Experience (not so good) with foreign SIM card - Motorola Photon 4G

Vodafone requires that a new Access Point Name (APN) be set up for the SIM. The problem is that the Photon won't let me me create and save a new APN. What I've discovered is that, if I set the MCC and MNC in the APN to Sprint's values (310 and 120), then I can save the newly created APN, but the data connection won't work. If I set them to the appropriate values for Vodafone (505 and 03) then press save, the newly created APN disappears.
I spoke with Sprint today, and after 40 minutes of getting bounced around, finally got to someone who told me that this was by design. So if true, it appears that the SIM is unlocked for voice but locked for data (at least, if the carrier requires specific APN settings, as Vodafone does).
I also tried using APN Manager from the Android app store to create and select a different APN - no dice there, either.
Any suggestions, or am I out of luck?
The good news is that I brought my trusty old Touch Pro2 with me, just in case, and it is working fine ... but going back to the TP2 after a blissful week of using the Photon is really, really hard.

Doesn't make sense to me that it would only be unlocked for voice and not data. Did you try contacting Motorola directly? I'll rather hear it from the horse's mouth.

It's hard to tell who's really the horse in these situations ... nonetheless that is a great suggestion, and I've just submitted the question to Motorola's support site.

Im sorry...im very confused by this. Ill be traveling to lebanon tomorrow and specifically got this phone to be able to pop a sim in and use data and voice....your saying i wont be able to uze data?
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App

I am saying that I can't use data ... your experience may be different. I suspect that this may work for some carriers but not for others, depending on what settings they require for data. If they require you to create a new Access Point Name profile, then it most likely won't work, given my experience.

I'm able to use data on a foreign sim. I was able to save the apn also. This is with Telcel and Movistar in Mexico. Setup the same as my Samsung Captivate.

So is there any possibility that this thing would ever be unlocked for US gsm networks like the Touch Pro 2 was? That would make this unit epic....

rotoread said:
I'm able to use data on a foreign sim. I was able to save the apn also. This is with Telcel and Movistar in Mexico. Setup the same as my Samsung Captivate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which carrier did you purchase the phone from - was it Sprint?

So here is the latest, for anyone who's interested.
I emailed Motorola asking about why I couldn't save the APN, and was told
Motorola does not have any access to the Access Point Name (APN).​The APN can only be access or generated from the service provider.​
I then contacted Sprint again, and got a hold of someone who took my request more seriously then the previous Sprint people. After several days, however, this person came back with
I contacted Motorola and was told that the data will not work with the Motorola photon gprs data​
I have no idea what the truth really is, but the bottom line is that I could not get the phone to work with data using a Vodafone Australia SIM. I even had Vodafone replace the SIM with their most current SIM - didn't help.
My Touch Pro2, on the other hand, had no problem getting the SIM to work for both data and voice, and I ended up turning my TP2 into a wireless router so I could indirectly use my Photon while out and about.

levman said:
Which carrier did you purchase the phone from - was it Sprint?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought directly from the respective carriers.

levman said:
So here is the latest, for anyone who's interested.
I emailed Motorola asking about why I couldn't save the APN, and was told
Motorola does not have any access to the Access Point Name (APN).​The APN can only be access or generated from the service provider.​
I then contacted Sprint again, and got a hold of someone who took my request more seriously then the previous Sprint people. After several days, however, this person came back with
I contacted Motorola and was told that the data will not work with the Motorola photon gprs data​
I have no idea what the truth really is, but the bottom line is that I could not get the phone to work with data using a Vodafone Australia SIM. I even had Vodafone replace the SIM with their most current SIM - didn't help.
My Touch Pro2, on the other hand, had no problem getting the SIM to work for both data and voice, and I ended up turning my TP2 into a wireless router so I could indirectly use my Photon while out and about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.

Outer Marker said:
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on where he is in Australia. In most areas Vodaphone's network operates on UMTS2100 which the Photon does support. In some smaller areas it's UMTS900 which the Photon doesn't support.

Is it possible that the SIM card is supposed to "provision" your data similar to when you activate the phone on the Sprint network initially?
Or is the creating of an APN always a manual program effort by the user?

myphone12345 said:
It depends on where he is in Australia. In most areas Vodaphone's network operates on UMTS2100 which the Photon does support. In some smaller areas it's UMTS900 which the Photon doesn't support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a good point. It's entirely possible he's in a UMTS900 zone...

