The radio's in the cell phones are fixed frequency (if they weren't, there would be no such thing as "quad band.") The AT&T Wireless and Cingular merger only resulted in a update to the roaming database on the phones sim card (so they all say Cingular "on -orange- devices" ... or AT&T "on -blue- devices." Everyone else was forced to buy a new Cingular phone ("Orange".) Then they renamed Cingular back to AT&T.
With T-Mobile, what is likely to happen is the same roaming update will be sent OTA and absolutely nothing done about migration except via hardware replacement. For people using the phone "as a phone" and not a smart phone, they won't notice a thing. For those wanting to access the 3.5G+ networks, they'll need a phone that supports all the frequencies... which none exist. Which is also why I say wait on the iPhone5/iPad3 to see what frequency set is supported. Even Android... Personally I was holding off till LTE.
re: fixed frequency devices... That's what they are legally certified for, and the phones constantly poll those frequencies for hand-overs. There are counterfeit phones from China that are more flexible, but... are absolute rubbish.
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syntheid
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Date: 2011-03-30 06:49 am (UTC)The radio's in the cell phones are fixed frequency (if they weren't, there would be no such thing as "quad band.") The AT&T Wireless and Cingular merger only resulted in a update to the roaming database on the phones sim card (so they all say Cingular "on -orange- devices" ... or AT&T "on -blue- devices." Everyone else was forced to buy a new Cingular phone ("Orange".) Then they renamed Cingular back to AT&T.
With T-Mobile, what is likely to happen is the same roaming update will be sent OTA and absolutely nothing done about migration except via hardware replacement. For people using the phone "as a phone" and not a smart phone, they won't notice a thing. For those wanting to access the 3.5G+ networks, they'll need a phone that supports all the frequencies... which none exist. Which is also why I say wait on the iPhone5/iPad3 to see what frequency set is supported. Even Android... Personally I was holding off till LTE.
re: fixed frequency devices... That's what they are legally certified for, and the phones constantly poll those frequencies for hand-overs. There are counterfeit phones from China that are more flexible, but... are absolute rubbish.