What band does T-Mobile use?

I've seen 1700 listed in comments on posts, I've seen 1700/2100 listed, but I've never seen anything official as to what band T-Mobile uses for 3G in the US.

I haven't ever used a T-Mobile phone. I came to T-Mobile from AT&T with an unlocked Sony Ericsson P800, and now I am using a P900. I have been looking at a P1i or possibly a 3G iPhone as my next phone. The P1i uses UTMS 2100 for 3G. Nobody knows what the iPhone supports because it hasn't been released yet, and even when it is, it will be a bit before it's unlocked and can be explored...

What are they using and where do I find that information?

Joel

1700 phone-> node
2100 node-> phone
then you phone must have these bands paired to make it work (it can be NA1700, 1700/2100, AWS, T-Mobile band)

So yeah, the 3G iphone - more than likely not going to work on T-Mobile's 3G network.  Sorry.

1700 phone-> node
2100 node-> phone
then you phone must have these bands paired to make it work (it can be NA1700, 1700/2100, AWS, T-Mobile band)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. Let's forget the 3G iPhone for a moment and talk about the P1i. It is a UTMS 2100 phone. Will it work?

Joel

no

1700 phone-> node
2100 node-> phone
then you phone must have these bands paired to make it work (it can be NA1700, 1700/2100, AWS, T-Mobile band)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. Let's forget the 3G iPhone for a moment and talk about the P1i. It is a UTMS 2100 phone. Will it work?

Joel

T-Mobile's 3G is different from everyone else's 3G, so any UTMS/HSDPA phone that exists already won't work. Basically it needs to be T-Mobile branded, at least in the beginning. Eventually unbranded phones will exist, but for now we're stuck with what they give us...

1700 phone-> node
2100 node-> phone
then you phone must have these bands paired to make it work (it can be NA1700, 1700/2100, AWS, T-Mobile band)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. Let's forget the 3G iPhone for a moment and talk about the P1i. It is a UTMS 2100 phone. Will it work?

Joel

T-Mobile's 3G is different from everyone else's 3G, so any UTMS/HSDPA phone that exists already won't work. Basically it needs to be T-Mobile branded, at least in the beginning. Eventually unbranded phones will exist, but for now we're stuck with what they give us...

I don't know, I'll almost be surprised if unbranded phones ever do exist.  I guess if they think that they will make enough profit to include it then they will.  It would be nice though. 

I don't know, I'll almost be surprised if unbranded phones ever do exist.  I guess if they think that they will make enough profit to include it then they will.  It would be nice though. 

What do you mean?  Just like years ago there were only 1900 phones and 900/1800 phones.  Now, most phones are quad band.  Someday the GSM will be dropped and all the phones will be 3G only (OK, 4G might be out by then) and probably have all the bands for WCDMA. 

You can never say, "Never" in technology.

1700 phone-> node
2100 node-> phone
then you phone must have these bands paired to make it work (it can be NA1700, 1700/2100, AWS, T-Mobile band)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. Let's forget the 3G iPhone for a moment and talk about the P1i. It is a UTMS 2100 phone. Will it work?

Joel

T-Mob uses their chunk of 1700 MHz to send data to the network from the phone. It (the phone) then receives the data back on the 2100MHz frequency. Thing is, the frequency of european 3g services is not quite the same as T-Mob's frequency is (i think it's like 2110 in europe and is actually around 2150 for t-mob, i know their 1700 is actually 1755 or so) and as a result, even though european and t-mob 3g US both say they work on the 2100mhz, they wont actually work on the same wavelength. it's kind of a oversight by the cell companies to not specify this, i mean, its like saying that 93.1 and 93.7 on your FM radio are the same....

now i dont know that much about the actual tech behind it, but can somebody fill me in on this one: do all 3g networks send and receive on different frequencies? Cuz I was under the impression Cingular's 3g only worked on 850mhz. Does the fact that t-mob does data this way (2 different frequencies) mean that they will have higher performance as a result?

all 3g uses 2 bands .. tmo usa uses 2100 the opposite that others do ... and most people do not even use the 1700 yet... att is going to use 1700 for lte (4g)

I don't know, I'll almost be surprised if unbranded phones ever do exist.  I guess if they think that they will make enough profit to include it then they will.  It would be nice though. 

What do you mean?  Just like years ago there were only 1900 phones and 900/1800 phones.  Now, most phones are quad band.  Someday the GSM will be dropped and all the phones will be 3G only (OK, 4G might be out by then) and probably have all the bands for WCDMA. 

