A question about US carrier frequencies

[thed]

I'm hoping someone that knows a little more than I do about 3G networks can help me out here.

I'm currently with Verizon, using the Verizon version of the HTC Trophy. I'm looking to switch to a cheaper option like AT&T (via Net10) or T-Mo, since Verizon is a little too pricey for me. I'd like to stay with my current phone for now (it's already SIM unlocked) so I checked HTC's website and here are the frequencies that it supports:

CDMA: 800/1900 MHz; HSPA/WCDMA: 2100MHz; GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

I've been trying to research and figure out what this means for me. My best guess is that since the phone only supports 2100 MHz for HSPA, I won't be able to get 3G service anywhere but Verizon, which is unfortunate. It looks like I can get EDGE on both AT&T and T-Mo. Can anyone confirm this, or suggest other options?

Thanks in advance for any help. Trying to figure this stuff out has really been making my head spin. It's tough to find definitive information about what frequencies my phone has to support to get service. Why do the carriers make it so difficult?

 

[sniffs]

You should be fine.. AT&T has licenses to use 600(in-building solutions only), 700(LTE), 850(3G) through 1900(2G). You should be able to pick up 2G and 3G.

I'm fairly certain AT&T uses 1900 for 2G and 850 for 3G.

The difficult part for you, is getting Verizon to unlock your handset. I had a Verizon Blackberry Storm 9530 and had to BEG them.. once they did, I was able to pop an AT&T sim in and get 2G only =/

 

[thed]

You should be fine.. AT&T has licenses to use 600(in-building solutions only), 700(LTE), 850(3G) through 1900(2G). You should be able to pick up 2G and 3G.

I'm fairly certain AT&T uses 1900 for 2G and 850 for 3G.

The difficult part for you, is getting Verizon to unlock your handset. I had a Verizon Blackberry Storm 9530 and had to BEG them.. once they did, I was able to pop an AT&T sim in and get 2G only =/

Thanks for the quick response.

I already got an unlock code from Verizon. Apparently they'll do it without asking questions, as long as your account is in good standing, you've had your line active for 3 months, and you haven't gotten an unlock from them in the past 10 months.

As for my phone, I guess I could use some clarification. As part of my research I was looking at this link:
AT&T Mobility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So that seems to confirm what you said about AT&T.

My concern is what my phone supports though. I thought that GSM = voice and 2G, while HSPA = 3G. So according to HTC's website, my phone would only support 3G on the 2100 MHz band. Am I wrong about that?

 

[sniffs]

Thanks for the quick response.

I already got an unlock code from Verizon. Apparently they'll do it without asking questions, as long as your account is in good standing, you've had your line active for 3 months, and you haven't gotten an unlock from them in the past 10 months.

As for my phone, I guess I could use some clarification. As part of my research I was looking at this link:
AT&T Mobility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So that seems to confirm what you said about AT&T.

My concern is what my phone supports though. I thought that GSM = voice and 2G, while HSPA = 3G. So according to HTC's website, my phone would only support 3G on the 2100 MHz band. Am I wrong about that?

GSM encapsulates both 2G and first gen 3G. Voice and data both operate on the 850/1900Mhz frequency. The 2100Mhz frequency is a Tmobile frequency, and if Verizon is labelling it HSPA (more like a second gen 3G), that's what is considered "4G" by the US carriers and the ITU, or basically a higher speed of 3G.

Since the phone supports 850/1900, you should be ok with getting voice/data and 2G and 3G through AT&T.

You'd get 3G data from the 850 for voice and data, and then you'd get 2G from the 1900 for voice and data.

Here's a quick breakdown,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

 

[anon(5335877)]

GSM encapsulates both 2G and first gen 3G. Voice and data both operate on the 850/1900Mhz frequency. The 2100Mhz frequency is a Tmobile frequency, and if Verizon is labelling it HSPA (more like a second gen 3G), that's what is considered "4G" by the US carriers and the ITU, or basically a higher speed of 3G.

Since the phone supports 850/1900, you should be ok with getting voice/data and 2G and 3G through AT&T.

You'd get 3G data from the 850 for voice and data, and then you'd get 2G from the 1900 for voice and data.

Here's a quick breakdown,

Cellular frequencies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No, thed is right. His (or her) phone supports 850/1900, but that's GSM only. So thed would only get 2G service on both AT&T and T-Mobile. The Trophy supports 3G on the 2100 Mhz band, but no carrier in the states uses that band. Instead, we paired 2100 Mhz with 1700 Mhz to create the AWS band. AWS requires both 1700 and 2100 to work, since one is for uplink and the other is for downlink.

The 2100 Mhz band that the Trophy supports is used in Europe. It's called IMT, and actually pairs 1900 Mhz with 2100 Mhz.

