If in Europe, T-mobile gets the exclusivie rights to carry the iPhone(http://arstechnica.com/journals/Apple.ars/2007/05/11/t-mobile-pulling-ahead-in-race-to-become-european-iphone-carrier), does anyone think it will work in the U.S. with a T-mobile sim?
iPhone on tmobile in US?
- Thread starter ctrott
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No. From what I understand, T-Mobile in Europe has its own protocols, which don't necessarily translate to those used in the U.S. At best, you might get voice and texting, period.
If anyone has additional info on this, would you please let us know? Thanks.
No. From what I understand, T-Mobile in Europe has its own protocols, which don't necessarily translate to those used in the U.S. At best, you might get voice and texting, period.
If anyone has additional info on this, would you please let us know? Thanks.
Yes it will work on T-Mobile USA! The iPhone is a quad ban phone. Once it is authorized on one Tmobile network it will work on all of them WORLWIDE. So if a TMobile USA customer is willing to pay the German price, they can have it shipped to them and put in their USA sim card and it will work. I guess that is one of the downfalls of Steve Jobs master design, Quade band means any sim on a network (international or not) operating on that Bandwidth will be able run the phone.
T-Mobile doesn't have iPhone rights for whole Europe! I am French (living in the States) and know for sure that in France at least, Orange (the France Telecom mobile division) will have the exclusive rights. Orange is big in the UK too so i wouldn't be surprised that Orange gets the exclusivity for this country as well.
i doubt you know what your talking about.. and if so they don't even have it yet so theres really no proof for that matter we got to wait till they have it out then try it out to maek sure but for my personal opinion i doubt it will work because they don't have AT&T there so of course they go with the next big corporation in europe
Okay 1, I work for T-mobile USA so yeah I do know know what I am talking about. 2. What I was trying to say was any company that has a network in more than one country and has quade band phones, those phones will work on any division of the different networks if the happen to have any of the same bands. So the phone in question ( an iPhone) being a quade band phone will work on any faction of Tmobile once it is released on one faction. Same goes with ORANGE in France. If ORANGE in any other european country opperates on the same band it will work in any ORANGE country. I am not saying that Tmobile will be the exclusive dealer in Europe either, I was just trying to point out that companies with mutltiple factions will feed off of each others products.
You really don't know what you are talking about cause I can guarantee you that T-mobile Europe phone are not working in U.S.
(meaning you can NOT swap US T-mobile sim with a EUROPE T-mobile)
as for quad band any quad band phone will work on any of the 4 band
realeased or not on another network.
(you don't need to have iPhone released in europe to have it working on T-mobile US just unlock your phone and you are good to go)
Wrong! If you READ his post you would know that he is saying the US sim will not work in europe. Obviously the phone(unlocked) will work.
Okay once again I have to explain something to an idiot. 1. European phones do work in th USA. I have a Nokia N95 that I got when it was released in the neatherlands. It works just fine with my T-Mobile USA sim card because it is a quade band phone! GET IT through YOUR THICK SKULL! Also Why unlock the iPhone and void the Warranty when I can get it on the TMobile network from Tmobile Gremany? You also repeated what I said about the 4 bands. As long as the phone works on one of the 4 available within the international network ie Tmobiles, it wil work! My N95 has no problems in the USA and I used it right out of the box that I personally broke the seal of when I got back in the USA. How many ways do I need to explain it to you? Tmobile = Tmobile, Orange = Orange, Vodafone = Vodafone NOMATTER WHAT COUNTRY YOU ARE IN! I have worked with this company since it was VoiceStream in the USA I know what phones will work and what phones won't. Also I have the Blackberry Curve Which I got from Germany. No problem putting my USA sim in it either. You sir obviously do not know what you are talking about. So when I go to Germany in November for the launch I will get an iPhone for free and bring it home and it will work on Tmobile USA with no problems except for the visual voicemail which really does not amtter to me. Oh and before you jump on my back about the visual voicemail by saying... well if Tmobile Germany has the visual voicemail, why doesn't it work on the USA side? Simply put Tmobile USA has not received the formateing for that yet nor will it for a while. Same thing with one of my past phones, I will have to find it again, but it had that video conferencing that is available in Europe, but obviuosly NOT in the USA. Any more questions or stupid remarks from the PEANUT GALLERY?
