Omnia i900 with no 3g?

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tg989

Member
Jul 11, 2007
38
2
I just bought a singapore-configured omnia and i can only get it to connect to edge here despite being in a known 3g network... In the connection manager i only have options for "cellular line" and "cellular line (gprs)" (as well as haynes and bluetooth etc), but no "cellular line (gprs, 3g)" as I do on my other phone...

Any suggestions as to how i might get it to recognize the 3g in my area? (rogers/at&t).

Thanks!
 

theo80

Senior Member
Sep 14, 2008
331
50
if i'm not mistaken i900 has 3G but only in the 2100 band, maybe you can check with your operator what 3G band they are using...
 

tg989

Member
Jul 11, 2007
38
2
I believe rogers runs their 3g on 1900 and there is no option for 2100 on the phone, only 850/1900 and 900/1800...
 

tg989

Member
Jul 11, 2007
38
2
I have no option for UMTS in the phone ;\ I believe rogers runs on 2100 also but i'd have to check my other phone... is there somewhere where 3g/umts could be disabled on the phone? The specs say that it supports tri-band and umts.

edit: just checked the rogers phone, under settings -> phone i have a seperate tab for "band" wherein i can choose the gms/umts band "gsm(900+1800)+umts(2100)" etc but on the omnia there is nothing of the sort.

is it possible that the korean version of the phone somehow has umts disabled?
 
Last edited:

theo80

Senior Member
Sep 14, 2008
331
50
I have no option for UMTS in the phone ;\ I believe rogers runs on 2100 also but i'd have to check my other phone... is there somewhere where 3g/umts could be disabled on the phone? The specs say that it supports tri-band and umts.

edit: just checked the rogers phone, under settings -> phone i have a seperate tab for "band" wherein i can choose the gms/umts band "gsm(900+1800)+umts(2100)" etc but on the omnia there is nothing of the sort.

is it possible that the korean version of the phone somehow has umts disabled?

try under the MORE tab in phone settings, frequency in BAND SELECTION should be set to automatic.
 

pidsw

Senior Member
Jan 3, 2008
143
1
Victoria
This is a big mystery to which there is no real answer.
I have a I900 as well, but I do not have 3G/WCDMA in the US via AT&T which uses 850/1900 bands (which I believe is what Rogers and Fido use).
Here are some interesting bits:
- The I907 is a North American version that supports 3G on 850 and 1900.
- No one to my knowledge has seen any different hardware parts related to the Cell in the I907 vs the I900. The radio in both supports 8 of the UMTS bands that have been proposed (only 4 are in common use, and one of those is only in Japan). The cell antenae of the I900 are designed for optimal gain in the 850/1900 bands.
The Radio is idential to that of the Diamond, Touch Pro, G1, Kaiser, Touch, Touch HD and anything else using the 7201A or 7200 chipset. The I900 and I907 do not use this chipset, but it uses the same radio hardware.

No one was able to get the EU Diamond to use the 850/1900 GSM band, and in fact the US Diamond has the same radio Firmware as the EU diamond.
I was confident that if anyone could figure out how to make this work, it would be people at XDA on an HTC device (caveat - there are a lot of europeans here who don't care about 3G in north America, so I may have been wrong there)

Where does it say tri band UMTS on your phone?
 

theo80

Senior Member
Sep 14, 2008
331
50
maybe this quote will help enlighten you:

Hi All,

Currently released version of Samsung Omnia i900 does not support UMTS 850/1900, which are north american 3G frequencies, according to official Samsung documentation, as well as FCC approval docs. However it has been recently established the radio chip does support those frequencies, and they are locked in the firmware only. Here is the evidence to support this claim:
This is the official FCC documentation for i900 certification:

https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas...me=N&application_id=476604&fcc_id='A3LSGHI900

On the page 4 of the "Internal Photos" document you can clearly identify the radio chip - it's Qualcomm RTR6285 and according to Qualcomm:
"Support for Eight UMTS Bands, Four EGPRS Bands, Triple-Band Receive Diversity and GPS Integrated into Power-Optimized RTR6285 Device": http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2006/060213_worlds_first_single.html

So, it's only as matter of unlocking those frequencies in the current firmware. Samsung made our job a little easier, by recently making a public release of new ROM with updated firmware, so we won't have to dump it ourselves: http://www.samsungmobile.com/promotion/omnia/sg/sub02_xp.jsp#

I have limited free time and limited experience with reversing PDA firmware, to be able to achieve this by myself - please help.
 

pidsw

Senior Member
Jan 3, 2008
143
1
Victoria
There are many Roms Available on Modaco
www.
It seems like there are at least four places in which firmware lives:
- "Phone" (usually called Radio)
- "PDA" (the rest of the ROM)
- "CSC" (seems to be for branding. I.e. TMobile has a special .csc file as compared to stock ROMS with similar firmware)
- GSM settings, accessible through dialing obscure number on the Phone. Search Modaco for a list, people seem to find new ones every day. Some of these numbers just effect the ROM settings, but some seems a little more powerful.
- In some of the recent Roms there is a Band Tab in the phone settings, but it only lists "Auto", "850/1900", "900/1800" and "WCDMA". WCDMA is 2100 in the rom I have installed (Signapore PDA with an "Open Market" Phone (XXHI2) )