Nick <[email protected]> wrote: > It might be worth going into a T-Mobile shop and telling them your > problem. [...]
The international SGS2 was *never* approved for use with T-Mobile USA or with any other operator in this country. Considering that it can only ever work in 2G/EDGE mode, the only people who would ever even consider using a phone of this kind in this country would have to be GSM and/or Freedom religious zealots like me, and there aren't a whole lot of such people. Brian Kemp <[email protected]> wrote: > It's not an amazing solution, but you can swap a mini-SIM for a > micro-SIM for free, at least on AT&T. Of course, the same with T-Mobile - but I would NOT want to be asking them to change my SIM back and forth 5 times a day. Being able to move my SIMs back and forth among different phones (development/test) is an absolute must for me, and I have standardized on the mini-SIM form factor. > My wife did it when she went > from a Nexus S to a Nexus 4 (she has no interest in running Replicant, > but I get her old phone.) Are you using Replicant on a Nexus S successfully in USA? Exactly which model variant? On AT&T or on T-Mobile? 2G/EDGE or 3G/UMTS/etc? > Does your physical location change when you do this, or can you simply > repeat it no matter where you are? The latter. At least if the "no matter where you are" part is confined to Southern California, the "normal" parts thereof with regular cell coverage - I have not tried flying overseas just to test this phone in another country, nor have I yet found a Faraday cage to test how the phone would behave in the absence of any external RF signals. > Wondering if two towers are > 'fighting' for registration of your phone. Everything is possible - it appears that some condition occurs in the baseband fw that causes it to go into a tizzy. What the bug-tickling condition is, I have no way of telling. > There is something seriously wrong with this phone. I don't know if > it's the model, or if a modem firmware upgrade will solve it, but that > would be my first suggestion. Because I'm trying to devote my time to something much more worthy in the long run (see below), I am still hoping that someone would take me up on my cash offer. If there is anyone in USA who would be willing to take a stab at getting this I9100 to work, I will gladly ship my phone to that person, maybe even with a T-Mobile SIM card thrown in, and if you can get it to work, I will gladly send you $$$. (At least $500, may be willing to negotiate higher.) The "much more worthy in the long run" thing I'm working on is a 100% OSHW (open source hardware) phone, running 100% Free Software _*including the GSM modem*_. You've all probably heard about the just recently started Neo900 project, right? (neo900.org) That project isn't mine, there are some other folks working on it, but I am working on this special option for the upcoming Neo900: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1376708 Of course it is far too early to promise anything for certain, but I do very much hope that this Neo900 project succeeds. If these German guys succeed in building the Neo900, and if the hw design makes it possible to populate my FreeCalypso modem in place of the more "standard" Option 3G/LTE/whatever module (I'm working with Joerg on this one), it would make the whole thing a reality that much sooner. If the Neo900FC idea fails for whatever reason, I would still produce my FreeCalypso modem, but then I would have to partner up with someone else to turn it into a complete phone: I am absolutely the wrong person to design any part of a smartphone other than the GSM modem. Once again, I very much hope the Neo900FC idea flies, as we've got some good synergy going there. But what brought me to Replicant is the need for some quick interim solution for my significant other. It is very important for me to get her to use Free Software on her phone, and it needs to happen now, without waiting for Neo900 or Neo900FC: I need my S.O. to be using Free Software *now* in order to be in the right mental and emotional state to do the FreeCalypso work. Of the already-existing phones supported by Replicant, SGS3 would probably be the best, but it has that nasty micro-SIM slot, and I've almost convinced my S.O. that with Replicant on the device, she would most likely see no difference at all between I9100 (S2) and I9300 (S3), except for the I9300 being wider. (She says she really wanted an S3 Mini, but I doubt that there is a version of that one supported by Replicant - please correct me if I'm wrong, though.) Hence I have set it as my short-term goal to get that I9100 working here in USA, maybe with "normal" sw first, and then later with Replicant. (But if jumping straight to Replicant would make it work reliably as a phone, I'm game for that too.) Hence I'm wondering if I can hire someone else to do the short-term hackwork of getting a working phone for my S.O. while I focus my own energy on the much-more-worthy-in-the-long-term Neo900 & FreeCalypso work. At this point I would probably be happy with *any* Replicant 4.0-supported phone that will work here in USA, using T-Mobile USA in EDGE mode. But the I9100 aka SGS2-international (be it the physical unit I have or another one, in case mine is physically defective) would be ideal, as I've already made an emotional attachment to it, and so has my S.O. - she played with it for a while and really liked it, until she saw that crazy erratic network connection behavior. Anyone who would like to take a stab at it, please send me your snail mail address by unicast and my I9100 will be on its way to you. Alternatively, if you already have an I9100 which you believe will work with T-Mobile USA EDGE, and you wouldn't mind parting with it, I'll buy it from you for $1000 USD - with a proviso that you would need to be willing to take it back for a full refund if it exhibits the same behavior as my current one does when it gets here and I put a T-Mobile USA SIM card in it. (My S.O. would need it to be black though, I doubt I can convince her to use a white one. Was the I9100 ever made in any other color besides black and white?) > I wonder if it's trying to communicate on a frequency that the radio > doesn't support. Quite possible indeed: T-Mobile USA UMTS has downlink on 2100 MHz and uplink on 1700 MHz. "Standard" aka "international" 3G phones like this I9100 (and probably many others) support 3G/UMTS on 2100 MHz, but not 1700 MHz. So if the phone has 3G enabled, it may hear UMTS signal on 2100 MHz, try to register on that network, but the BTS will never hear that transmission. But I have this I9100 configured for "GSM only" under "Mobile networks"... > Install F-Droid and look for the "Network" application. You'll know > it's the right one when it says it's merely a wrapper for something > already in Android. Icon is white circle with black old land-line > phone handset in it. See above about not having the time to delve into it deeper myself. > You *may* be able to use those settings to force the radio to not do > stupid things - such as Preferred Network Type, etc. (My Nexus S lists > "WCDMA preferred" which I'm assuming is a default.) See above: I've already set mine to "GSM only". > It used to be that international versions worked best on T-Mobile, and > AT&T was the odd network out. See my question at the beginning of this post regarding what you are using / what works for you, and with what phone model. TIA, SF _______________________________________________ Replicant mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant
