www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/quadbandphones.htm
Airline Mismanagement The whole purpose of GSM phones is to work as broadly as possible, in ove r 200 countries worldwide. GSM service can now be found on four different frequency bands. Unfortun ately, most GSM phones only support two or three frequency bands.
Help this Site Thank you for your interest in helping this site to continue to develop. Some of the information we give you here can save you thousands of dolla rs the next time you're arranging travel, or will substantially help the quality of your travel experiences in other, non-cash ways.
Quad band GSM phones - like this lovely Motorola V600 - are becoming more common and less expensive. Increasingly, a quad band phone should be your first choice of phone.
Seven Two frequency bands are used by GSM services in the US. Two different fr equency bands are used by GSM services elsewhere in the world. Ideally, you'd want a phone that can work on all four bands - commonly ca lled a quad-band phone. If choosing a tri-band phone as a second best choice, be careful which th ree bands your phone has. Some bands are more useful than others, depen ding on where you travel. Cell phones use radio waves to transmit your conversations. These radio waves can be at different frequencies, just the same as regular radio st ations are at different frequencies.
different frequencies used by diff erent types of radio services. Originally, the US used only 1900 MHz for its GSM cell phone service. In the last year or so, there has been a growing amount of GSM service on the 850 MHz band. This type of service will usually be seen in rural ar eas, because the 850 MHz band has better range than the 1900 MHz band. It can sometimes also found in city areas, particularly if the cell phon e company has spare frequencies unused in the 850 MHz band, but no remai ning frequencies to use in the 1900 MHz band. Most of the 850 MHz service belongs to AT&T, and some to Cingular (these two companies are in the process of merging). Although T-Mobile does no t (as of July 04) have any of its own 850 MHz service, because it has ro aming agreements with both AT&T and Cingular, even a T-mobile user might sometimes find themselves in an area where the only signal available is on 850 MHz What about 800 MHz? Some people refer to the 850 MHz band as being the 800 MHz band. The actual frequencies in the band are closer to 850 MHz an d the standardized naming convention as promulgated by the GSM Associati on is to refer to this band as '850 MHz'. If you see someone referring to a phone with 800 MHz service, they probab ly are simply mistaken and mean to refer to the 850 MHz band. This really depends on the areas in which you use your cell phone. If yo u're in a major metropolitan area, you probably won't need the 850 MHz b and, but if you travel to secondary areas regularly, you will find the e xtra coverage of the 850 MHz band to be valuable. Looking into the future, it is probable we'll see increased use of 850 MH z to expand GSM's overall coverage into more of the country. And then, looking further into the future, it is possible we'll see 1900 MHz coverage duplicating the 850 MHz coverage. Bottom line : If you travel out of the main cities, you'll definitely be nefit from a phone that supports both 850 MHz and 1900 MHz Which frequencies are used internationally? GSM was originally developed in Europe, and only came to the US recently. Initially, all countries with GSM service used the 900 MHz band. In the past few years, service providers have increasingly been adding 1800 MHz coverage, due to congestion in the 900 MHz band. When the US started to use GSM, a few other countries with very close lin ks to the US chose to copy the US and use the same frequencies that the US used - first 1900 MHz, and in a few cases, 850 MHz also. Almost without exception, all international countries that use the non-US international frequency bands have 900 MHz service, and many have some 1800 MHz service as well. All international countries that have the US frequency bands have 1900 MH z service. Which frequencies do you need when traveling internationally? Refer to the table below to get a feeling for which countries use which f requency bands.
GSM Association's websit e As the table suggests, 900 MHz is the most common band used international ly. If used only in the US If you intend to use your phone only in the US, then get a dual band phon e that has both 850 MHz and 1900 MHz A single band phone with only 1900 MHz will give almost as good coverage. If used only internationally If you intend to use your phone only internationally, then decide if you' ll be using the phone in countries that use the international frequencie s, or in countries that use the US frequencies, or in both. If you only need to use the phone in countries with international frequen cies, get a dual band 900/1800 MHz phone. A single band phone with only 900 MHz will give reasonably good coverage, but most international phon es these days have both bands. If you need to use the phone in countries that also have the US 1900 MHz frequency, get a tri-band phone with 900/1800/1900 MHz If used in both the US and internationally Two frequencies are 'must have' frequencies - 900 and 1900 MHz The othe r two bands are nice to also have, with 1800 MHz typically opening up mo re of foreign countries than 850 MHz would open up in the US. Ideally the best solution is to get a quad-band phone with all four bands . When we first wrote this in July 04 we said 'there are only a very few qu ad-band phones for sale at present, and they tend to be expensive'. Hap pily, nine months later, quad band phones have become a lot more common and may even be close to free when you're signing up for new service. We find the cheapest deals for new phone service are usually those offere d at Amazon - see their ad on the left hand side (they have many more mo dels on their site, too).
let us know so we can update the list) Geo GC688 HP i6315 Motorola A780 V3 Razr (but not V300) V180 (note - some people report that Cingular disables the 1800MHz band, but in theory these phones should have four bands) V220 V330 V400 V500 / V501 / V505 / V525 / V551 / V555 V600 / V620 NEC 515 / 525 Palm Treo 600 / 650 Sharp GX32 Xda IIs WARNING : T-mobile disabled the 850 MHz band in some quad band phones it sells/has sold. As of Sep 05 it seems that most quad band phones they sell now have all four bands enabled, but if you're buying an older T-mo bile quad band phone, check to ensure it supports all four bands. Caution - Different definitions of 'Tri-band Phone' All tri-band phones obviously support three different frequency bands . But they may differ in their choice of which three of the four bands they support. The two common variations are : 900/1800/1900 - Excellent internationally and very good in the US 850/1800/1900 - Excellent in the US but not very good internationally A look ahead - five and six band phones? Phones that support new high speed data services - so called '3G' (as in 'third generation') phones will generally have the high speed data servi ce on yet another band; typically 2100 MHz The market for high speed data services is currently still evolving, with several different technologies, each incompatible with each other, bein g offered by different service providers. We'll comment more on 3G issu es when things stabilize into a clearer picture. In October 2005, discussions became public for developing a fifth voice f requency, in the 450 MHz band. This is being proposed for less develope d countries - the main benefit of 450 MHz is can offer longer range and so, developing a low density coverage network would require fewer towers and could be done for less cost. On the other hand, a 450 MHz handset probably would require a lengthier a erial, because the lower frequency has a longer wavelength - the aerial would need to be twice the length of a 900 MHz aerial and four times the length of an 1800 MHz aerial to provide similar effectiveness. As of the time of writing, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have both indicated th ey'll make handsets to support this new frequency band, but there are no t yet any kn...
|
http://csua.com/feed/