3G Sim Card??

alfrizmartin

I'm an O2 bill pay customer and am very eager to get the 6630, but O2 aren't releasing 3G till god knows when! I called Carphone warehouse, and they said that there would be no point buying a sim free phone as I would need a 3G sim card to use the phone and O2 do not have any 3G sim cards.
Is this true, or was it a way of fobbing me off, as usually Vodafone live phones are sim locked to Vodafone?

Sponge Bob

there are no 3G sims on issue at the moment from O2 save for about 50 test customers a 2g sim in a 3g phone will give you a 2g service even if you can pick upa 3g signal from o2

theothernt

Hi,

It should be mentioned that you don't need a 3G SIM for the Nokia 6630 to work as you can set the phone to use GSM only (possible with the newer firmware update) and it works fine. A friend uses a Ready To Go SIM in his and it works fine.

- Neil

alfrizmartin

cheers guys.
I Presume that i can still access GPRS as I have a 2G sim card? (can access it at the moment on my 7250 fine)

peterk19

It works grand i have an o2 simcard in an unlocked vodafone 6630 now gprs and mms works no problems
Pete

A member on here was able to use the O2 3G network after unlocking his Nokia 6630, despite only having a 2G SIM! I won't give his name in case he gets slapped with private messages, lol.

Personally I think the whole "3G SIM" thing is made up by Vodafone, I don't think there's much of a difference between them, if any.

BigMoose

There is a difference... What are being called 3G SIMS are USIMs - I have no idea technically what this means! However it has nothing to do with accessing the 3G network. Vodafone needed a way to ensure only people who they could bill were allowed access to the 3G network as the prepaid billing for 3G was simply not in place when postpaid was launched. In time the need for a USIM to access the 3G network will go and all VF SIMs will work.

ejmaztec

Vodafone obviously (100% certain of this from personal experience) know when an ordinary RTG sim is in use in a 3G phone on their network. when I'm in a 3G coverage area all of my outgoing calls are fails. Other people do manage to ring me ok in these areas. Does Vodafone go out of it's way to make life difficult in this situation or are there technical reasons for the failures? I'm not mentioning the phone model because it''ll make it easier for them to track me down and dump my carcase in the woods.

Wookie

Vodafone don’t really care if you are using a 3G phone with a 3G sim. But since you have enough interest in mobile phones etc to actually get your hands on a 3G phone… would you not consider moving over to a contract so that you can use the 3G services?

ejmaztec

Took advantage of an upgrade on the contract to get a 3G phone but the original 2G phone wasn't tossed and is in use with original number allocated to it. I suppose that there are quite a few people in the same boat.

BigMoose

Vodafone know the IMEI of the phone along with the IMSI/SIM of every call made on their network. The 3G network should not allow any 2G SIM to connect to it, so with an RTG Sim in a 3G phone you should not be able to access the 3G network at all for incoming or outgoing. You can still access the 2G network when in 3G coverage, but many have posted here about problems with various handsets for doing this.

ejmaztec

Thanks for the enlightenment. I Suppose I'll just have to put up with it until they start the 3G RTG roll-out, whenever that takes place.