires up and it tries to load the tmobile-favourites page but usually nothing happens and i get bored and cancel. sometimes the page actually loads but it's never terribly quick > 30s.

is this a network issue or a hardware issue ... ?

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guys

if you are only having problems on 3G and gprs work fine then look here: http://www.modaco.com/content/HTC-Kaiser-K...h-3G-on-Kaiser/

i've had the problem myself. i own htc tytn ii and on t-mobile. like i said in my previous post, i had to send the phone for the repair. <_< this looks like a hardware issue and it develops after a few weeks in use. ;)

it will certanly explain why different makes have no problem.

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guys

if you are only having problems on 3G and gprs work fine then look here: http://www.modaco.com/content/HTC-Kaiser-K...h-3G-on-Kaiser/

i've had the problem myself. i own htc tytn ii and on t-mobile. like i said in my previous post, i had to send the phone for the repair. <_< this looks like a hardware issue and it develops after a few weeks in use. ;)

it will certanly explain why different makes have no problem.

Thanks for the reference, reading that other post exactly pins down my problem :( really hope that it is a combination of network problems and not just the phone. On the plus side, if it is the phone at least I can replace it later. It has been okay today but still periodically recurs. Doesn't bode well!

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Guest coulsond

I have also been through these problems with the tmobile vario III. It started a few weeks ago, calls being dropped all the time, it was really winding me up. Rang t-mobile and I was also told to switch to GSM for calls and then auto for browsing/email. etc. However, as it was the 28th day after purchase I got it replaced. But the problems persisted. really didn't want to send the device back as I think it's great, so I switched it to gsm for calls and that was fine.

However this week it has been on auto all week and I have had no problems whatsoever. strange, I suspect they are having g issues.

cheers

Dean

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Guest jimbouk

This issue has now been covered many many times. It is an unfortunate problem that is caused by the device thinking the weak 3g signal (that it can see) is strong enough to make and receive calls.

If the signal is too weak, the device SHOULD auto switch to 2g but as with the Hermes and various other devices that use the same 3g chip, there is a problem in that it holds on to a too weak 3g signal.

if affected, then switching to 2g is the only way to avoid interuption to your phone signal. The plus side is that you get good battery life with 2g, but its a real pain if you want fast data - but there's workarounds: there's cabs out there that allow you to fast switch between 3g and 2g.

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Guest gazbert
This issue has now been covered many many times. It is an unfortunate problem that is caused by the device thinking the weak 3g signal (that it can see) is strong enough to make and receive calls.

If the signal is too weak, the device SHOULD auto switch to 2g but as with the Hermes and various other devices that use the same 3g chip, there is a problem in that it holds on to a too weak 3g signal.

if affected, then switching to 2g is the only way to avoid interuption to your phone signal. The plus side is that you get good battery life with 2g, but its a real pain if you want fast data - but there's workarounds: there's cabs out there that allow you to fast switch between 3g and 2g.

I disagree with that. If it was a weak 3g signal then my colleague that sits next to me would have the same problems at the same time as me on his Vario III. In fact his works perfectly.

I did a SIM swap, his into my Vario III and mine into his. His still worked fine with my SIM (happily connecting up as HSDPA), but my Vario III still would not pick up the 4 bars worth of 3g signal that his was getting. To me this clearly says it's a fault on my Vario III and in this case has nothing to do with the strength of the 3g signal.

I've rung T-Mobile and I'm going to get it sent off for repair. Sadly I'll have to wait a week before I do that cos I'm going away on business and need my tomtom, which won't run on the crappy phone they want to give me as a temp replacement.

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Guest mbriody

Just discovered this thread after experiencing exactly the same thing on my T-Mobile Vario III after 4 days of it working okay. Thought I was going mad.

Support said the same thing - switch to GSM which works but I'm paying for web n walk plus on HSDPA!

The main problem is that you don't even know its not working - you get (apparently) a good signal strength and a 3G icon but all incoming calls and texts are not being received and you cant text or dial out. What a joke.

I really hope this gets acknowledged soon and there's a software or network fix.

I am in Canary Wharf and the 3 or 3.5G signal should be fine - it worked since I got the handset on Monday but today it has stopped.

I disagree with that. If it was a weak 3g signal then my colleague that sits next to me would have the same problems at the same time as me on his Vario III. In fact his works perfectly.

I did a SIM swap, his into my Vario III and mine into his. His still worked fine with my SIM (happily connecting up as HSDPA), but my Vario III still would not pick up the 4 bars worth of 3g signal that his was getting. To me this clearly says it's a fault on my Vario III and in this case has nothing to do with the strength of the 3g signal.

I've rung T-Mobile and I'm going to get it sent off for repair. Sadly I'll have to wait a week before I do that cos I'm going away on business and need my tomtom, which won't run on the crappy phone they want to give me as a temp replacement.

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Guest shadamehr
Just discovered this thread after experiencing exactly the same thing on my T-Mobile Vario III after 4 days of it working okay. Thought I was going mad.

Support said the same thing - switch to GSM which works but I'm paying for web n walk plus on HSDPA!

The main problem is that you don't even know its not working - you get (apparently) a good signal strength and a 3G icon but all incoming calls and texts are not being received and you cant text or dial out. What a joke.

I really hope this gets acknowledged soon and there's a software or network fix.

I am in Canary Wharf and the 3 or 3.5G signal should be fine - it worked since I got the handset on Monday but today it has stopped.

I've had a nightmare month with T-Mobile, with an issue that ended up all the way as far as their Network Engineers.

For a while I was having random disconnects of calls. This steadily got worse. Eventually, it was so bad, that one night I could not make calls. Signal was solid, but trying to make a call gave an instant "Connection Error" message appear on my phone screen.