Outer Marker said:
It's been a while since I was in Australia, but if I'm not mistaken, Vodaphone operates data on UMTS 2100 down under. The photon is tri-band, not quad-band, so you're not going to get data with a Vodaphone AUS sim. Virgin Mobile in AUS operates their 3G network on 2100 AND 900 MHz, so that would be an option. Another one would be Telstra. A SIM from either of those providers should work, giving you access to the APN settings. They remain grayed out until the SIM can register with a UMTS data circuit on the required radio band.
You can read more here: http://wiki.apnchanger.org/Australia
Hope this was helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is from Motorola's site:
NETWORKS4
Worldphone - WiMAX 2500, CDMA 800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
I believe WCDMA 2100 is the UMTS band being referred to. I am fairly certain the Photon is a Quad-band true world phone. http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...Mobile-Phones/ci.MOTOROLA-PHOTON-4G-US-EN.alt
EDIT: I see now you meant UMTS on 900 MHz rather than GSM at 900.

Outer Marker said:
This is a good point. It's entirely possible he's in a UMTS900 zone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like the guy is having APN issues, not reception issues. Otherwise he would have at least been able to get EDGE/GPRS connections - but those too require the APN.

FYI, I was in Sydney for most of the trip, with a few days in Canberra.
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App

I started two threads on the official Sprint Support forums. One in the normal Moto Photon, and one in the Premier area. Wonder if Sprint will respond.

jorjitoc said:
This is from Motorola's site:
NETWORKS4
Worldphone - WiMAX 2500, CDMA 800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
I believe WCDMA 2100 is the UMTS band being referred to. I am fairly certain the Photon is a Quad-band true world phone. http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/U...Mobile-Phones/ci.MOTOROLA-PHOTON-4G-US-EN.alt
EDIT: I see now you meant UMTS on 900 MHz rather than GSM at 900.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's ridiculous that Data and voice are so segmented, but these are smartphones! Gone are the days that you just had to worry about the GSM voice frequency. Now you have to make sure the data frequency and radio band are supported by your phone.
For what it's worth, I've had little luck with Vodaphone sim cards overseas. I typically use Tmobile or Orange sim cards in the UK, and TIM or Wind in Italy. For points in between, I just roam on the UK Tmobile sim. Next trip won't be for a bit, so I'm eager to see what the photon is like...

did you try rooting and manually editing the apn database with SQLite?
This was taken from the atrix APN editing thread:
Code:
2) Enable Airplane Mode
(hold power button for three seconds, select Airplane Mode)
3) Open Root Explorer
4) Navigate to: /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/
5) Click on "telephony.db"** (this should open the db using SQLite Editor)
6) Select "carriers"
7) You should see a long list of APN settings for various carriers. Edit/add what you want
8) Press back twice to close the SQLite editor and you should be back in Root Explorer. Close Root Explorer.
9) Disable Airplane Mode
So Just add the APN with the sprint MCC and MNC, then manually edit the APN's MCC and MNC and see if that works

Related

[Q]

