Help needed - I think I want an unlocked HTC One

[ukdavid1]

Hi all,
My first post on this forum. My old flip phone is starting to become unreliable and I've decided on a HTC One.
I want to go month to month and H2O looks like it will suit me. I can start on a cheap plan and upgrade later if I need to. I can also flip over to T-Mobile if I want to as well.
I really dont know much about this stuff. So, to go from one carrier to another I need an unlocked phone so I can put different SIM cards in. Is that all there is to it?
H2O uses AT&T's network and so I should be able to get LTE. Do all HTC One's sold here (USA) have the frequency band for that? Ditto for T-Mobile. Do I have to worry about the frequency? The Specs on the HTC One show a whole bunch of frequencies for different carriers. Are all these frequencies on all the phones sold or a subset depending on carrier? Or a subset depending on country?
What is an unlocked AT&T branded phone? Even if I wasn't going to use AT&T's network could I not just inserrt a T-Mobile SIM?

The manual on the HTC One says "HTC One is available in either a 3G or LTE version." What does that mean?

Lots of questions, thanks for your help. I'd love to be pointed to an article or two that lays all this stufff out if they're out there.

Thanks, David

 

[anon(7894520)]

in general terms, all htc one phones work with the following bands:

- HSPA/WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 MHz
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- LTE: 700/850/AWS/1900 MHz (US)

The main difference comes in the T-Mobile HTC One which supports WCDMA 1700 instead of LTE 850/1900.

This 1700 band which is lacking in all the other HTC Ones makes the difference of whether or not you get fast connection speed coverage by T-Mobile. I understand it is recommended to buy an unlocked T-Mobile HTC One if you intend to use their network more often than not and it will work well with AT&T as well.


Any unlocked device you purchase, regardless of brand, will work with any other network's SIM. The difference in radio bands is pretty much summed up above and could prevent you from using LTE in T-Mobile.

You might also consider the "international unlocked" : HTC One? Unlocked | HTC Online Store (US) sold directly by HTC which will be pretty much the same to that sold by AT&T unlocked but without the bloatware and thus without depending on them for future updates.

 

[ukdavid1]

Thanks for your reply.
Forgive my ignorance but are you saying that I could not get LTE on AT&T and LTE on T-Mobile. It would be one or the other?

 

[anon(7894520)]

Thanks for your reply.
Forgive my ignorance but are you saying that I could not get LTE on AT&T and LTE on T-Mobile. It would be one or the other?

sorry i wasnt very clear earlier.


what i meant was if you go with an at&t htc one, which lacks the 1700 band, you can pretty much forget about fast data connection on your t-mobile, yes. t-mobile uses that band extensively for its HSPA and LTE connection.

if you go with the t-mobile phone, you will still be able to connect to both at&t and t-mobile fast networks since at&t also uses the 1700 band, even though its htc one does not include it. at&t also uses the 700 and 1900 band hence their htc one can cope without the 1700 network.


i hope this clears it up for you.

 

[ukdavid1]

Thank you so much, once again.
It sounds like if I bought a T-Mobile HTC One (or an unbranded HTC One from say the HTC store - is this correct?) I would be able to get the fastest speeds from both T-Mobile and AT&T as this phone would have this 1700 band. Why would the AT&T version not have 1700?
I appreciate your help in all this. Thanks.

 

[anon(7894520)]

because ATT uses more bands than T-Mobile for its LTE speeds (aside from the 1700, they use the 700 and 1900 in the US). their htc one already supports those bands so its a non issue.

the htc one (as you can see from the international unlocked version), was not designed to support the 1700 band. that was implemented exclusively for the t-mobile phone.


so no, if you buy an unbranded phone it would be the same as having an ATT phone. the only advantage is that you will not have to put up with their bloatware.

 

[bunky1971]

Check in the market place, pk cable has one listed for sale

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