T-Mobile advised I try a different phone (don't they always), so I ran it another week with a different type of handset, and had exactly the same.

But I eventually began to fathom why...

My phone was set up to poll for my email every half hour... And when it did this, if it tried to make a 3g data connection when the handset was already engaged in a Voice Call, or a voice call came in when in a data connection, instead of managing two connections, or at least pausing/suspending the data connection until the voice call was finished, it would instead continue, and disconnect the voice call (or similar effects) as each time I got abruptly disconnected in the middle of a voice call, I would look at my screen and see a message "Packet Data Connection On Hold" followed by "Packet Data Connection Active"

I'm not exactly spot on here with what was happening, but suffice to say T-Mobile themselves eventually confirmed they could see that all the ended calls were listed at their end as a "Network Disconnected the call" error.

Worse though...

My son, and my partner were also suffering this (both also with T-Mobile). And worse yet, it wasn't just my local 3G mast - it happened when 5 miles away from my home too, but in the same region/area.

T-Mobile launched an investigation, and found a widespread network issue in the North East/Tyneside area.

They fixed it after a week (things seem ok with voice calls since).

But NOW I have another problem.

Since this has been fixed, I now find that sending SMS is a nightmare...

Half the time I hit send, I instantly get an error on my phone (General Error - Already In use).

Other times I hit send, but instead of sending, they cannot be sent straight away, and sit in my outbox with a "Resend at...." message instead.

This is driving me mad.

So to rule out the handset, I have switched again, but so far, whilst possibly not AS bad, this other handset is still suffering the same sort of issues.

I have to say, that since I ported from O2 over to T-Mobile, around three or four month ago, my actual network experience has been terrible.

And it's a crying shame, because I DON'T mean signal strength. I have GREAT coverage where I am - the actual HSDPA 3G mast for my area is only 200-300 yards away from my house even.

No, I mean other issues, like network faults, sms sending issues, call disconnects etc such as this.

And it's driving me mad, because I DON'T want money back, or to be allowed to leave early - my package deal with T-Mobile is untouchable anywhere else.

I just want the service to perform as well as it did when I was with O2 - that is to say, you don't notice anything - it just works.

Alas, as much as I love T-Mobile's Customer Service, and the package deal I have, the actual network experience itself has been four months of hell for me.

Damn.

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Guest jimbouk
I disagree with that. If it was a weak 3g signal then my colleague that sits next to me would have the same problems at the same time as me on his Vario III. In fact his works perfectly.

I did a SIM swap, his into my Vario III and mine into his. His still worked fine with my SIM (happily connecting up as HSDPA), but my Vario III still would not pick up the 4 bars worth of 3g signal that his was getting. To me this clearly says it's a fault on my Vario III and in this case has nothing to do with the strength of the 3g signal.

I've rung T-Mobile and I'm going to get it sent off for repair. Sadly I'll have to wait a week before I do that cos I'm going away on business and need my tomtom, which won't run on the crappy phone they want to give me as a temp replacement.

If you read my other posts on this subject, you would know that I often point out to people in this situation that every single cell phone is different. You could line up 10 kaisers and none of them would have exactly the same signal strength. Its the same with nokias, motorolas etc.

Your test with your colleagues just proves the point. Sending your back for repair is a waste of everyone's time and you will be disappointed when it comes back with the same radio rom and same transceiver strength.

So either insist they replace it and hope you get one with a stronger transceiver or insist on cancelling the contract as the device /network cannot do what you are paying them for... and switch to a network with better coverage.

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Guest shadamehr
If you read my other posts on this subject, you would know that I often point out to people in this situation that every single cell phone is different. You could line up 10 kaisers and none of them would have exactly the same signal strength. Its the same with nokias, motorolas etc.

Your test with your colleagues just proves the point. Sending your back for repair is a waste of everyone's time and you will be disappointed when it comes back with the same radio rom and same transceiver strength.

So either insist they replace it and hope you get one with a stronger transceiver or insist on cancelling the contract as the device /network cannot do what you are paying them for... and switch to a network with better coverage.

Jimbo, that's stretching it a bit mate.

Whilst there is indeed likely to be the most minor of differences in signal reception, even between two identical handsets, the key words here are "most minor of differences".

ANY manufacturer who produces two handsets that are identical, but amount to a full FOUR bars of signal strength indication difference between them when sitting side by side, would be a laughing stock.

Minor variance - sure...

My Partner's Nokia 6120c can show a single bar different to mine when placed side by side.

My son's 6280 can show a bar difference SOMETIMES when placed next to his younger brother's on the same network.

And I remember my old iMate SP5 also would show a minor difference SOMETIMES when placed next to the other one I had, also on the same network.

All of this being for a couple of seconds, and subject to usual fluctuations up and down - but only ever over a few seconds, and of a single bar or so.

But to want us to believe that a full FOUR BAR difference in signal (on a device that doesn't have seven or eight bars like some phones do in the first place), and moreover, that does so constantly, NOT fluctuates from time to time, is perfectly normal, correct, and how devices work...

Then your asking a bit much of me mate.

If I was sitting next to someone with the exact same device as me, on the same network, and they had a full signal, and I could not even get a signal, and it was constant, not fluctuating, then I'd sure as hell be taking my device straight back to the shop to, and woe-betide any shop assistant that tried to tell me that this behaviour was normal, and my device was not faulted.

I know what I would do to him, for being so ridiculous!

Sorry mate, but true - very true.

EDIT: Not meant to sound rude, just pointing it out, the difference between minor variance, and a full four bar signal, on a constant basis.

Edited by shadamehr
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