quad-band / tri + dual band europe / tri + dual band US? Whats the difference?

Michelangelo

Hey,

Whats the difference between quad band and tri band?

Cheers

flywheel

in Ireland we use two bands 900 and 1800 (re: dual band phones), then came tri-band phones which added 1900 for use in the US. so our tri-band phones are 900/1800/1900

you have to watch out though, as some handsets developed for the Americas are also called tri-band but have 850 instead of 900, so support 850/1800/1900

so in Ireland this 'Americas' tri-band phone will generally only work in built-up areas (usually where 1800 is implemented), so you will have no coverage on the 900 network - a mate bought a Sony Ericsson T616 (a version of the T610 available in the US that supports 850 instead of 900) and has this coverage problem any time he leaves built-up areas (i.e. travelling down the country)

a quad band phone (e.g. some Motorola handsets) supports 850/900/1800/1900 so you wider support on world wide GSM networks

BrianG

Michelangelo

Cheers Man.

Thanks!:)

D_Money5042000

is it possible for a phone to have both GSM/GPRS 850/1800/1900 MHz, and GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz. I was looking at phones since im the market for a new 1. and i came across a nokia 7610 on ebay and it said that it was "GSM/GPRS 850/1800/1900 MHz, or GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz"

byrnefm

I had a look on the Nokia site and I can see what you mean:

http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,8764,55861,00.html

I think it means that there are two models of it available - a triband for use primarily in the US/Canada (850/1800/1900) or Rest Of World (900/1800/1900). Nokia used to have different model numbers, I thought, to distinguish between the two band ranges but it appears that this isn't the case any longer? I doubt that it's switchable between the two ranges but there's probably some other marking on the phone to indicate US or EU (or something of the sort).

I had the same problem before when buying a Sony CD/radio discman. Model numbers were the same for the US and Europe but the physical specification was different (eg. US model picked up VHF TV audio).

Where is the seller based?

flywheel

D_Money5042000 wrote:

is it possible for a phone to have both GSM/GPRS 850/1800/1900 MHz, and GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz.

the 7610 supports 900/1800/1900 MHz whereas the 7610b (read the US manual for more info) supports 850/1800/1900 MHz - there isn't one 7610 that supports both

each handset is a tri-band phone, one aimed at operators in the Americas (the one with 850) the other Europe and elsewhere (the one with the 900), however there is still a major operator in the US who doesn't use the 850 band so I suppose that is why they have both listed as the 7610b model wouldn't have any advantage over the regular 7610 model on that network

see above posts from a previous thread now merged in for some more info

D_Money5042000

Is there anyway to change it from GSM 900/1800/1900 To GSM 850/1800/1900?

flywheel

no, there isn't a switch or software option to change it, what makes it support one set of bands or the other is in the hardware of the handset...

D_Money5042000

well can the hardware be changed? And will nokia be releasing quad band phones anytime soon?

flywheel

i'm not sure how you'd expect to change the hardware as that would be the circuitry and chipsets used in the device? so no, you would just have to buy the right model for your requirements...

yes, Nokia have begun to announce Quad Band support in handsets (e.g. 6270), their website does list their latest handsets and you can see what bands they support on there
http://www.nokia.com

It's quite possibly software that differenciates a 6230 from a 6230b for example. With tri-band Motorola handsets such as the V220 and V300 these are sold in different markets simply with an irrelevant band turned off. And some American V220s are actually sold as quad band units.

For example, in Canada you can pick up a V300 on Rogers with 850/900/1900, but in the US, T-Mobile market theirs as 900/1800/1900 since they don't have any 850 cells. It's been proven that a software modification will make the V300 a quad band phone since it has the same guts as the V400 which is a quad band unit.

I'm not sure if this is true for Nokia but it's certainly possible.

flywheel

Karsini wrote:

It's quite possibly software that differenciates a 6230 from a 6230b for example. With tri-band Motorola handsets such as the V220 and V300 these are sold in different markets simply with an irrelevant band turned off. And some American V220s are actually sold as quad band units.

For example, in Canada you can pick up a V300 on Rogers with 850/900/1900, but in the US, T-Mobile market theirs as 900/1800/1900 since they don't have any 850 cells. It's been proven that a software modification will make the V300 a quad band phone since it has the same guts as the V400 which is a quad band unit.

I'm not sure if this is true for Nokia but it's certainly possible.

The only way for thta to happen to the Moto you describe because it had a QuadBand capable chipset in it already. While Motorola have had QuadBand capable chipset in (several models) for a while, other manufacturers (e.g. Nokia and SE) have used two TriBand options to cover the various bands for the relevant territories/operators requirements. e.g.by the same thinking it should be possble to change say a SE T616 into a SE T610 by flashing it (and the other way around)... can't be done as they both have differnt TriBand chipsets in them.

This is of course changing, with recent announcements by Nokia and SE that QuadBand support will be available in some upcoming releases, but not for the models yet mentioned in this thread...

