Severe Cingular Outages

Just remember if you happen to get one that powers off you are fully entitled to a new one under warranty, or a free repair job.

 

I had one until yesterday. I returned it at the end of the 14 day trial. I had tried two of them. I traded one when Cingular told me that my reception problem was a handset problem. It wasn't.

As I stated earlier, signal strength (TDMA) in my area of town and dropped calls were my only problems with the phone. It worked great in weak TDMA signal areas when it found a T-Mobile tower. Cingular could not tell me that my reception would improve when their GSM system is activated. I will probably try the phone again in August when the Cingular system is up.

Assuming that the reception issue was a Cingular coverage and not a Nokia issue, the phone it'self was great. The feature set is exactly what I need.

 

The 6340i is actually better at reception than most TDMA phones. On GSM, I would say it is just average.

CingularRep, I am not sure what you mean when you say that the phone picks up 3 or 4 towers. In reality, whether in GSM or TDMA, the 6340i will be monitoring just one network at a time. The way you explained seems to infer that the 6340i can pick up T-Mobile, Cingular GSM, Cingular TDMA, AT&T TDMA and AT&T GSM all at the same time when in reality it is only one at a time based on the NSDB priorities. When the phone has registered on a GSM network, the TDMA side is suspended so the TDMA towers think you powered off the phone. When the phone is registered on TDMA, the GSM side is suspended so the GSM towers think that you powered off the phone. Think of it as two phones in one where only one can be powered up at a time. On either side, the phone is always registered to ONLY ONE tower no matter what. The phone is, however, monitoring signal strength of neighboring towers in case a handoff is necessary. On TDMA, it can monitor up to 12 sectors (control channels) and on GSM, up to 9 sectors (control channels).

The number of control channels monitored varies depending on how many sectors overlap coverage over your particular location. If a GSM signal is weaker than -110dBm, the 6340i cannot monitor it. Sometimes it can be around -105dBm and it will lose it. On TDMA, it seems a bit more robust as it can handle signals down to -113dBm and stay locked on to them. If there is too much noise, TDMA can lose contact with the control channel at about -109dBm. Whatever the circusmtance, the 6340i will still monitor the same number of sectors on only one network at a time no matter how many times you power it off and on.

Granted that if you power it off/on the phone can pick up another network, but not more towers on the same network. In other words, if the phone is monitoring 6 control channels on T-Mobile (of course, only registered to only one), then you power it off and on, then after scanning it decides to register on Cingular TDMA, now the phone can monitor more or less sectors depending on what's available on that network at your location. It could be more than 6 sectors, it could be less than 6 sectors. But if the phone goes back to the T-Mobile network at the same location, it will always find the same 6 sectors it found before.

If the 6340i seems to have picked up a better signal after powering it off/on, is because it originally was on a network whose tower is more distant. After the power off/on, the phone scans and finds another network that happens to have a closer tower. But the phone won't register on a particular network based on signal strength. Instead, it will pick a network based on the NSDB priority. If the phone didn't do this on its own is because both networks have the same priority on the NSDB so the phone will not attempt to switch networks on its own until it loses the signal or it is powered off and on. This only happens in areas where there are two networks with the same NSDB priority which is normally classified as "Home" or "Partner". Networks that are classified as "Favored" have lower priority. In this case the phone will attempt to switch on its own to the "Partner" or "Home" network, which are higher priority, even though the signal on the "Favored" network is stronger. Again, signal strength plays no decision role here. Only if the "Partner" or "Home" signal is not found after several attempts, the phone will register with the "Favored" network. This can be a TDMA or GSM network.

The phone will scan both TDMA and GSM until it is satisfied with finding either a "Partner" or "Home" network. This is why when it has registered on a "Favored" network, it will drain the battery quicker because it is unnecessarily looking for "Partner" or "Home" networks every two minutes. During the scanning, you lose service, of course, and you can miss calls and you have to wait until the phone is done scanning and re-register again before you can use it. When you travel, and there's nothing available but "Favored" networks, this kills your battery much quicker because the phone can never find its "Partner" or "Home" network and it is constantly automatically scanning until you return to an area with "Home" or "Partner" networks available. IMO, there should be a manual override because when you travel the never successful and extensive scanning for "Home" and "Partner" can be extremely annoying. If there are no "Partner" or "Home" networks available in the area, the scans will always be a waste of time and unnecessarily draining your battery at that moment.

Favored networks are displayed as "Cingular Extend" on the screen. "Partner" and "Home" networks display "Cingular" on the screen. Other lower priority networks are classified as "Neutral" which is also displayed as "Cingular Extend" and "Forbidden" which as the name implies, the phone is not allowed to use.

For all markets, Cingular GSM and TDMA will have the same priority and in many areas T-Mobile will have the same priority as well. In some areas, however, AT&T TDMA or GSM will be "Favored" or "Partner" but not "Home". In other areas, T-Mobile has already been "Forbidden" from the NSDB just like AT&T TDMA or GSM. Of course, that depends on what's loaded in the phone's NSDB which varies by region.

If two networks have the same priority, the phone will attempt registration with the first network listed in the "band order" setting which decides in what order the phone should scan the bands. So there's a chance that if you have a strong signal and you power it off/on, then you may actually get a weaker signal afterwards simply because the during the power-up scan, the phone found another network that happens to have a more distant tower before it hit the network band you had before because of the way the band scan order is setup.

Hopefully, this will clarify some confusion about how GAIT phones operate.

 

bobolito,

I'm sorry if I implied the 6340 can pick up more than one tower at a time on any one phone call, I never meant to imply that.

 

COMfr3aK, if you have a TDMA phone, and it is on "Cingular Extend" (Favored), the phone will search for Home or Partner as well. However, it is much less frequent and you will barely notice it because a search for TDMA only is much quicker than searching both TDMA and GSM so battery life is not greatly affected in that case. However, if AT&T is considered "Partner" network in that area, then the phone will not attempt to switch unless it loses the signal or it is powered off/on.

CingularRep, no problem.

 

COMfr3aK...if you decide to make the switch to GSM please inform us of your experiences.

I am in Rochester as well. Soft launch is supposed to go live this Saturday, June 15.