Why do most new GSM phones have 1800 and not 900

I think you can't say the world is 'converting to' 1800, it's just used more and more commonly by either new operators or operators improving their capacity. But in both cases it doesn't mean that 900 MHz is less used.

 

This tells the story. They do it for the carrier. Cingular for some reason does not want the 900 band in most of their tri-band phones, the the v180 seems to be an exception.

 

Thanks azcellphonejunkie, it is definitely very odd, did her phone just say "no service"? I am going to follow this up with Cingular and see what they have to say.

PS: That is quite a collection of phones, so is she bringing you one from there?

 

I talked with my friend at Cingular, he is really puzzled that she could not get a Cingular roaming signal in HK, according to him HK has 4 very strong roaming partners.

The only think he could think of is that for some reason international roaming was not active on her phone. I think viewfly ran into the same problem in Paris, even though he had checked before leaving.

 

oooh aaah!!! pretty phones in the links...

 

I'm not sure if anybody has explained this and I don't have time to read this whole threat so I'll just go I hope that's ok:
Most European 900 providers have, at least in urban areas, overlaid their netowrks with 1800, since they have licenses for that as well. Additionally, every European country has at least one 1800 only carriers,who have very well built out networks as well, but they sometimes don't reach very isolated areas, so if you had to chose between having the 900 or 1800 mode for Europe, I'd go 900 any day
Hope this was uselful at all.

 

I wonder about that too. I'd expect them to put the 900 band on phones IF they only want to put one band on there(either 900 or 1800), since even in countries like Germany, where Vodafone, for example, has 1800 overlay through most of their network, and there are two 1800 only providers, there are still isolated areas where a 1800 only phone would get no service...strange!!

 

Nope, not me I am still convinced that either 1800 is the way of the future or the carriers are discouraging more 900 because of saturation....

 

but 1800 is not yet as well built out as 900, and a lot of carriers there are using both there because of the additional capacity.

 

agreed but 1800 is happening more and more. As AZ mentioned China is converting to 1800 and so will Malayasia, India already has a large 1800 coverage and more coverage is happening. These are three of the most populate areas of the world. Since 900 is having a capacity issue the carriers want more people to use 1800 where possible.

This is just my opinion and we are ofcourse all speculating.

 

Where are carriers experiencing capacity issues on the 900 band?
I also have no clue about China, I'm mostly talking about Europe.

 

LOL...true but it has been a great speculative and informative thread.

 

China came up in a related thread that AZ had posted.

 

True, but can't they just add 1800 like they do in Europe to take care of capacity problems? Why totally migrate to 1800 or whatever they're doing?

 

Yes, that's what I meant, thanks for clarifying that for me. I definitely agree a quad band is the way to go, so why are you looking at the 6230 when you have a quad?...LOL

I will resist the temptation of getting up on my soapbox for quad Nokias.

 

Az,

I suppose you could link this discussion to another thread from last year, When will tri band phones die? .

Whatever the reasons today, probably most travelers find the 1800 band very adequate, just as foreigners generally fine 1900 ok in the US, in the big cities where they are likely to vacation.

 

OH,okay, this makes more sense. I was reading in a hurry.
Hold on, guys, carriers that are overlaying their 900 networks with 1800 to ease capacity, it's not like the 900 channels will still be overloaded and the 1800 channels won't be...most users, in Europe, have at least dual band phones with both, 900 and 1800 and the network will have users use either one so none of the channels get overloaded. Does that make sense?

 

A slightly late response as I have been busy the past few days. There is also another reason why 1800 added to phones released for the US. Nokia does this the most as may already have been stated.

A number of Latin American and Caribbean countries use either only 900, 1800 or a combination of 900/1800 since their European parent companies use either combination. Here are the ones I know of:

Brazil: GSM 1800 only: TIM Brasil, Claro and a couple of others.
Costa Rica: GSM 1800 only: I.C.E. - monopoly provider run by the state-owned telecommunications and public utilities agency I.C.E.
French West Indies: GSM 900 only: Boeygues Telecom and Orange Caribe

There are a number of others I may have left out but those can always be added.

Hope this helps