You can never say, "Never" in technology.

You're right, one can't say 'never' in technology.  If you reread what I posted, I don't recall ever typing 'never' up there....could be wrong though.  Although I guess you could be construing me saying 'ever' seeing something as 'never' seeing something.  That's not what I meant though so please don't think that I'm jumping on you or anything

What I did say, was that I would be surprised if unbranded 3g phones would become available for the T-Mobile US market.  I think that as far as the manufacturers are concerned we are going to be small fish as far as the cost to include those bands in relation to the rest of the world's bands.  I haven't ruled it out happening, it could happen and it may happen.  I just don't know that it'll happen any time soon.  It would be very cool to see though.

all 3g uses 2 bands .. tmo usa uses 2100 the opposite that others do ... and most people do not even use the 1700 yet... att is going to use 1700 for lte (4g)

The sad thing about ATT using the 1700 band is that it probably isn't going to help us out any, right?  They are probably going to be using a different part of that 1700 band I imagine.

well if all the roaming agreements if you look 1900 band is 1900 band .. but each company runs at different parts of the band .. the phones are made when they sa like 1900 band it is really 19XX

well if all the roaming agreements if you look 1900 band is 1900 band .. but each company runs at different parts of the band .. the phones are made when they sa like 1900 band it is really 19XX

I know, that's what I'm saying also - even though there are going to be some 1700 band phones come out for ATT's LTE system, people may get all excited and think that they are going to work for us as well.  Which they shouldn't.

So even when they turn on 3g all over T-mo will not vacate gsm  850/1900 band ?
 all the non 3g phones that t-mo is selling will still work?

T-mo  850/1900gsm 1700/2100 too/ ?

Yeah, it wouldn't be very wise of them to abandon the other gsm bands - think off all the people that would irritate....

As far as getting "world-phones" that work everywhere (including the T-Mobile USA AWS band at 1700/2100), it could happen pretty quickly.

It's true that T-Mobile USA uses a band (AWS - 2100 downlink, 1700 uplink) that is used nowhere else in the world.

Most 3G/UMTS phones these days, though, are quad-band GSM and at least 2100 band (Band I, the one used in Europe) for UMTS.

The AWS band is "Band IV" in UMTS technology.  It uses 1710-1755 on the uplink and 2110-2155 on the downlink.

Band I (all UMTS phones support) uses 2110 - 2170 on the downlink, which includes all of the AWS downlink frequencies.

Band III (1800 band - this is the band that is used for GSM1800 so is supported by quad-band GSM phones) uses 1710 - 1785 on the uplink, which includes all of the AWS uplink frequencies.

Therefore, with a quad-band GSM, single band UMTS phone, all of the frequencies required for AWS are supported.  I am not saying that the phones will work with T-Mobile 3G with no modifications; however, it won't require new antennas and other RF plumbing, so the work required (pipe the existing Band III GSM Uplink frequencies over to the UMTS part of the handset to work with the existing Band I Downlink UMTS part already in the phone) is relatively simple (easier than making a quadband GSM phone, actually).

I would expect the phones will be modified pretty quickly and you'll see quad-band GSM, 6-band UMTS (Band I, Band II, Band III, Band IV, Band V, Band VIII) phones soon.  Quad Band GSM includes the freqs in Band II, Band III, Band V, and Band VIII, so a 6 band UMTS phone just needs to add Band I (the main European UMTS band) and Band IV (T-Mobile AWS, which is really just part of the existing Band I and Band III).

The current iPhone 3G is quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS (Band I, Band II, Band V).  If Apple wanted to, it'd be pretty easy to make it work on T-Mobile USA.  They may not do this, though, until non-US carriers are using the AWS band (probably in South America eventually) so that people are locked to ATT, their partner in the US.

If you want to see the specific bands in a chart, there is a good one at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS_frequency_bands.  I knew the point I was trying to make with this post, but used the chart a lot to make sure I was using the right names for the Bands...

Nice post, rich.

I've been looking at some of that stuff myself, and how the AWS bands are either included or pretty much given for some of the other frequencies.  Hopefully, once T-Mobile gets everything launched the manufacturers will be able to get those more or less turned on with the next batches of phones they release.

So does this mean, Treo Pro won't be able to use T-mobile's 3G in Houston since it doesn't support 1700Mhz?

Bummer...

So does this mean, Treo Pro won't be able to use T-mobile's 3G in Houston since it doesn't support 1700Mhz?

Bummer...

no treo for t-mob.