Hi, Just purchased the hd2 T Mobile from USA. Which carriers can I use in Canada to activate this Phone? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
any of them(well, except any cdma only ones) but you will need an unlock code from online or from t mobile, and you won't get 3g
Thanks for the help samsamuel. I took it to one carrier and they told me it wouldn't work. The phone is unlocked.Why wouldn't I get the 3G.I want the plan that gives me internet mobile browsing. PS it was fido I took it to.
because fido uses 1900 for 3g, from what i've read, and the tmous uses 1700/2100 for 3g., and i think rogers uses 850/1900 and maybe 1900/2100 (just skimming google for this infofact is, though, that without the 1700 aws band,, no high speed data.
you will be able to get gprs and edge for browsing, but no 3g/hsdpa.
as to them saying it won't work, they're probably either making it up or meaning 3g
most canadian users fork out the extra for the telstra model if they want 3g.
Thanks. I guess this phone is useless to me, as I wanted to be able to access the internet without using the wifi.
Redder1 said:
as I wanted to be able to access the internet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can, but only with gprs / edge speeds.
I had been considering buying an HD2 and trying to unlock it for use with an AT&T sim card for my current account. I knew that their networks were compatible, but I didn't realize that hsdpa was on different frequencies. I googled around a bit and it looks like AT&T uses 1900 mhz and Tmo uses 1700/2100. I can't verify if this info is correct ,but this could sure put a dent in my plans. Does anyone know for sure if an HD2 can be used on AT&T's 3g network?
there are several threads about how you can't. go read in the tmous specific section. plenty of confirmation that it doesn't.
3G Frequencies
Hi there!
I was wondering if there is a way to change those settings?? I have a T-Mo HD2, and maybe there is a way to make the phone work with the 3G technology in other frequencies besides the 1700 and 2100 MHz (I live in latin america, so it would have to use the 850Mhz frequency) Anyone please help me with this issue.
As one who unlocked a TMoUS HD2 to AT&T I can assure you that you will not get 3G anywhere in the US or Canada that I can find. On a bright note, it's a phone... With everyone else using 3G networks I find the Edge network to be utterly "unclogged" and find the speeds to be just fine for everything including streaming video.
PS: The phone was free but without a SIM card and I was an AT&T user - not to mention T-Mobile's network leaves a lot to be desired..
There is 3g service in Canada if you happen to be in an area where Wind Mobile is available. search Wind mobile coverage area.
We (family)have several cell phones I use the HD 2 on Edge and it doesn't bother me that its a little slower, actually when I did a quick check with my daughter on her 3g I hardly could tell the difference. I' m sure some will point out where I'm wrong. But I'm satisfied with edge because I enjoy the HD2.
Wind Mobile uses 1700/2100.

Photon in Australia

I moved to Australia this week. I brought my MoPho with me. It was a hassle getting it to work but i figured it out and thought to tell you how it went. I put a Vodafone AU SIM card in my phone but 3G would not work. I knew for a fact i was in a coverage area for 850Mhz 3G so I was pretty annoyed it would not work. Turns out with the Photon you have to manually ass the APN for Vodafone and probably a few others. I was able to get all the settings I needed from here.
http://ausdroid.net/apns/
tl;dr Sometimes when abroad you need to manually add the APN for the carrier.
I need to do that for my carrier too (Slingshot NZ, 850/2100Mhz) but after that it works fine, 3G GSM data is borked on the current ICS build though.
Ya. Im going to wait awhile before i put on another custom ROM. Still trying to get used to everything in Australia. Cant risk being without a phone. Im going to keep an eye on cm9. Until then i only have the precious data connection on my phone which is caped at 4GBs :'(. I miss unlimited.
0mfgroflmao said:
I need to do that for my carrier too (Slingshot NZ, 850/2100Mhz) but after that it works fine, 3G GSM data is borked on the current ICS build though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hodiedodie said:
I moved to Australia this week. I brought my MoPho with me. It was a hassle getting it to work but i figured it out and thought to tell you how it went. I put a Vodafone AU SIM card in my phone but 3G would not work. I knew for a fact i was in a coverage area for 850Mhz 3G so I was pretty annoyed it would not work. Turns out with the Photon you have to manually ass the APN for Vodafone and probably a few others. I was able to get all the settings I needed from here.
http://ausdroid.net/apns/
tl;dr Sometimes when abroad you need to manually add the APN for the carrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea ill be down under in January
The telstra pre pay sim works better than vodafone .
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Well. Thats a tricky question. Bellow i will list the different networks and what they support compared to the photon. Currently all three major carriers can provide 3G to the Photon. Telstra simply has a better network but it has nothing to do with how it interacts with the phone. For both Optus and Vodafone so far i have had to manually set the APNs. It was a ***** with the Optus one because of the separate APNs for internet and mms. Even though optus doesnt have umts850 and the photon doesnt have umts900 i am downloading about 4Mbs in East Killara (Suburb by Sydney) throught Optus' 2100 single band HSDPA+. I have not tested Telstra because they are so freaking expensive.
Photon supports:
800/1900 MHz (EV-DO Rev. A),
GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz,
UMTS/WCDMA 850/1900/2100 MHz (HSPA+ at 14.4 Mbit/s)
OPTUS/Amaysim: (I only recommend for when time is being spent in Capital Cities that support 2100 single band)
GSM - 900/1800
UMTS - 900/2100 (2100 single band)
TELSTRA:
2G - 900/1800
3G - 850/2100 (850 is NextG)
LTE - 1800
Vodafone:
2G - 900/1800
3G - 850/900/2100
ttkyles said:
Yea ill be down under in January
The telstra pre pay sim works better than vodafone .
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
vodafone's 3g did not work for me at all, apns could not be set,
after a bit of hassle i got optus working and am happy so far, vodafone is sooo bad in aus anyway.
Yea i used my sprint touch pro 2 all last year down under.
Hoping the photon puts my tp2 on the shelf.
I agree with hodie though
Optus is good when your in Melbourne, sydney, perth,etc.but i thought telstra had the better overall service.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
3G issue
Hi,
Im from Dominican Republic and I got a Photon, the phone use to works fine with my carrier, but since 2 weeks ago the 3G network is unavailable. My carrier is Claro Dominicana (GSM 850 MHz) and searching for the possible problem I think that one of the motorola update block that band since is the same one as ATT. I had rooted the phone and try with custom roms and also restore it to the stock rom but with no luck. Does anyone have face this issue? Is there a solution for this?
Thanks.

[Q] AT&T Titan Use in United Kingdom UK

I just purchased an AT&T branded Titan for use on T Mobile here in the USA. I didn't do my research properly and I just assumed I would get at least 3G. It seems not. However all is not lost if I can just unlock it and use it on my trips back to Scotland.
If I unlock the AT&T Titan will I have any issues just popping a UK SIM in there? Does it run better on some providers?
Thanks
edderspcs said:
I just purchased an AT&T branded Titan for use on T Mobile here in the USA. I didn't do my research properly and I just assumed I would get at least 3G. It seems not. However all is not lost if I can just unlock it and use it on my trips back to Scotland.
If I unlock the AT&T Titan will I have any issues just popping a UK SIM in there? Does it run better on some providers?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will need to check with the Carrier that you are going to use the Titan over there... and see which bands of HSDPA that they support. The UK Version of Titan seem to be supported 850/900/1900/2100 , but i don't think the AT&T version support 900 band tho. You will have to recheck.
Good Luck.
And yes, you need to get the SIM-Unlock code based on the IMEI of the phone and then you can insert any sim in and the phone will use it just fine as long as the carrier able to provide network for it.
Looks like you will only be able to use it on GPRS
UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ tri-band (2100/1900/850 MHz) and quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and LTE BC4/BC17
Thanks for the replies. It makes no difference to me what network I use .
I'm having a hard time understanding the differences.
If I look at this page it lists what my phone supports..
http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_titan-4027.php
Looking at this it seems my specs match up with most major UK providers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_Europe#United_Kingdom
Therefore shouldn't it work?
If it is limited to GPRS what are the limitations?
Thanks
Yep in theory it should, Just double checked and I posted specs for Titan2 oops
At&t Titan ie: Frequencies HSPA+/WCDMA 850/1900/2100 MHz and Quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge 850/900/1900 MHz, Its missing 1800mhz for UK which basically means you cannot use T-mobile or Orange, But Vodafone or O2 or anything running 900mhz should be fine.
The 2G band list says "quad-band" but then only lists 3 bands. I'll bet that's a typo and that all 4 bands are supported.
I've used my unlocked AT&T Titan with local SIMs in numerous countries on 2100MHz 3G... works great.
I have at&t Titan from US in London with O2. Sometimes it woks fine on 3G sometimes doesn't work at all. I forced it to use only 2G and then it works fine.To force the phone Enter code ##3282# Then go to the Three blue dots on the right corner go to settings and in network type choose 2G or 3G depending on what you want.
Received my Titan 2 today from Across the pond, It's at&t branded but unlocked, It is working fine and shows 4G lol, I know it is just a 3G connection but no problems using it on O2, Had to manually input APN settings in cellular and that was it
Well that smile didn't last long, Can't send pic messages, Any ideas?
Hi AndyFZ1S have you tried the connection setup application from htc? Thats what i usedwhen i moved here and it worked fine. Still my 3g connection is poor or inexistant is most areas, i believe at&t phones are missing one band.
Sent from my Titan using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
^@andres22, Thanks & yes have tried connection set-up but it says the carrier is not in the database etc, 3G works fine I just cannot send or receive picture messages, There is no option to manually put in the settings either so am kind of stuck really,
Uhmmm funny that my setup apolication has O2 settings and yours not. Sorry man. I cant think of anything else.
Sent from my Titan using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
No problem, It may well be you have a different database on your at&t Titan compared to the at&t Titan2, Never mind, Hopefully there will be a way to sort it.
I'm having similar issue with Titan 2 using on T-Mobile US. MMS is the only issue. T-Mobile does carry Nokia 710 and HTC Radar. I wonder if there is a way to get settings from those phones.
Sent from my HP Touchpad using xda premium
The only way I can think of doing it is by flashing either a Stock Titan2 ROM (if it exists) or a custom one, That way Connection set-up would have most of the carriers in its database and not just at&t, But that won't be possible without HSPL or any ROMs, Maybe HTC could do something their end to update connection set-up etc?

