AT&T Faces SXSW Bandwidth Woes > Doesn't Surprise Me

reply to keyboard5684

Re: Doesn't Surprise Me

said by keyboard5684 :

So, to be childish.... oh wait, lets compare how many "Can you hear me now" tests we each have done, you with ATT and me with Sprint and list all the countries we have done them in???

Does ATT not lock there phones? Putting another carrier SIM card in does not sound like it would work, but maybe. I will admit I carried an old T-Mobile phone so I could use, if need be, another carrier SIM but it was never needed. The price came out to be the same and your phone number was different, so inbound calls were pointless.

I guess it has never been a problem with me. Even in places where ONLY GSM cellular calls can be made, I have no trouble... based on the phone model.

And I take it you are talking about data? Or Both? I am talking about making a phone call.

reply to dcdeadbeat5

said by dcdeadbeat5:

said by keyboard5684 :

So, to be childish.... oh wait, lets compare how many "Can you hear me now" tests we each have done, you with ATT and me with Sprint and list all the countries we have done them in???

I have only been to 37 countries. So my list would not be exhaustive. However when I go I don't ever take my Sprint or Verizon wireless cards or phones. I only take my AT&T ones since it is likely that I will be able to find a UTMS carrier in one of them that AT&T will roam on.

And if I can't find a roaming partner, I will just remove my SIM card and buy one for a local carrier.

You can't do that with CDMA2000 carriers since the technology doesn't allow for SIM cards.

reply to keyboard5684

reply to kamm
Read the CDMA2000 specs. They do not allow for sim cards. Therefore if your current carrier does not have a roaming agreement with an international carrier (and the carrier is using CDMA2000 and not UMTS) then you are out of luck.

Starting with GSM and kept in the specs for each generation, sim cards have allowed phones to be used with different carriers. And in some countries it is required. So if you purchase a phone from one carrier and it does not work, you can then just purchase a sim card from another carrier, insert it and start chatting away.

I will agree that some phones have better radios than other phones. But CDMA2000 is far less efficient than UTMS in terms of its ability to handle many connections.

But both technologies are limited entirely by which frequencies each carrier uses and the geographic layout.

And in this case, does anyone know if AT&T has switched Austin to 850 instead of the 1900 frequency? The 850 frequency has better penetration but AT&T has not switched all of its network to using this frequency.

More likely that AT&T didn't deploy 'enough' spectrum on 3G.
Many areas (Los Angeles was one) that had issues with capacity when AT&T launched a single 1900MHz carrier channel on UMTS even if I had good signal and was standing next to an AT&T cell site (yes, I know where they are).
I suspect that is the issue in Austin as well. Others have posted about this issue on Howard Forums AT&T 3G .

Part of the 'issue' with UMTS is that both voice and data run over the same spectrum. I.E. a single 5MHz carrier channel has to provide both voice and data for 3G users. CDMA2000 runs voice on 1x and data on either EVDO or 1x.

reply to dcdeadbeat5