The reason why we can't use IMT here is because we already use the 1900 Mhz frequencies for the PCS band.

 

[sniffs]

GSM is the technology.

You have 4 different types of popular cellular networks. (there's actually more, but we won't get into them, like iDEN, etc)

CDMA which operate using an ESN. WiMAX, LTE and GSM which operate using a SIM chip.

GSM includes GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc..

CDMA includes EVDO, SVDO, etc..

WiMax which uses the Microwave bands and is fairly new to the cellular world. It's a terrible tech and the reason why it's being ditched. LTE is part of the GSM world and it's an evolutionary part of GSM. It's the next phase if you will.

Look at what frequencies AT&T operates for 2G and 3G. This is 1900 and 850.

Have a gander, Verizon HTC 7 Trophy passes through FCC with AT&T 3G bands | WMPoweruser

Your Trophy will work with AT&T's 2G and 3G networks. You won't get fast 3G such as UMTS/HSPA speeds, but you'll get a megabit or 2 down.

 

[anon(5335877)]

GSM is the technology.

You have 4 different types of popular cellular networks. (there's actually more, but we won't get into them, like iDEN, etc)

CDMA which operate using an ESN. WiMAX, LTE and GSM which operate using a SIM chip.

GSM includes GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc..

CDMA includes EVDO, SVDO, etc..

WiMax which uses the Microwave bands and is fairly new to the cellular world. It's a terrible tech and the reason why it's being ditched. LTE is part of the GSM world and it's an evolutionary part of GSM. It's the next phase if you will.

Look at what frequencies AT&T operates for 2G and 3G. This is 1900 and 850.

Have a gander, Verizon HTC 7 Trophy passes through FCC with AT&T 3G bands | WMPoweruser

Your Trophy will work with AT&T's 2G and 3G networks. You won't get fast 3G such as UMTS/HSPA speeds, but you'll get a megabit or 2 down.

While GSM carriers do use UMTS and HSPA for 3G, when we're talking about supported network frequencies, GSM usually refers to GPRS and EDGE only. 3G support is listed separately, in this case, it's under the HSPA/WCDMA section, and it lists only 2100 Mhz. If the Trophy supported HSPA/WCMDA for 850 and 1900, it would have been listed in the HSPA/WCMDA section on HTC's website, but it doesn't.

If what you're saying is true, then when wasn't 2100 Mhz also included in the GSM section along with 850/900/1800/1900 instead of it's own HSPA/WCDMA section?

The interesting part here is the link you provided. Ignore the parts that say GSM 850 and GSM 1900, that refers to GPRS/EDGE. What we're interested in here is the WCDMA Band V and Band II.

Band II = 1900
Band V = 850

So according to that, it does support AT&T 3G. But then why does Verizon's website and HTC's website only list 2100? I tried digging in, but all Google came up with was forum threads where people are asking why are they only getting 2G on AT&T.

 

[thed]

Thanks everyone for the input. A big concern of mine, as alpinestars mentioned, was that searching on the internet found me posts of people saying that they couldn't get 3G on their Verizon Trophy to work. I didn't find any people reporting that they could get 3g

I did see all those articles about the Trophy getting FCC certified with the AT&T 3G bands, but I wonder if there might've been some confusion with the international version of the Trophy (thanks for giving them the same name, HTC).

I guess I'm not as concerned with the 2G/3G designation as I am with getting a reasonable data speed. With Verizon I get somewhere between 1000 and 1300 Kb/s down at home, and only about 200-400 Kb/s at work. If I can get something like that then I'll be happy.

 

[sniffs]

While GSM carriers do use UMTS and HSPA for 3G, when we're talking about supported network frequencies, GSM usually refers to GPRS and EDGE only. 3G support is listed separately, in this case, it's under the HSPA/WCDMA section, and it lists only 2100 Mhz. If the Trophy supported HSPA/WCMDA for 850 and 1900, it would have been listed in the HSPA/WCMDA section on HTC's website, but it doesn't.

If what you're saying is true, then when wasn't 2100 Mhz also included in the GSM section along with 850/900/1800/1900 instead of it's own HSPA/WCDMA section?

The interesting part here is the link you provided. Ignore the parts that say GSM 850 and GSM 1900, that refers to GPRS/EDGE. What we're interested in here is the WCDMA Band V and Band II.

Band II = 1900
Band V = 850

So according to that, it does support AT&T 3G. But then why does Verizon's website and HTC's website only list 2100? I tried digging in, but all Google came up with was forum threads where people are asking why are they only getting 2G on AT&T.

I'd chalk it up to the confusion around fake 4G(HSPA which is a third gen technology, or 3G, being rebranded to 4G) and the fact that Europe runs different technologies on it's frequencies than the US does. In Europe, 2G might only be on the 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies while 3G(hspa) might only run on the 2100Mhz.