SIMs are SIMs. They will certainly be interchangeable until the SIM standard changes.
Now, it seems to me the REAL question here is how to ACTIVATE an EU iPhone through iTunes for a US ATT account holder or how a TMoblie customer can activate his/her iPhone for a US TMobile account through iTunes. Unless you are going to run some hack to get your phone working (which will likely quickly be rendered useless by Apple via iTunes updates), I seriously doubt the device will work as it should.
Remember, Apple changed the whole cellphone activation process for the iPhone by requiring a NEW SIM and going through the whole iTunes process. I'll be blown away if it's as simple as buying an EU phone and popping in your SIM. Once I recover, I'll be online trying to order the anticipated 3G 16GB iPhone that everyone is convinced is coming...
Now, it seems to me the REAL question here is how to ACTIVATE an EU iPhone through iTunes for a US ATT account holder or how a TMoblie customer can activate his/her iPhone for a US TMobile account through iTunes. Unless you are going to run some hack to get your phone working (which will likely quickly be rendered useless by Apple via iTunes updates), I seriously doubt the device will work as it should.
Remember, Apple changed the whole cellphone activation process for the iPhone by requiring a NEW SIM and going through the whole iTunes process. I'll be blown away if it's as simple as buying an EU phone and popping in your SIM. Once I recover, I'll be online trying to order the anticipated 3G 16GB iPhone that everyone is convinced is coming...
I would not consider myself an expert, so feel free to correct me, but based on my understanding of the technology and my experience with numerous international/unlocked/non-branded (or whatever you want to call it) cell phones and many different carriers (both US and international), I'd like to share my thoughts on the topic.
I do believe that a non-US (AT&T) iPhone will function on a US GSM network, including T-Mobile USA. This most likely applies to any GSM iPhone working on any GSM carrier, given the appropriate operating frequencies (this is where quad-band comes into play). This is attributed to the fact that GSM is an international standard that is implemented by the manufacturers and carriers, regardless of location.
However...
Currently, our iPhones require iTunes activation. I am with minivini with regard to questioning the activation procedures of a non-US/AT&T iPhone. Will iTunes activation somehow prevent a regionalized iPhone from being activated in a region (country) that it was not sold in? Will the non-US SIM cards be 'married' to the iPhone, like the AT&T SIM? There are hacks available to bypass these for the US phone (e.g. jailbreak or unlocking) and a similar version of these will probably be developed for non-US phones, but until it comes out oustide of the US and groups like the iPhoneDevTeam are working on it, we have no way of determining this.
Purchasing an international phone usually involves some kind of risk in terms of difficulty of getting support of making warranty claims, regardless if it is a T-Mobile, Orange, Rogers, or whatever. I have seen this happen on Motorolas, Nokias, and Sony Ericssons, where I resorted to relying on forums like this and repairing the phone myself because either I had inadvertently waived my rights to a warranty through de-branding or unlocking, or the warranty required me to submit the claim through the carrier the phone was purchased from or to the service center which is tied to a particular locality. For example, prior to the iPhone, I had a Motorola ROKR E6. (note, this is not the ROKR that was released in the US with iTunes, but a new linux phone released only in Asia). A screen digitizer issue would have required me to ship the phone back to Asia to have it serviced, had I not fixed it myself using parts purchased via eBay. This might not be an issue for some. It would be for me, given the cost of replacement parts and the fact that I have already had my iPhone replaced due to a dropped incident. Lets say I had purchased my iPhone from T-Mo Germany and dropped it. Would Apple have so willingly and quickly replaced it?
