Nokia Lumia 900 may not support T-Mobile 3G after all.

day2die · Jan 6, 2012

Pocketnow has recently leaked specs for the Lumia 900. Among them is that the Lumia 900 will support the 1700MHz band.

It has concluded that the Lumia 900 will then support UMTS 3G for T-Mobile USA.

On closer inspection, however, this not be the case. You see, AT&T uses AWS for LTE, but not for UMTS.

We will take a look at the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (the only two LTE phone for AT&T at the moment) as examples. Both of these handsets uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

Both handsets support the 1700 Mhz band for LTE, but not for UMTS and as a result will not work on T-Mobile's UMTS network.

In addition, there has been little evidence that there exist Snapdragon processor that support pentaband.

As a result of this whole investigation and to the dismay of many T-Mobile customers, I have to conclude that the Lumia 900 will likely NOT support T-Mobile 3G.

crav4speed · Jan 6, 2012

day2die said:
On closer inspection, however, this not be the case. You see, AT&T uses AWS for LTE, but not for UMTS.

That is not correct... T-mobile uses the AWS band (1700/2100) for it's UMTS network.

AT&T has never used the AWS band and after the failed merger is required to give some of it's AWS spectrum to T-Mobile as compensation. AT&T uses the 700 MHz band for it's LTE network.

If I remember correctly, there are no integrated LTE radios curently. The current crop of LTE phones have a separate LTE radio to complement the GSM/UMTS radio therefore, if the Ace actually does comes with a pentaband radio, it still is possible the AWS band will support T-Mobile's AWS UMTS network.

efjay · Jan 6, 2012

You are both right, at&t uses both the 700MHz and 1700MHz bands for its LTE network, as mentioned in this article http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/16/2640728/pantech-p9070-att-lte-850mhz-fcc. Remains to be seen what the 900 actually supports but if it was designed with the falied merger with Tmo in mind the 1700 band may not be used for LTE but could have been intended for Tmo compatibility. The 710 coming to Tmo next week has support for at&t's network so its possible the 900 was designed with the same intent. We'll know soon enough.

Strike_Eagle · Jan 7, 2012

I thought the AT&T - T-Mobile Merge has been cancelled?

prohibido_por_la_ley · Jan 7, 2012

It is cancelled

day2die · Jan 7, 2012

If the Lumia 900 uses the Qualcomm MDM9200 LTE modem and is anything like the HTC Vivid, its support band might look like this:

As you can see, the HTC Vivid support AWS, but only for LTE.

I hope that I am wrong for the sake of all the T-Mobile users that want the Lumia 900.

Tsury · Jan 7, 2012

I am relatively new to WP7, and I am looking for a new high end device.

Since my country only has 3G, is there an (upcoming) device that is on par with the Lumia 900 that supports 3G?

Thanks.

day2die · Jan 7, 2012

Tsury said:
I am relatively new to WP7, and I am looking for a new high end device.

Since my country only has 3G, is there an (upcoming) device that is on par with the Lumia 900 that supports 3G?

Thanks.

Don't worry. I am 99.99% sure that the Lumia 900 will be available in Europe.

MartyLK · Jan 7, 2012

According this report, AT&T will get a 900. Looks like I might get the chance to play with one.

http://goo.gl/tP4I2

jhoff80 · Jan 10, 2012

Looks like you were right:

GSM 850

GSM 900

GSM 1800

GSM 1900

WCDMA Band V 850

LTE Band 17 (700)

WCDMA Band I 2100

WCDMA Band II 1900

WCDMA Band VIII 900

LTE Band 4 (1700/2100)

http://www.nokia.com/us-en/products/phone/lumia900/specifications/

efjay · Jan 10, 2012

Yep, Tmobile users stuck with the low end crap.

hiko36 · Jan 10, 2012

If the bands are there, why would it limit T-Mobile customers from using them?

jeremyshaw · Jan 10, 2012

hiko36 said:
If the bands are there, why would it limit T-Mobile customers from using them?

