GAIT / New York City and 64K SIM card - need advice...

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.cingular (More info?)

I don't want to make this a long story but...

I am in the New York City area and for the last 4 years I have had the 450
Nationwide (no roaming anywhere) plan with Cingular. When I found out
about the GAIT phones, I bought the Nokia 6430i about 2 years ago and at
that time I upgraded my SIM card to a GAIT/GSM SIM. So I used my regular
(triband) phone while in the bigger cities and then would use the 6340i when
going to upstate or remote areas. It worked PERFECTLY! It found
receiptions where I never imagined one could have a working cell phone.

Fast forward to now. I just upgraded my main phone to the Motorola V551.
For some reason my reception was getting worse and worse (in my apartment in
New York) during the past 4-5 months, so I thought an upgrade to the V551
(quadband) phone was going to improve it. Somehow, it did not. So after
much conversations, I was told to go down to my local Cingular store and
change my 32K SIM card to the newer 64K SIM card. Upon getting to the
store, I told them that I need a 64K GAIT SIM card. I was told that there
is no such thing that the new 64K SIM cards automatically handle GAIT and
GSM. Although I did not want to argue, I went home and tried this 64K SIM
and perhaps my signal is a bit better for home uage.

Earlier today, I called Cingular and 2 different tech guys told me the same
thing that I no longer need a separate SIM card for GAIT phones to work in
GSM/TDMA. Can this be true? How can I test out if the ANALOG part of
the GAIT phone still works? I am in the middle of New York, so I assume
that since there is a GSM signal, the GAIT phone will always grab it and
will act as if its working. But I want to see that the ANALOG (TDMA) part
of the phone is working with this newer SIM.

Any advise, comments or suggestions?

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.cingular (More info?)

<snip>
> But I want to see that the ANALOG (TDMA) part
> of the phone is working with this newer SIM.
>
> Any advise, comments or suggestions?
>

You can determine the mode the phone is in by the field service display or
if options are on the phone menu.
Field service display section 21 and look for DCCH(TDMA) and ACCH(AMPS)
first before
the 01 section and CCCH(GSM).

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