The entire reason why the device even has those frequencies is because Verizon owns the majority of Vodafone which is a GSM only network, so when users travel to Europe, they can roam. All Verizon's "world phones" have GSM chips inside. This device was never marketed as working on ATT, it's marketed as working as a world phone on Europe bands.. it just happened to include AT&T frequencies.

 

[sniffs]

Thanks everyone for the input. A big concern of mine, as alpinestars mentioned, was that searching on the internet found me posts of people saying that they couldn't get 3G on their Verizon Trophy to work. I didn't find any people reporting that they could get 3g

I did see all those articles about the Trophy getting FCC certified with the AT&T 3G bands, but I wonder if there might've been some confusion with the international version of the Trophy (thanks for giving them the same name, HTC).

I guess I'm not as concerned with the 2G/3G designation as I am with getting a reasonable data speed. With Verizon I get somewhere between 1000 and 1300 Kb/s down at home, and only about 200-400 Kb/s at work. If I can get something like that then I'll be happy.

2G won't provide that. All those articles you read, are they US AT&T users? As long as you pop an AT&T sim inside, you'll authenticate to it's 850/1900 network (assuming you have the correct APN).. If you can edit the APN and populate the one AT&T uses for it's 3G network, you shouldn't have any issues connecting to it.

EDIT: I'm doing some googling and people are suggesting installing the HTC Connection Setup app from the marketplace..

EDIT2: You'll also want to make sure you have a 3G SIM chip. I think if you put an LTE sim inside, it won't work..

 

[thed]

2G won't provide that. All those articles you read, are they US AT&T users? As long as you pop an AT&T sim inside, you'll authenticate to it's 850/1900 network (assuming you have the correct APN).. If you can edit the APN and populate the one AT&T uses for it's 3G network, you shouldn't have any issues connecting to it.

EDIT: I'm doing some googling and people are suggesting installing the HTC Connection Setup app from the marketplace..

EDIT2: You'll also want to make sure you have a 3G SIM chip. I think if you put an LTE sim inside, it won't work..

Yeah, the posts that I've seen have been people being unable to get 3G working on AT&T. Could that be an APN issue? I have a fully unlocked phone with registry access so I can change my APN settings manually as well if I have to.

One more wrinkle I've found: I looked up the specs for the international version of the Trophy, and here's the radio support listed:

• HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

The only thing different from the Verizon version is the addition of 900 MHz for HSPA/WCDMA. So that shouldn't make any difference for AT&T support. But I'm sure I remember someone on these forums (palandri?) using the international version of the Trophy on AT&T. So that gives me some additional hope.

There's not much left for me to do at this point besides trying it and seeing what happens. I'll report back once I've made the switch. Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[anon(5335877)]

I'd chalk it up to the confusion around fake 4G(HSPA which is a third gen technology, or 3G, being rebranded to 4G) and the fact that Europe runs different technologies on it's frequencies than the US does. In Europe, 2G might only be on the 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies while 3G(hspa) might only run on the 2100Mhz.

The entire reason why the device even has those frequencies is because Verizon owns the majority of Vodafone which is a GSM only network, so when users travel to Europe, they can roam. All Verizon's "world phones" have GSM chips inside. This device was never marketed as working on ATT, it's marketed as working as a world phone on Europe bands.. it just happened to include AT&T frequencies.

You can call HSPA+ "fake" 4G, but the ITU has already accepted HSPA+ as 4G. Keep in mind, LTE didn't meet the 4G requirements either (doesn't reach 100Mbps theoretically), yet people still think of it as 4G. Funny thing is, even though the ITU says it's okay to call HSPA+ 4G, Europeans still call it 3G.

iPhone 5, meet Europe: Where 4G really means 3G, LTE is scarce | ZDNet

Actually, I think it's the other way around--Vodafone owns part of Verizon. In fact, there's rumors that Verizon wants to buy back it's stake from Vodafone, while AT&T wants to buy the rest of Vodafone's non-US operations.

In Europe, I think a lot of countries use 2100 for their 3G, they can't use 1900 (PCS) because the 2100 IMT band is actually paired with 1900. So it wouldn't make sense for Verizon's Trophy to have 1900 for 3G if you're traveling to Europe. 850, I don't recall any European countries using 850 for 3G either. I think in Australia uses 850 for 3G, while Latin and South America uses 850 and 1900 for 3G.

So the only reason for the Verizon Trophy to support 3G on 850 and 1900 is to allow you to roam when in Australia or South America.

 

[palandri]

From the specs I am finding on the Verizon Trophy, it only shows 2100 for 3G. So it would only get 2G here in the states on AT&T or T-Mobile.