Unlocked phone- poor signal with Cingular/ ATT

I was with ATT. Got an unlocked phone from UK. Worked fine for a while. I just switched to Cingular. But I still have to the same weak signal with the new sim card.

My unlocked phone worked fine for a while with the ATT sim card. A month ago I was getting no service at home....just when i was out. They said it was cause they were changing all the ATT towers to Cingular.

Now when i switched, the rep wanted the MEI# of the phone I was going to use and my phone is not available in the USA. She said that it is not going to work right unless I have a Cingular phone. IS this RIGHT?? The cell phone I have is not available in the US yet.

I appreciate any help.

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Your D500 is a european tri-band phone. It's missing the 850mhz GSM band that Cingular uses in many parts of the US. A quick search of our Cingular forum will reveal that a lot of people who buy foreign tri-bands have this problem. T-Mobile is the only major US provider using 1900mhz-only, but you can put in your ZIP code HERE to find out if there are any other GSM providers in your area using 1900mhz. Your other alternative is trading that phone in for a quad-band, or a US tri-band.

Good luck!

Brad- Thanks for the info. You are right...my phone has all the frequencies except 850. That explains a lot. I even went to some of the store to see if they could figure out what the problem was.

Going to check out other providers that will work for my phone. Any thoughts on the different provides...pro and cons?

My phone has 900/ 1800 / 1900. When I looked up the link to see what is available in my area, cingular was and had both 1900 and 850. However I do not get any signal at home.

Heard the Tmobile is on 1900. But I though I read somewhere that it is converting some of the towers to 850. Is this correct?

Originally Posted by sprtbiker

Heard the Tmobile is on 1900. But I though I read somewhere that it is converting some of the towers to 850. Is this correct?

T-Mobile isn't going to do any such thing, rumors are great, aren't they? T-Mobile's roaming coverage is usually 850mhz depending on the roaming partners, but T-Mobile's network is 100% 1900mhz. Keep that in mind, if you decided to keep your D500 and switch to T-Mobile, you'll have little to no roaming coverage available, so make sure they have a solid network in your area!

Originally Posted by Brad729

T-Mobile isn't going to do any such thing, rumors are great, aren't they? T-Mobile's roaming coverage is usually 850mhz depending on the roaming partners, but T-Mobile's network is 100% 1900mhz. Keep that in mind, if you decided to keep your D500 and switch to T-Mobile, you'll have little to no roaming coverage available, so make sure they have a solid network in your area!

Thanks for the info. Very useful to go. I did sign up with T-mobile but the roaming thing could be an issue. Guess I just have to buy a phone with 850 frequency. Shoot....wish I have known this before I got the 2 phone I have. I have a Samsung D500 and Sony K750i.

That's too bad, both look like nice phones from the specs sheets I googled. Let us know how the T-Mobile coverage works for you... Here in Jacksonville, we have excellent city-wide coverage through T-Mobile, but the coverage is poor when travelling in and out of rural areas. Cingular uses 850mhz almost exclusively in the region, so those phones would probably not roam at all down here.