ATT One X--confused by bands

[lotalota]

I'm thinking of jumping ship from Big Red to upgrade my ancient international BB to a One X. I see on the HTC page here HTC One X the network specs listed as these:

LTE CAT3 - DL 100 /UL 50
LTE: 700/AWS
WCDMA: 2100/1900/AWS/850
EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900

Forgive my noobishness, but I assume for this phone to work both here in the USA and when I travel in Europe it needs to have GSM listed in there somewhere. I need it to work in Sweden, Denmark, and France--although 95% of its use will be in the USA.

Could someone help translate this for me? Could it just be that the LTE phone I want for the states can not be the phone I need to work in the EU?

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

AT&T and Europe share the same bands for the most part. I'm not sure where to find country specific frequencies, though. My understanding is that Europe has settled on a standard set of frequencies.

 

[lotalota]

Thanks Kevin. I did a bunch of googling to try to figure out the bands, but couldn't find a page that listed band by country and frequency. I'd like to have both voice and data on both sides of the Atlantic, but don't want to ditch my Verizon unlimited plan until I'm sure. Part of the reason I want to ditch it is that my workplace has bad Verizon reception, but good ATT.

 

[lotalota]

I found the following here:

"To function in Europe, a GSM phone must operate (at the very least) on the 1800MHz frequency; to get the best European coverage it must operate on both 900MHz and 1800MHz. And this is just for regular GSM ? for 3G services, you need 2100MHz in Europe and 1900MHz in the US."

So the spec sheet for the One X says:

EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 and
WCDMA: 2100/1900/AWS/850

Do you think I can take this to mean that the ATT One X will then work in Europe over 3G? I don't need (or really want) LTE over there as I've done just fine on my old BB for browsing, SMS, and calls and it was pre-LTE.

 

[Alex Dobie]

All you need to roam in Europe is quad-band GSM and UMTS/HSPA+ on 900 or 2100MHz (or ideally both). Most GSM phones, even ones sold on contract in the US, support this.

 

[lotalota]

Thanks Alex. I take this to mean that the specs that HTC posts for the AT&T One X make it a quad band phone that also works on LTE bands. Here are the specs from the first post:

LTE CAT3 - DL 100 /UL 50
LTE: 700/AWS
WCDMA: 2100/1900/AWS/850
EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900

Agree?

 

[icebike]

Further digging on the FCC report shows that they certified at least one version of this device with LTE Band 4. LTE Band 4 is AWS.

This is in the test report for FCC ID NM8PJ83100 which many places on the web suggest is the AT&T model, but it could also be some future T-MO model. We just have to wait and see.

Now just because the radio was capable of LTE Band 4 and tested for this, doesn't mean the device will arrive from AT&T with that turned on. All it really means is that at the time AT&T ordered the devices they may have still been under the delusion they would acquire T-MO. (These tests were done back in December, and the phone design was older still).

At&t may have those bands disabled by having a different radio-rom installed in their ICS build.


I've got a copy of that FCC SAR report (Specific Absorption Report Rate (has to do with radiation) PDF located here in Public Google Docs, see Page 5.

 

[lotalota]

OK, I'm confused again now. Upthread I posted the bands from the HTC page that specifies AT&T. I was convinced that since the bands matched with Europe, that it would be a phone that would work on LTE in the US, and 3G in the EU. Based on the main page story yesterday about ATT vs Verizon in Europe, and the post just above, I'm less sure that the AT&T One X will indeed work in Europe.

Do we just have to wait until AT&T releases it to find out what bands are enabled/disabled?
If AT&T disables the bands needed to work on 3G in Europe can I have it enabled by AT&T or a third party?

Still confused!

 

[icebike]

AT&T 3G bands match Europe and Canada. They won't be turning those off. A European model HTC One X will work just fine on AT&T. An international HTC One X will get 3G just about anywhere in the EU, as well as Canada and the US. It will even get HSPA where available.



The discussion above mostly centers around LTE bands used by AT&T vs those used by T-Mobile in the US.

Whether those will work on LTE in Europe is anybody's guess, although they will still fall back to 3G (UMTS/HSPA) in the EU.

