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3:17 pm
September 5, 2010
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I bought a Bell HTC Legend, and unlocked it. Yes, I know Virgin is $50 cheaper, but I had been all over the place looking for stock, and a Bell phone was sitting right there. I already had a Bell prepaid account, so I thought I'd just put it on there (whole other story -- no prepaid access for SIM phones where I live).
The situation:
- The phone works OK with a Rogers prepaid SIM.
- My Speak Out Nokia 1661 works fine with either the SO SIM or that Rogers SIM.
- In the Legend, my Speak Out SIM doesn't work.
Is anybody using a Speak Out SIM card with an HTC Legend?
What trick am I missing?
Now some details. Using the "PhoneInfo" Android app, I can read out some information about the installed SIM card. Both SIM cards show the same MCC (302) and MNC (72). Both cards show Status=READY and Country=CA. The Operator field is different, though -- ROGERS on one, and SpeakOut on the other.
With the Rogers SIM, when I do Settings / Wireless&networks / Mobile Networks / Network Operators / Search networks, I see (after a minute or so) ROGERS, Bell and TELUS. If I do "Select automatically", it says "Registered on network".
Now I'll put in the Speak Out SIM.... Booting now... OK, it's booted. No service. PhoneInfo shows READY/CA/302/72/SpeakOut. In Network Operators, I'll do a "Search networks" as above.... After about 2 seconds, it says "Error while searching for networks". If I do "Select automatically" in "Network Operators", it says "Your SIM card does not allow a connection to this network".
As I say, the Rogers card works in both phones, but the Speak Out card doesn't work in the Legend. Any ideas?
At first I thought it's because the card says SpeakOut instead of ROGERS for its Operator field. If that was the case, though, wouldn't everybody have problems using a Speak Out SIM in a Rogers phone? So I don't think that's it.
Worst case, I guess I can sell the Speak Out phone and put the Legend on Rogers prepaid. That means I have to top up at least $100 per year, though, and I'm a VERY light user. So I'd rather have it on Speak Out.
---nPhones owned: HTC Legend -> Samsung A920 -> Motorola V120 -> Nokia 636 -> Can't remember what came before that. I also have a Speak Out Nokia 1661.
3:49 pm
October 14, 2008
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As far as I know, your Bell HTC Legend won't work with SpeakOut because it accesses Bell's HSPA network. Even though the phone is unlocked, it is still running Bell's firmware, and is not able to access Rogers 2G network (the network SpeakOut uses).
4:42 pm
September 5, 2010
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I just tried setting my phone to "GSM Only" with the Rogers SIM installed. It works fine. ROGERS is the only one that shows up -- no Bell or TELUS, because they have no GSM in my area, I guess. The mobile network type in "About phone" shows as "EDGE".
Then I tried "WCDMA Only" -- All three show up, and I can still register on Rogers. The mobile network type shows as "UMTS".
So it appears that this phone will happily tie to the Rogers network on WCDMA/HSPA or GSM/EDGE, just like it says on the box. Speakout works on Rogers GSM/EDGE, right? Before I started messing with that setting, it was "GSM / WCDMA auto". In case it was getting confused, I just tried the Speak Out card with the setting at "GSM Only". No joy.
Researching now, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.....s_Wireless... So "EDGE" is "2G GSM" or "2.5G", "UMTS" is "3G GSM", and my phone definitely does both.
Shouldn't that cover it?
---nPhones owned: HTC Legend -> Samsung A920 -> Motorola V120 -> Nokia 636 -> Can't remember what came before that. I also have a Speak Out Nokia 1661.
5:17 pm
October 14, 2008
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It seems like your phone only does 2.5 (EDGE) and above. SpeakOut only works on Rogers 2G, not 2.5 (EDGE).
10:23 pm
April 22, 2009
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I am not quite sure what malarkey Bell is pulling, but your HTC Legend should be able to do 2G EDGE. You might have to go so far as to de-brand your phone so as to revert to the default HTC settings before Bell added their fecal matter to the phone. Perhaps the upcoming Android 2.2 Froyo upgrade will kill 2 birds with one stone? I heard earlier versions of Android have issues with saving APN settings.
I have no experience with this, but hopefully this link is helpful. http://forum.xda-developers.co.....p?t=671520
6:49 am
September 1, 2010
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Hi Scott.
I have just succeeded in setting up my HTC Hero with my Speakout SIM card. My phone is an unlocked formerly Telus phone but not re-rooted to the unbranded software. I had to combine two sets of instructions, one outlining how to set up the mobile network "Access Point Name", and I used the settings from this thread which was written about iPhones:
Forgive me if you have already done this but you did not mention it in your post.
The guy I bought the hero from had just replaced his with a Legend and he mentioned the one thing he did not like about it was that it could not be forced down onto a slower mobile network if one was available, which he liked to do for power saving reasons. I don't know if that is related to the 3g/2g SO problem you are having but i just throw that out there for you. Good Luck
8:45 am
September 5, 2010
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Thanks, everybody, for your help. I've solved the main part of the mystery, I think. It looks like 2G reception on the Legend is TERRIBLE (but 3G/EDGE, used for Rogers pre-paid, is fine). Googling, I found some forum postings complaining about that. I was in Mississauga yesterday, and I tried the Speak Out SIM in the Legend. No special settings, and it came right up (voice/text only -- I wasn't looking for data), with intermittently 1-2 bars showing (-100db or so in PhoneInfo).
In the Nokia 1661, at that same location, it shows a solid five bars. At my home (Burlington ON), the Nokia shows 2-3 bars, and the Legend (using the Speak Out SIM) can't even get enough signal to register on the network.
The same thing holds with my soon-to-be-canceled Bell SIM. My Samsung A920 worked OK at my home (2 bars or so), and with the Bell SIM installed, the Legend can't connect. In Mississauga, the Bell SIM works OK in the Legend.
So I guess my best bet is to stay with Rogers on the Legend. The $100 cards have a one-year expiry, and I get a reliable signal, even at home. The Nokia makes a nice "beater" phone, and I'll let the Bell subscription lapse, once I figure out how to turn off credit-card auto-top-up. Typical of big carriers, there are lots of self-serve options to add things, but not to cancel them.
---nPhones owned: HTC Legend -> Samsung A920 -> Motorola V120 -> Nokia 636 -> Can't remember what came before that. I also have a Speak Out Nokia 1661.
7:28 pm
September 1, 2010
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I need to qualify my earlier post which sounded more successful than it turned out to be. It seems that the only data which works on my HTC Hero is the Android browser (some form of unbranded web-kit I think). None of the Google apps, i.e. Maps, Mail, Market, etc., seem to obey the proxy settings which SO requires. I even read somewhere that the support for the browser obeying it is a bug and might be missing from Android 2.2 Froyo.
It seems that the proxy problem is not unique to the Mobile/WAP radio; there are many more times users upset that proxy servers also do not work on Wifi in Android. I finally found an easy solution for both rooting the phone and setting a transparent proxy, but while both appeared to work, it did not solve my problem with the Speakout/Rogers proxy.
Here is the link to the transparent proxy app.
And here is the really cool rooting app, which adds a sudo and makes the Android phone work kind of like Windows User Account Management, without a new Rom, reboot or anything.
