Sony Ericsson K750i - Bad Reception!

[yhelothar]

My K750i rarely has reception when I'm at home. It's on "Emergency Calls Only" most of the time, and I frequently get disconnected when I make a call.

My mom has a motorola phone on the exact same service plan with t-mobile, and her phone never has any reception issues. It's on a steady 2-3 bars.

What's wrong with my phone?

 

[JAG87]

your phone is missing the 850 mhz band. gsm networks in north america work with 850/1800 mhz carrier. you are limited to the 1800 mhz carrier, which has better quality than the 850 mhz carrier, but less reception since the wavelength is smaller.

hope that explains it.

 

[yhelothar]

Ah that makes sense, since my phone is an import from asia.
Is there anyway to get the 850MHz band onto my phone?

 

[SiliconJon]

Take it apart and re-engineer it

 

[JAG87]

lol

 

[LiekOMG]

If you're using Tmobile, then the 850mhz band isn't going to help you unless you're roaming. Tmobile uses 1900mhz only. Only AT&T/Cingular uses both 1900/850mhz. The phone might be defective.

 

[yhelothar]

I just did some research. It looks like my phone has all three bands anyways.
K750i - International version: Tri Band 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM for all regions except Mainland China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K750

 

[vshah]

looks like something might be wrong with the phone. when it says "emergency calls only" try going to settings>mobile networks>select network. see if tmobile shows up there...

btw, are you having any troubles with the joystick on it? mine's all but useless now

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: LiekOMG
If you're using Tmobile, then the 850mhz band isn't going to help you unless you're roaming. Tmobile uses 1900mhz only. Only AT&T/Cingular uses both 1900/850mhz. The phone might be defective.

No. T-Mobile does have a few 850 towers. There's also roaming on AT&T Cingular.

But T-Mobile does have major issues for not having 850 towers for the most part.

Also OP is from CA. T-Mobile took over the old Cingular network. There is definitely some 850 towers around here.

The best comparison you can do is to compare it against a quadband phone to find out if 850 is an issue.

I took my K700i and walked it around to compare against my W810i in Berkeley on a T-Mobile sim. No reception differences. But I already figured T-Mobile was pure 1900 in my area due to lack of reception in some buildings.

 

[yhelothar]

How could I find out what band the cell phone towers around my area is using?

 

[Tiamat]

interesting to know, I didn't realize T-mobile's 1900 band was probably responsible for lack of reception in my office (when other people with different carriers have mediocre reception).