D_Money5042000

Well it's a good thing i found this out before i went and bought a phone from Europe. What's the point of having a cool phone with cool features that nobody else in the states has but yet the reception is not good because It's a 900/1800/1900 phone. So now should i get N-gage or a Nokia 6620 since those are the only series phones out in the u.s.

ghostchant

Hi, I'm going over to the US next week and was wondering if I was to get a mobile over there, and get it unlocked over here, would it work?
Thanks

netwhizkid

It'd have to be a tri-band Gsm fone, some us networks use a non gsm network. I am also interested in this as i'm also heading state side Aug 5th. Vodafone refused to put me on bill pay for a month so i could roam while in the us only bill pay can roam in the Us with vodafone, they were insisiting i i sty on a contract for 12months then after coming home. i told them where to shove it. I am now getting a triband fone of e-bay and getting a Meteor sim and moving my 087 number to meteor so i can roam in the us. I plan to stay on meteor then. Why oh why have Meteor got such crap goddamn ugly fones ? They seem to have the Builder's nokia only and some piece of crap dual band sagem.

drdre

some fones work,make sure its triband.
also whizkid thats good you are moving as vodafone really do have a bad service and do charge outragious prices.
i am also going to move to meteor very soon

byrnefm

ghostchant wrote:

Hi, I'm going over to the US next week and was wondering if I was to get a mobile over there, and get it unlocked over here, would it work?
Thanks

Hi,

to be honest, unless you buy a quad-band phone over there, it probably isn't worth your while. The thing is that if the phone is tri-band, it would most likely be an American-type tri-band, that is, it'll have the two US bands and the 1800MHz band which we use. While that means the phone would work here, it would only have one of the two bands that is used in Ireland/Europe - but the 1800MHz band is really only used in towns / cities with large populations. Go outside of Dublin and you'd likely lose coverage much of the time where only 900MHz masts are more common. Even in Dublin, your reception would be patchy at times.

Quad-bands cover all four bands in use but only Motorola (by and large) sell them. Having said that, some of the tri-band phones have the two European bands and only one of the US bands. Check whatever phone you'd be thinking of buying and make sure it has both 900/1800 mentioned on it.

Hope that helps!

derv

are phones cheaper over in the states?
would it be cheaper to buy a quad band over there?

i've a mate over there for the summer i might get him to bring back one for me.

Ruu_Old

Phones are cheaper but the bill pay is the way to go. They dont really offer much in the pre-paid way. There are 2 GSM networks T-Mobile and At&t/Cingular Wireless. Ive been using my Ngage since i came here with t-mobile and it works great, find that i rarely have to top it up on pre-pay. The rest as far as i know are CDMA networks, so unless your phone is CDMA, it wont work and most networks wont let you use your phone anyway, you will have to buy one with them.

byrnefm

There's quite a mixture of technologies in use over there, making number portability a bit of a joke, really! There's CDMA (Verizon and Sprint, AFAIK), TDMA (AT&T), GSM (AT&T also and T-Mobile), iDEN (NexTel) and ye olde Analog, which is still in use throughout much of the middle part of the US where there isn't any digital coverage yet! There are more operators than those above, though they're the major ones.

AT&T are migrating from TDMA to GSM.

Verizon have a large customer base and to the best of my knowledge, have no intentions of ever changing from CDMA (they also have their own version of 3G).

Makes you thankful you're on GSM, really - only GSM uses SIM cards - the other network types have to have the phones programmed - no nice n easy way to upgrade phones unless you take it into a dealer to transfer all your info for you!

Ruu_Old

AT&T have been gsm for a while, they merged with Cingular Wireless not so long ago. True the system is a bit of a mess here.

D_Money5042000

I know for a fact that if you buy a tri band phone from cingular, the reception won't be very good in europe because the tri band phones from cingular are 850/1800/1900. 850 and 1900 being the ones cingular uses here in the states use, but T-Mobile i think use 900 and 1800 so their tri band phones should work fine in europe and they also have a few quad band phones. I'm not sure because i have cingular and i think they are the best

derv

i have a question regarding the usage of phones abroad.

in europe we can use the dual band phones......
in america we need the tri band phones.......
and a quad band phone will work everywhere.....

but what is the minimum requirement for OZ ?
can a dual band be used or would i need a tri/quad band?

paulm17781

Dual band. Dual band phones have different meanings.

Dual (here) is 900/1800 mhz
Tri (here) 900/1800/1900 (america) mhz
Quad? Tri + 3g???

In America Dual is 1900/900 mhz so it will work here.

flywheel

derv wrote:

what is the minimum requirement for OZ ?

our 'Irish' (i.e. 900/1800) dual band phones will work in Australia
re: Australia Coverage / Roaming Info

byrnefm

As a rule (and there are always exceptions to every rule :rolleyes: )

USA GSM uses 850 / 1900 (the former is sometimes referred to as 800)
Rest of world GSM uses 900 / 1800 (eg, Europe, Australia, S. Africa, ...)

In the US, the most widely used band at the moment is the 1900MHz band, only because it was the first band allowed to be used for GSM. In Europe, the 900MHz is most popular (but some networks, like Orange UK, are exclusively 1800MHz).

rogue-entity

In the US 900MHz and 1800MHz bands were used by the Military so operators had to use 1900MHz. I heard a story of someone who brought a 3510 not realising that it would not work in the states and the FBI contacted him accusing him of using military frequencies, it was his phone.

Oh and for PAYG roaming, O2 works okay, 3 Ireland also has roaming in the states even though it is not advertised on there site yet.

cubix

Came across this on vodafone "QuadBand 850/900/1800/1900 MHz". What areas of the world to each of these cover

Cheers

liamskater

quad band covers europe asia africa and most of america

Sam Vimes

http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/quadbandphones.htm

cubix

Ta