T-mobile UK sim in unlocked 3GS - poor 3G

[JonLa]

Hi folks,

Just moved to Orange from o2, got my old 3GS unlocked and gave it to the wife. It's a recent refurb given to me via applecare after my old 3GS developed cracks. It worked okay on O2.

So I put my wife's t-mobile SIM in from her android phone and at first it seemed to work fine, but now it's struggling to find a 3G signal.

T-mobile have two carrier networks at the mo - we can see the T-Mobile Orange combined network, which should be the same quality as my 4s on Orange, but it frequently loses the network altogether, and never has 3G. The older separate t-mobile is there, sometimes with weak 3G, most often nothing. It seems to jump between the two networks, frequently losing all signal.

I'm at a loss - it could be the SIM, which may have been scratched by her HTC android phone; it could be the 2-week old refurbished 3GS, it could be some problem at t-mobile's end stopping their customers accessing the Orange network at the moment, but there's nothing reported. My only other thought was that there needs to be a carrier settings update - except it was set up as new in iOS 5 with the t-mobile SIM in it, so it should have got the carrier automatically...

 

[CBX]

Hi folks,

Just moved to Orange from o2, got my old 3GS unlocked and gave it to the wife. It's a recent refurb given to me via applecare after my old 3GS developed cracks. It worked okay on O2.

So I put my wife's t-mobile SIM in from her android phone and at first it seemed to work fine, but now it's struggling to find a 3G signal.

T-mobile have two carrier networks at the mo - we can see the T-Mobile Orange combined network, which should be the same quality as my 4s on Orange, but it frequently loses the network altogether, and never has 3G. The older separate t-mobile is there, sometimes with weak 3G, most often nothing. It seems to jump between the two networks, frequently losing all signal.

I'm at a loss - it could be the SIM, which may have been scratched by her HTC android phone; it could be the 2-week old refurbished 3GS, it could be some problem at t-mobile's end stopping their customers accessing the Orange network at the moment, but there's nothing reported. My only other thought was that there needs to be a carrier settings update - except it was set up as new in iOS 5 with the t-mobile SIM in it, so it should have got the carrier automatically...

I don't think you can use the Orange 3G signal yet as a T-Mobile user, only 2G at the moment (I think).

Had a similar thing moving from unlocked 3G to a 4 with a TMobile sim. The 4 struggles to get a signal at all sometimes when the 3G had no problem

 

[JonLa]

I don't think you can use the Orange 3G signal yet as a T-Mobile user, only 2G at the moment (I think).

Had a similar thing moving from unlocked 3G to a 4 with a TMobile sim. The 4 struggles to get a signal at all sometimes when the 3G had no problem

Maybe that's it - Their website seems to imply that in certain areas they've already merged the networks fully and we certainly get T-Mobile Orange or Orange T-Mobile if we do a network scan. It's a shame because we she joined T-mobile her 3G was faster and better than my O2 iphone, but it's gradually declined to this point, and she'll be leaving as soon as she can.

J