Question about 4G frequencies

[epicness4G]

I have a tmobile work phone which I've been using a blackberry bold 9900 with. Not too long ago I lost it and so I had to go out of pocket to replace it. Well I bought an unlocked blackberry bold 9900 from at&t and I'm using it on my account. I know that I'm not going to be able to get 3g and only edge, and that's something I'm fine with since my personal phone is a galaxy s3 and use the blackberry only for emails calls and texts. Anyways, lately as I've been using the blackberry to stream some content from I heart radio I've been noticing that in some places around town the phone connects to 4G hspa. It lasts for about a minute and then it goes to edge.. Is tmobile changing their frequencies or is my phone just getting mixed up? I live in the south Florida area towards sunny isles beach.

Thanks for all your thoughts!

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[anon(94115)]

Phone is confused. The carriers are locked into the freq. that they bought unless they have a mutual agreement to run on another carriers bands.

After i wrote that sentance, I dug around a bit. I came up with this chart:

USA Carrier Voice Frequencies (MHz) 3G 4G 3G Technology 4G Technology
AT&T 1900 Band 2, 850 Band 5 MHz 1900, 850 MHz 700 Band 17, 1700/2100 MHz GSM/HSPA+ LTE
MetroPCS 1900, 1700/2100 MHz 1900, 1700/2100 MHz 1700/2100 MHz CDMA LTE
Sprint 1900, 800 MHz 1900 MHz 1900 G-Block, 2,500/2,600 MHz), 800 MHz) CDMA WiMAX (2010–2014)
LTE (since 2012)
T-Mobile USA 1900, 1700/2100 MHz 1900, 1700/2100 MHz 1700/2100 MHz GSM/HSPA+ LTE (from 2013)
Verizon 1900, 850 MHz 1900, 850 MHz 700, 1700/2100 MHz (Planned) CDMA LTE

It looks like the answer is this. they share the same bands and the phone can pick them up, but it gets thrown off when the network realizes that the phone does not belong on that particular network.

 

[epicness4G]

I read an article somewhere about a month ago where it said that tmobile was accommodating its hspa network or doing something to it so that the 1 million or so iphone customers they have will be able to get their hspa network and not be stuck on edge. This is to attract more iphone users to unlock their phones and use them to tmobile hspa.


With that said, as the day went on I realized that in some areas the 4G would stay on for as long as i was there. For example at my girlfriends house I got a solid 4G signal with comfortable speeds. The signal never went away for the 2 hours I was there. Also, as I would drive back home on the highway where there's a ton of towers I noticed my 4G would stay on. But in some areas it would go back to edge. I've been using the blackberry for about a month and just today was the first time I saw this.

Thanks so much for the help

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[Ry]

T-Mobile is re-farming some spectrum at 1900 MHz to HSPA. It's part of their network upgrade plan.

Essentially that means 3G AT&T phones will have 3G service on T-Mobile.

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[Jon_Doh]

T-Mobile's 3G and HSPA+ 4G are on 1700 MHZ, which nobody else uses. Their Edge is on 1900 MHZ and they are in the process of moving 3G and HSPA+ to the 1900 MHZ frequency. AT&T uses 1900 MHZ for their 3G and 4G HSPA+. So as long as your phone has a WCDMA 1900 antenna you'll be able to enjoy T-Mobile's 3G/4G HSPA+ once the towers in your area have been upgraded.

 

[epicness4G]

T-Mobile's 3G and HSPA+ 4G are on 1700 MHZ, which nobody else uses. Their Edge is on 1900 MHZ and they are in the process of moving 3G and HSPA+ to the 1900 MHZ frequency. AT&T uses 1900 MHZ for their 3G and 4G HSPA+. So as long as your phone has a WCDMA 1900 antenna you'll be able to enjoy T-Mobile's 3G/4G HSPA+ once the towers in your area have been upgraded.

That brings me joy because it seems like the towers are definitely getting upgraded!!!

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