Roaming HELL in USA

[Guest ChrisL]

:evil: AAAAGGGH!!!!

I've just come back from NY, and you'd think that as a tri-band phone, the SPV actually works over there?! WRONG!!!!

First problem was the voicemail icon when I didn't actally have any. It took two 10min fonecalls to Orange UK to fix it AT £1.00 per minute!!!!!! (And yes, I will be complaining if I have to pay for it!)

Second was the signal strength.. - Practically zero, almost everywhere, except in Manhattan. Whenever my SPV had no coverage, I swapped my SIM into a borrowed NOKIA 7210 - which seemed to have almost full coverage AND caught a wider selection of networks (SPV only catches AT+T and Voicestream, whilst the 7210 also got T-Mobile)

Third, when I did have coverage, it dropped my calls after about 3 seconds each time.

Fourth, the phone's "automatic network selection" is absolutely crap!!! It often happened that the phone could not find a network automatically for about 1hr until I did it manually.

And finally, if this phone is so advanced, why the HELL doesn't it switch to tri-band automatically, the 'inferior' NOKIA 7210 seems to manage it fine.

Dont get me wrong, I love(d) my SPV to bits before I left and now in the UK it works fine too (I LOVE all of the features and functionality etc). But if I have to get that irritated when I'm meant to be on holiday, I think I'd rather skip the hassle.

Thanks for reading my bitchin'. Anyone else have the same problems? Paul maybe, when you were in the US recently?

[Guest tobyfield]

I'm off to Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas at the end of the month. Looking at the coverage map on the Orange website, it looks very good, but has anyone had any experience of coverage with their SPV in any of these cities?

[Guest almark]

I would be interested to hear how the SPV works in the West. I am heading that direction in the Summer time.

[Guest lewis.curley]

I used my SPV in Conneticut and New Jersey a few weeks ago and all seemed fine, always had coverage etc. Only problem was the 220 UKP bill i got from Orange ho hum guess thats the price of convience!

[Guest ajb3000]

I know it's not a GSM1900 area but my phone worked flawlessly in Moscow, the screen went a bit weird tho as it was -15C outside.

[Guest MISMan]

If your phone registers both that is not really a good thing per se, in fact it might be a bad thing.

[Guest j_sincla]

1. Voicestream and T-Mobile are the same network so I can't account for you getting 3 networks - perhaps the borrowed 7210 is recent so it has the new identifier (T Mobile)

2. Agreed - manual/automatic stuff is very poor - I also have had to search manually

3. I've used the SPV in New York, New Jersey, Palm Springs and Los Angeles and as a reflection of the poor state of GSM networks in the US - only in downtown LA and Manhattan did I ever get really good coverage.

[Guest aiwapro]

For all who come to the U.S. from other countries. Please do yourself a favor and manually select T-Mobile (Voicestream/VStream) as your network. They have the best GSM coverage here in the U.S. by far. AT&T is just getting started in this process, and their coverage is still small.

[Guest Aonz]

San Diego, Las Vegas, LA, NY, Palm Springs and Moscow? you lot sure do get around and here I am stuck in cold and damp northwest England, dam nation!

lol :)

[Guest Myke]

I'm using my SPV in Southern California (Westcoast USA) on AT&T and it works great. I get better reception in some places than i did before.

if your phone says its searching for network, chances are you need to change this:

- go programs / settings / telephony

band selection and make sure you're on PCS Band

if you aren't .... change it to PCS and it'll restart

if it doesnt automatically find your network, go back into Telephony / More / Networks and choose your network!

[Guest kingdom master]

dont worry man im in london, somtimes sucks also

km

[Guest MISMan]

Change band to PCS (not the combo one).

MANUALLY select Voicestream OR T-Mobile (Same network, but older SIMS may only see the Voicstream one). You can also try Cingular as T-Mobile and Cingular have about 10x the coverage of AT&T GSM right now. Also note that AT&T is putting in a new network from scratch and are experiencing some significant pains (take it from a former customer). I will say that T-Mobile works VERY well for me in all the cities I have travelled to.

[Guest Rob_Quads]

I have just got back from Whistler in Canada, not quite the US but similar. Once I had changed to the 3rd band it picked up a signal and worked fine through the complete holiday. Had 4 bars most of the time and the battery lasted slightly longer than usual.

Just a shame it did not ring louder as i often did not hear it in my boarding trousers.

[Guest wirefree90]

I've used my SPV in Seattle, Palo Alto and Boston with no problems whatt so ever.

please note that most of the US networks are appalling...

[Guest benny]

On a slightly unrelated note, I don't suppose anyone knows which GSM frequency bands are used in Australia, do they?

B

[Guest Tyrant_worm]

The entire GSM world works off 900 or 1800mhz, only the U.S is different at 1900mhz band(+ DAMPS) - Australia is mostly 900mhz. This excludes most a lot S.E Asia who use a CDMA(not GSM = TDMA) variant.

[Guest tetstb]

Been to Toronto, Boston, LA and Cleveland and despite some minor issues

with network selection, SPV performed as well as mt 6310i

[Guest Syvwlch]

I have used my SPV in Thailand (Orange is actualy one of the operators there, altho I seemed to be roaming often on other networks outside Bangkok.

MSN Messenger, Internet, all worked fine, but not on GPRS for some reason (prolly network isn't upgraded yet).

Voice calls worked fine, but then it was 900/1800.

[Guest benny]

The entire GSM world works off 900 or 1800mhz, only the U.S is different at 1900mhz band(+ DAMPS) - Australia is mostly 900mhz. This excludes most a lot S.E Asia who use a CDMA(not GSM = TDMA) variant.

Nice one, thanks for that.

B

[Guest ajb3000]

Just to make sure you realise Syvwich, even when using an Orange network abroad, you still have to pay roaming charges as if you were using any other network in that country.

[Guest Syvwlch]

Oh, I'm fully, painfully aware of that fact :)

It was interesting to note that I seemed to never catch the Orange Thailand network outside Bangkok, is all...

[Guest sticky]

I would be interested to hear how the SPV works in the West.  I am heading that direction in the Summer time.

Works fine in Seattle and the smaller nearby cities of Redmond and Bellevue.

[Guest spacecowboy6982]

I was in Italy at the weekend - triband phone - you expect it to work yeh - how wrong could I be.....bugger all signal....and get this - when I took pics with the camera they saved - then just disappeared !?! Do you have to phone up orange to get it to work?

(i messed abnout with the settings too (dual band blah blah - but still nothn)

[Guest Bazz]

You have to get Orange to enable roaming on your phone. It's off by default to prevent people nicking your phone and taking it abroad.