My last thought is tied to functionality. As stated at the beginning of my post, I do not believe a non-US iPhone should have any trouble working on another network, including T-Mo USA. However, I have to question whether or not it will be fully functional. I am not talking making calls or receiving text messages or even visual voicemail or anything like that (as it has already been stated that a carrier needs to have the appropriate hardware for this to work). What I question is the data side of the phone. Although the GSM standard will allow phones to 'work' anywhere it is implemented, each carrier/locality may have different ways of handling the data side of things. I had heard that AT&T may utilize proxies to 'speed up' the edge experience for their subscribers. Will each carrier have similar proxies set up and will regionalized phones only be able to access their appropriate proxies? If these international iPhones are in fact 3G (as some of the rumors and leaks have indicated), this may be another data stubmling block. Carrier A in the US may provide 3G data through frequencies 1 and 2, however carrier B in EU may do so using frequencies 3 and 4. I have seen this on some Nokia N-series phones that I have owned. Although they were 3G and worked as so in EU, I was not able to take advantage of the AT&T 3G network. I also know that T-Mo USA's 3G network will supposedly be partially on a non-standard 3G frequency, which will effectivlely require T-Mo USA specific 3G phones. Now, there may be a hack or mod will be able to overcome any of these, but for now this is another potential issue that people should be aware of.
Alright, even though I know I could keep going, I'm gonna stop because this post is already longer than I had planned. Please do not dismiss my low post count as me being a noob or anything. I do not post unless I have a direct question that has not previously been answered or could provide a significant contribution to the discussion. In this case, I just hope that sharing these thoughts would provke some insightful discussion.
I do believe that a non-US (AT&T) iPhone will function on a US GSM network, including T-Mobile USA. This most likely applies to any GSM iPhone working on any GSM carrier, given the appropriate operating frequencies (this is where quad-band comes into play). This is attributed to the fact that GSM is an international standard that is implemented by the manufacturers and carriers, regardless of location.
However...
Currently, our iPhones require iTunes activation. I am with minivini with regard to questioning the activation procedures of a non-US/AT&T iPhone. Will iTunes activation somehow prevent a regionalized iPhone from being activated in a region (country) that it was not sold in? Will the non-US SIM cards be 'married' to the iPhone, like the AT&T SIM? There are hacks available to bypass these for the US phone (e.g. jailbreak or unlocking) and a similar version of these will probably be developed for non-US phones, but until it comes out oustide of the US and groups like the iPhoneDevTeam are working on it, we have no way of determining this.
Purchasing an international phone usually involves some kind of risk in terms of difficulty of getting support of making warranty claims, regardless if it is a T-Mobile, Orange, Rogers, or whatever. I have seen this happen on Motorolas, Nokias, and Sony Ericssons, where I resorted to relying on forums like this and repairing the phone myself because either I had inadvertently waived my rights to a warranty through de-branding or unlocking, or the warranty required me to submit the claim through the carrier the phone was purchased from or to the service center which is tied to a particular locality. For example, prior to the iPhone, I had a Motorola ROKR E6. (note, this is not the ROKR that was released in the US with iTunes, but a new linux phone released only in Asia). A screen digitizer issue would have required me to ship the phone back to Asia to have it serviced, had I not fixed it myself using parts purchased via eBay. This might not be an issue for some. It would be for me, given the cost of replacement parts and the fact that I have already had my iPhone replaced due to a dropped incident. Lets say I had purchased my iPhone from T-Mo Germany and dropped it. Would Apple have so willingly and quickly replaced it?
