can you turn off 3g?

[pauliewalnutted]

is there an option to turn off 3g on 3g enabled blackberry's?

[alt0160]

I believe if you're running AT&T branded firmware, it prevents you from disabling this.

[synwars]

See links below:

[synwars]

This is simply a summary, do this at your own risk, I take no responsibility if you screw it up.

I suggest you read the below articles anyway to gain understanding about cell site selection and e-screens before attempting the following...

Bold Engineering Screen

Manual Cell Site Selection

This is for any branded BB:

Essentially what you do is go to the Help Screen by pressing Alt+R.Shift+H. Keep it in that screen. Go to Thyth's code generator, type in the info from the Help Screen, once you get the generated code, type it directly into the Help Screen (you won't see the num/letters come up). This will allow you access to the Engineering Screen.

This is for AT&T Bold users:

From there, go to Mobile Network E Screen/PLMN Selection/Menu/Manual Mode/Menu/ Disable UTRAN/Enable GERAN.

Whereas UTRAN is 3G and GERAN is 2G/Edge.

[Poetic-Mind]

You should be able to.

[digitalb0y]

Originally Posted by Poetic-Mind

You should be able to.

Best answer ever! Should be able to. Problem solved, eh? ;-)


There is a pretty complete set of instructions for doing it here:

http://forums.crackberry.com/f83/how...anding-207789/

Synwars basically summarizes it, but the link goes into it with some more depth and contains a FAQ and links with more info.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[sohabe]

why do you want to disable 3g? for battery life?

[digitalb0y]

Originally Posted by sohabe

why do you want to disable 3g? for battery life?

2 reasons some people like to disable it:

1. (as you correctly guessed) Battery life. The radio used by EDGE is far nicer to your battery than one used for 3G.

2. The Bold on AT&T favors 3G, which means that if you are in an area where EDGE coverage is better than 3G, you may get worse reception without 3G disabled. Even if there is an EDGE signal near you with 5 solid bars, which would give you great reception, your Bold will choose to stay on a lousy 1 bar 3G signal and drop your call.

[skyjackal]

Originally Posted by digitalb0y

2 reasons some people like to disable it:

1. (as you correctly guessed) Battery life. The radio used by EDGE is far nicer to your battery than one used for 3G.

2. The Bold on AT&T favors 3G, which means that if you are in an area where EDGE coverage is better than 3G, you may get worse reception without 3G disabled. Even if there is an EDGE signal near you with 5 solid bars, which would give you great reception, your Bold will choose to stay on a lousy 1 bar 3G signal and drop your call.

Hey DB. I may have asked you before so sorry for the repeat: Using the escrees, I just can't get the phone to stay on EDGE after changing. Not just when I reboot but if I go to my home screen or apps screen, it reverts back to 3G. Do you happen to have any thoughts on that? Thank you!

[digitalb0y]

Originally Posted by skyjackal

Hey DB. I may have asked you before so sorry for the repeat: Using the escrees, I just can't get the phone to stay on EDGE after changing. Not just when I reboot but if I go to my home screen or apps screen, it reverts back to 3G. Do you happen to have any thoughts on that? Thank you!

The only thing I can think of is if your coverage actually drops out and the radio restarts, or if a program is restarting the radio for you. I can't get changes to stick from the Cell Info screen, but from the PLMN screen my changes stick until the radio is reset.

[skyjackal]

Thanks for the reply. While doing this I have not noticed the coverage dropping but then again I wasn't looking for that specifically. I give that a look. My changes don't stick, whether using the cell info screen or the PLMN screen. Errrgh. The screens are fun to tool around in though. I'll keep trying and post if I can get it to stick. Thanks!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[digitalb0y]

Originally Posted by skyjackal

Thanks for the reply. While doing this I have not noticed the coverage dropping but then again I wasn't looking for that specifically. I give that a look. My changes don't stick, whether using the cell info screen or the PLMN screen. Errrgh. The screens are fun to tool around in though. I'll keep trying and post if I can get it to stick. Thanks!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Sure! Sorry I can't be of more help... the screens are a bit cryptic. But I can say that if your radio isn't doing SOMEthing to reinitialize, I don't see why it would re-enable UTRAN. Try keeping the escreen running in the background and open to the PLMN screen. Then you can check back periodically after certain events to see if UTRAN is still disabled.

Also, you could try stting the level of your log to info and then clearing it and letting it start logging again, looking for events that coincide with when you switch back to 3G...

[skyjackal]

Originally Posted by digitalb0y

Sure! Sorry I can't be of more help... the screens are a bit cryptic. But I can say that if your radio isn't doing SOMEthing to reinitialize, I don't see why it would re-enable UTRAN. Try keeping the escreen running in the background and open to the PLMN screen. Then you can check back periodically after certain events to see if UTRAN is still disabled.

Also, you could try stting the level of your log to info and then clearing it and letting it start logging again, looking for events that coincide with when you switch back to 3G...

Oh, no. Tons of help, believe me.

Yeah, that's the thing. I disable UTRAN, following the instructions carefully, but a few minutes later both UTRAN and GERAN are enabled. I'll keep working at it. Like you said, if there is no radio "activity", why? Great idea about the event log! I just cleared it, fired up the escreen and disabled UTRAN. So far, so good. Still have the PLMN screen open though. I think the switch normally comes when I close it. Gonna do my homework here for a while and will let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[skyjackal]

Found one of the issues, at least. In PLMN, I changed the selection mode to Manual, then disabled UTRAN. I had wifi going, connected to my home network. Turned off wifi and UTRAN was enabled on its own. Disabled it again, turned wifi back on and connected to my network. Selection mode switched to automatic and UTRAN was once again enabled. Switched to Manual and disabled UTRAN again, left wifi connection open and the phone has not switched back to 3G so far. So it appears, in this test, that initializing radio activity does indeed reverse the escreen changes I make. More testing....

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[skyjackal]

Just checked the event log after repeating the tests above. I see a bunch of a.net.rim entries but I cannot interpret them.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com