Not exactly limit, but no HSDPA data access. Only EDGE/GPRS.

geoken · Jan 10, 2012

This is a huge disappointment. I want to like keep using WP7 but the hardware restrictions hobble the device makers too much. Nokia was the biggest proponents of pentaband but now they can't even support it due to chipset restrictions. It really puts a big hurdle in front of my decision to buy their phone when it requires me to use a carrier that costs twice as much and has data caps.

If this was pentaband I'd probably choose it above the Galaxy Nexus, but as it stands owning this phone would mean an extra $40 a month on my phone bill.

day2die · Jan 10, 2012

T-Mobile users need not worry though. T-Mobile is adding 1900MHz spectrum for HSPA+.

vetvito · Jan 10, 2012

geoken said:
This is a huge disappointment. I want to like keep using WP7 but the hardware restrictions hobble the device makers too much. Nokia was the biggest proponents of pentaband but now they can't even support it due to chipset restrictions. It really puts a big hurdle in front of my decision to buy their phone when it requires me to use a carrier that costs twice as much and has data caps.

If this was pentaband I'd probably choose it above the Galaxy Nexus, but as it stands owning this phone would mean an extra $40 a month on my phone bill.

Blame Nokia and carriers for their decision. Not the OS.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

PoisonWolf · Jan 10, 2012

vetvito said:
Blame Nokia and carriers for their decision. Not the OS.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

Ah well, what you're going to do?

T-Mobile always seems stuck with the low-end crap simply because they don't have the money to purchase exclusivity for the good stuff.

Makes me just want to sign up for their hotspot and start getting international unlocked phones instead and forget the whole idea of carrier branded phones.

geoken · Jan 11, 2012

vetvito said:
Blame Nokia and carriers for their decision. Not the OS.

Why shouldn't I blame the OS? Last I checked Nokia seemed pretty fond of pentaband devices. All their recent high end phones (up to and including the N9) were pentaband. They didn't stop using pentaband until they started developing WP7 phones and were forced to use chipsets that don’t support pentaband.

There are 3 reasons Nokia wouldn't make a pentaband WP7 phone;

1. The OS doesn't support any chipsets that would allow a pentaband radio
2. Nokia doesn't want to make pentaband phones
3. The carriers told Nokia not to make a pentaband phone

Option 1 is provably true. Option 2 is unlikely since Nokia had been making all their recent high end phones pentaband. Option 3 is also unlikely because the phone was first released in Europe where carriers have less sway and where Nokia was already selling pentaband phones.

vetvito · Jan 11, 2012

its number 3. As the discussion is about the Lumia 900, a exclusive US device. Blame the CARRIER AT&T. This is not a unlocked world phone.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

efjay · Jan 11, 2012

geoken said:
Why shouldn't I blame the OS? Last I checked Nokia seemed pretty fond of pentaband devices. All their recent high end phones (up to and including the N9) were pentaband. They didn't stop using pentaband until they started developing WP7 phones and were forced to use chipsets that don’t support pentaband.

There are 3 reasons Nokia wouldn't make a pentaband WP7 phone;

1. The OS doesn't support any chipsets that would allow a pentaband radio
2. Nokia doesn't want to make pentaband phones
3. The carriers told Nokia not to make a pentaband phone

Option 1 is provably true. Option 2 is unlikely since Nokia had been making all their recent high end phones pentaband. Option 3 is also unlikely because the phone was first released in Europe where carriers have less sway and where Nokia was already selling pentaband phones.

The Nokia 710 has quad band UMTS frequencies and it uses the exact same chipset as the other 2nd gen WP7 devices so its definitely possible for Nokia to at least inclde support for both US carriers, though not pentaband. This was obviously a deliberate decision to make it at&t compabible only.

Nokia Lumia 900 may not support T-Mobile 3G after all.

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