Depending on who you read Europe is moving to LTE more slowly, (except for a few countries), and there are many that are not likely to see it before 2015. There are also many different bandwidth combinations used in LTE in Europe. So it may not be as smooth moving from country to country on LTE as it is with 3G.

On the other hand, much of the EU is watching the mess unfolding in the US/Canada, and may be able to avoid it like they did in the early days of Cellular, when they stood on the sidelines and watched the Analog/GSM/CDMA fiasco play out in north america and then decided on a pan-euro GSM standard. They skipped entire generations of build-out that US carriers had to suffer thru, and their networks were the better for it,


Considering all the lockdowns AT&T puts in their phones buying an AT&T phone for roaming into Europe would make very little sense. Doing the reverse makes a lot of sense, because AT&Ts LTE is so thinly deployed that the HTC One X (international) will get HSPA speed in more places, such that you probably won't miss LTE.

 

[ilkhan]

The ATT OneX will work fine in the EU. Or on T-Mobile.
You don't have the 900Mhz band, but it will still work for data and perfectly for voice.

 

[movielover76]

You will be fine for voice buy if your missing the 900 band you could run into bad our nodata coverage either because your indoors where 2100 doesn't penetrate well or if your in an area that only has 900 coverage

In the USA on at&t for instance if you have a phone that only supports 1900 you'll probably be fine in populated area, but in more rural areas at&t often only has 900 mhz coverage
The international version is much better suited for use in both the us and Europe, is also unlocked so you can use prepay Sims in Europe which its much cheaper than at &t roaming charges, of course you give up lte in that case

The area phones that cover it all, the galaxy note for example covers lte as well as all us and European 3g bands I've seen a number of Samsung phones that cover
All Europe and AT&T bands


http://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note-4135.php

 

[lotalota]

Thanks for all the info. Let's make this simple. If you were me with a Verizon unlimited data plan who works most in a building with great ATT and terrible Verizon coverage would you:

(A) Switch service providers and get the ATT One X that gets LTE in a metro area (MSP) and questionable service in rural areas, and 3G service in France, Sweden, and Denmark.
(B) Pay 2X and get the international version of the One X and not get LTE at home for the most of the time but settle with HSPA.
(C) Stay with Verizon and wait for them to launch a phone that gets LTE data in urban areas in the US and the good voice/data 3G service I'm used to in the EU.

 

[icebike]

My vote woulb be B.
But it's your. Money.

Personally I prefer having an unlocked phone, and if I spent any time in Europe it would be a nobrainer, I would get the international one x.
(In fact I did just that). LTE isn't important for me. It won't be in my area for a couple years.
Having a great phone that I can teather without alarm bells going off in the At&t billing office is important to me.

Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[speculatrix]

When they say Edge it's a superset of gsm & gprs, so it will give you voice and (slow) data on 900 or 1800 Mhz in Europe depending on which carrier you roam to.
In Eu we use UMTS aka W-CDMA on 2100 MHz for 3G and 3.5G (HSPA).

So the spec you listed is good for Europe.

But AT&T will rape you over roaming charges so get an unlocked phone and fit a local sim on arrival. There are vending machines in London Airports which sell Hutchison Three sims for about US$15 which come pre-loaded with voice and data credit. Calls cost about 18 cents a minute.

Free WiFi is not ubiquitous like it is in USA so you're much more likely to need some data service.

In the UK it is free to receive mobile calls and sms which helps keep credit drain under control. The caller pays for the call and mobile phones have a specific dialling code (07xxx) so they know.

 

[speculatrix]

P.s. there's only experimental LTE here in the UK in v specific test locations; the freq bands haven't been ratified so noone knows whether US phones with LTE will ever work here.

 

[movielover76]

In my opinion you need an unlocked phone, I've heard their are ways to get locked phones unlocked, either by buying an off contract phone and bringing it to at&t they recently starting unlocking iPhones or paying a third party Company id check into that, if its possible id get a compatible lte phone like the galaxy note, barring that go for the international version of the one x if you spend a consider able amount of time in Europe it will pay for itself in roaming charges.
Lte is pretty sweet I have it on Verizon and I wouldn't give it up if I didn't have too.