My last thought is tied to functionality. As stated at the beginning of my post, I do not believe a non-US iPhone should have any trouble working on another network, including T-Mo USA. However, I have to question whether or not it will be fully functional. I am not talking making calls or receiving text messages or even visual voicemail or anything like that (as it has already been stated that a carrier needs to have the appropriate hardware for this to work). What I question is the data side of the phone. Although the GSM standard will allow phones to 'work' anywhere it is implemented, each carrier/locality may have different ways of handling the data side of things. I had heard that AT&T may utilize proxies to 'speed up' the edge experience for their subscribers. Will each carrier have similar proxies set up and will regionalized phones only be able to access their appropriate proxies? If these international iPhones are in fact 3G (as some of the rumors and leaks have indicated), this may be another data stubmling block. Carrier A in the US may provide 3G data through frequencies 1 and 2, however carrier B in EU may do so using frequencies 3 and 4. I have seen this on some Nokia N-series phones that I have owned. Although they were 3G and worked as so in EU, I was not able to take advantage of the AT&T 3G network. I also know that T-Mo USA's 3G network will supposedly be partially on a non-standard 3G frequency, which will effectivlely require T-Mo USA specific 3G phones. Now, there may be a hack or mod will be able to overcome any of these, but for now this is another potential issue that people should be aware of.
Alright, even though I know I could keep going, I'm gonna stop because this post is already longer than I had planned. Please do not dismiss my low post count as me being a noob or anything. I do not post unless I have a direct question that has not previously been answered or could provide a significant contribution to the discussion. In this case, I just hope that sharing these thoughts would provke some insightful discussion.
This is where the iPhone is fundamentally different than any other phone (that I'm aware of). If you've ever gone through the activation process with a new iPhone, you know that until the iPhone is activated through iTunes for your specific account, you can't even make phone calls - except 911. I'm really anxious to see how this plays out, but I strongly suspect the iPhone will be the exception to the old SIM swap routine. I also suspect this is the primary reason Apple has so tightly locked the software/hardware system - to prevent the easy nature of moving phones around from place to place and company to company. We'll see...
Unlocked vs locked
My SIM card isn't tied to a provider in Europe, it is here. It is a difference between open networks and closed networks and the different businesss models between the US and Europe.
So, if the European iPhone's are unlocked phones then I should be able to stick in my SIM card no problem in the US, if it is locked I won't be able to just stick in my tmobile SIM card in the US. Of course there are usually hacks for such things...
The key here is if the phone is locked or not, not the quad band issue. I can take my quad band phone to europe (done so many times) and while I am there I can choose any network I want. I just go to the Network settings and pick a provider. I can't do that here with the same phone. I can't use my tmobile quad band phone and use verizon's network. This is because US phones are locked, and generally European phones are unlocked.
My SIM card isn't tied to a provider in Europe, it is here. It is a difference between open networks and closed networks and the different businesss models between the US and Europe.
So, if the European iPhone's are unlocked phones then I should be able to stick in my SIM card no problem in the US, if it is locked I won't be able to just stick in my tmobile SIM card in the US. Of course there are usually hacks for such things...
Im sorry Coach I was not directing anything I said towards you. I guess this will be my final attempt at explaining things. I AM A TMOBILE EMPLOYEE. I HANDLE INTERNATIONAL LAUNCHES OF DEVICES. ie the iPhone. I know for sure that the GERMANY iPhone WILL WORK IN THE USA with full function Except for VISUAL VOICEMAIL. MOST OF THE OTHER TMOBILE QUADE PHONES ALSO WORK IN THE USA AS WELL. also a side note there are other ways to activate the iPhone other than iTunes like this way from these guys
http://www.pqdvd.net/iphone-unlock-toolkit.html. There are others as well. Also before you hop on me about the link IT IS MEARLY AN ACTIVATION PROCESS NOT AN UNLOCKING PROCESS. In my final statemant I would also like to add that GSM IS GSM and that is why the German Iphine will work i the USA.
Not to play forum cop here or anything but words like "idiot" and "screw" are uncalled for. This forum was one of the nicest places on the internet before iDay (seriously we really discussed it) and I want that back.
Please please please let's be civil.
Please please please let's be civil.
Let us know how it goes when you get it back here in the states and activate it. If it works as well as you say, and it comes with 3G and 16GBs of storage, I'll hop right in line to get my own.