Galaxy Note I717 with Galaxy S blaze radio in Europe

Been hunting for the answer to this question for a while, maybe I'm just confused. Someone once told me that every GSM phone has the 2100 3g data band that works in europe. I flashed the galaxy s blaze modem to my galaxy note i717. I'll be heading to europe, but after doing some research, it doesn't seem that the galaxy s blaze phone does not have the 2100 band which is the 3g band in europe. phonescoop says it has:
850 Cellular / band 5 (V) Americas, Oceania, Brazil, Israel
1700 AWS / band 4 (IV) Americas
1900 PCS / band 2 (II) Americas
Does this mean that i won't get 3g in europe? do I need to reflash the original at&t radio?
All I can say is that the Galaxy S Blaze 4G (SGH-T769) supports UMTS band I (2100 MHz) and so if you run its radio ROM on the T-Mobile Note (SGH-I717), which seems to share its radio hardware with the aforementioned device, it should theoretically work in Europe.
Great thanks, just don't want to be prepared and ready to have it working. Do I need to setup/revise my phones prn information or is that automatically done when I pop in a sim from the country.
sorry i meant apn number not prn
Why not take the LF6 modem with you and flash it through recovery if needed.
Good point, i'll bring it as a back up... do I need to adjust the APN settings when i get there or is it automatically done?
The best thing might be to get the APN settings of the network you will use in advance. I just google for example "vodafone france apn settings" and I take a screenshot of the website.
The settings will not show up automatically.
By default Android has an integrated database of APNs and tries to automatically setup APN settings for your provider, which is being detected by your SIM card's IMSI, which in turn contains the MCC and MNC of its home network. So Android can find out which operator you are using and will then configure the standard APN stored in its integrated APN database. However there are many networks around the world that use multiple APNs, e.g. different ones for postpaid and prepaid customers and also often you are required to use a special APN in order to make use of certain tariffs. As Android cannot detect what kind of contract and tariff you are using, the automatic APN setup will not always result in correct settings. So better find out the required APN in advance and check your settings once you insert a new SIM card in your device.

Best setup for UK ONE on AT&T

So I love my HTC ONE.... Fantastic phone.. No question about it.
As I posted else where I have the UK model and I am on AT&T in the USA. It's working, but the HSDPA and 3G is bouncing around quite a bit and it jumps to E really quickly. And it loses the signal quickly in low signal areas. More than any other phone. If I switch the network to GSM, I have full signal almost everywhere.... But no data bandwidth.
It was suggested that I might need to look at my setup.
So here is what I have.
I have a STD LTE data plan
I have a STD sim that work on all my other LTE enabled phones
My APN is Called Phone and has the same setting as I find on the forum for a 4G setup...ie it is NOT the wap and cingular setup.
I have selected WCDMA and GSM networks (I know the phone is not compatible with AT&T LTE bands), but it acted the same way even when it was on the default GSM WCDMA and LTE Auto setting.
Does anyone know else I should check or change?
PS. I will likely buy the developer model, or the AT&T model as soon as it is available... this phone is that good!!!
Thanks for your help.
Nick
PS. I will be in Korea next week, so I am curious how the LTE will function there.... I will let you know. I think they have the 2600 band on one provider and that overlaps with the UK bands

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