HSDPA and existing handsets

koppit · Thread Author #1 03-24-2010, 03:08 PM

Apologies if this has already been answered, I did a search for about an hour and found not much about this issue, and what I did find was conflicting.

My question is: what happens if you put a new Telus sim card into your existing telus storm or tour? From a technical standpoint, the phones should have the ability to connect to the new telus network, but I have conflicting answers from Telus:

International Roaming SIM cards that are included with the BlackBerry Tour, for example, are not the same as 3G+ network SIM cards. The BlackBerry Storm and Tour are not programmed to accept 3G+ SIM cards, which explains why those handsets are incompatible with the new network.

So I'm thinking this is solved by a software change, then putting in their new sim cards? I already have 5.0x on my Storm, and 5.0x on my Tour. So I called them ... The second answer I received:

It is not a sim card problem but a hardware problem, the existing handsets are not compatible with the 3G+ frequencies. For example, radio frequencies blah blah blah .. basically he said the SIM card had nothing to do with it, and launched into a spiel about different frequencies of radio waves....

. I had to laugh.

So now I'm asking if anyone has done it? Unlocking the phones is not a problem, but will it do both voice and data on the new network or just voice and edge, or what? Will it read the SIM card if I go spend $10 on it?

Thanks !!!

Krypto · #2 03-24-2010, 06:15 PM

It won't work as the GSM bands we use in North America are different than the rest of the world. The bands used in the Storm and Tour are set up to give 3G access to the GSM bands in Europe and the rest of the world, not here. They will only work on EDGE networks here (e.g. the older Rogers network), but Telus and Bell's new network is only backwards compatible with 3G, not 2G (EDGE), meaning it won't work on either the Telus or Bell HSPA network. In fact, even if you unlock the phone and take it over to Rogers, you'll only get EDGE and nothing more, meaning your data transfer rates will be considerably slower than on the Telus CDMA network.

One other additional comment... there is no software update that will help with this. This is controlled by low level firmware that we have no access to (only the engineering section at RIM may have access).

koppit · Thread Author #3 03-24-2010, 06:49 PM

Cheers, good to know... slightly annoying, but good to know.

CarrierUnlock · #4 03-25-2010, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by koppit

Apologies if this has already been answered, I did a search for about an hour and found not much about this issue, and what I did find was conflicting.

My question is: what happens if you put a new Telus sim card into your existing telus storm or tour? From a technical standpoint, the phones should have the ability to connect to the new telus network, but I have conflicting answers from Telus:

International Roaming SIM cards that are included with the BlackBerry Tour, for example, are not the same as 3G+ network SIM cards. The BlackBerry Storm and Tour are not programmed to accept 3G+ SIM cards, which explains why those handsets are incompatible with the new network.

So I'm thinking this is solved by a software change, then putting in their new sim cards? I already have 5.0x on my Storm, and 5.0x on my Tour. So I called them ... The second answer I received:

It is not a sim card problem but a hardware problem, the existing handsets are not compatible with the 3G+ frequencies. For example, radio frequencies blah blah blah .. basically he said the SIM card had nothing to do with it, and launched into a spiel about different frequencies of radio waves....

. I had to laugh.

So now I'm asking if anyone has done it? Unlocking the phones is not a problem, but will it do both voice and data on the new network or just voice and edge, or what? Will it read the SIM card if I go spend $10 on it?

Thanks !!!

It will not work because of the GSM frequencies supported on the device are not the same as Telus HSPA ones.

koppit · Thread Author #5 03-26-2010, 02:37 PM

Well, the reason I was asking was according to this page:

business.telus.com/en_CA/National/campaigns/Medium_And_Large_Business/natMlbHSPAIntroduction.html#tab2

The new network "Will run on 1900/850 MHz frequency bands and uses standard 3GPP SIM cards."

Now, according to blackberry's website here

na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/blackberrystorm/storm_specifications.jsp

Wireless Networks
Quad-band: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM®/GPRS/EDGE networks
Single-band: 2100 MHz UMTS/HSPA networks
Dual-band: 800/1900/ MHz CDMA/Ev-DO Rev A networks

It's the only reason I was curious - plus I also wanted to know if someone had even tried it, which it doesn't look like. I realize that GSM is a different technology than HSDPA, so Krypto pretty much answered my question in that regard.

LazyStarGazer · #6 03-26-2010, 05:12 PM

Re: the 850/1900 bands that you put in bold type:

The Tour can operate on 850-1900 GSM (2G/edge).

The Bold operates on those bands AND...UMTS 850/1900 (3G/HSPA).

UMTS is a newer standard/specification with faster data transfer.

I tried to keep that brief.