T-Mobile turns its back on the world
T-Mobile says no to Planet Earth.
(Credit: NASA)There's something shifty going on at T-Mobile. After years of being able to count on the carrier to offer a full slate of quad-band GSM world phones, the T-Mobile has developed a disturbing trend of stripping the GSM 900 band out of all of its new handsets. I first noticed the pattern when T-Mobile picked up the very cool Nokia 5300 Xpress Music last month. While the unlocked version we reviewed last year was quad-band, T-Mobile's handset is only tri-band (GSM 850/1800/1900). The recent Samsung SGH-T219 and SGH-T329 also are tri-band only. In fact, we haven't seen a quad-band phone from the carrier since last year with the Nokia 6133.
Nokia 5300 Xpress Music
(Credit: Mobiledia)So what gives? I can't fathom a good reason why T-Mobile is making the change. Yes, I realize that the 900 band isn't absolutely essential to use the phone outside of the United States, but it's nice to have nonetheless, as it allows for better coverage abroad, not to mention more customer choice. I expect more from T-Mobile, particularly given its German parent. On the other hand, Cingular Wireless/AT&T is pumping out more world phones, such as the LG CU400. But whatever the reason, I don't understand it and it's just not cool.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent. 
cingular/att is starting to look quite a bit more tempting these days; tmobile get your act together!
- cost/benefit
- by oblivion8080 March 16, 2007 12:24 PM PDT
- I believe the primary reason for this change is simply due to cost. The cost of the additional 900mhz support increases the cost of the handsets, which customers are unwilling to pay for.
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- That makes NO sense...
- by Wolfie2k5 March 19, 2007 12:43 PM PDT
- [b]I believe the primary reason for this change is simply due to cost. The cost of the additional 900mhz support increases the cost of the handsets, which customers are unwilling to pay for.[/b]
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(6 Comments)You DO realize that phone makers stamp out their phones in bulk and tweak phones for each carrier by adding software and the like. For them to physically change the band capabilities would probably mean changing the radio inside - and that only ADDS cost to the phone.
Think about it for a second. You're Motorola or Nokia. You've invested a bundle designing a phone. You've gone through the hoops getting FCC certification. Now T-Mo comes along and wants to adopt your phone but the only gotcha is they want a tri-band radio, NOT a quad-band like you've originally designed the unit to have. Back to the drawing board, change the specs, go through the FCC hoops again to get another certification. And then it's off to manufacturing - new parts, a second production line, retooling, reprogramming the robots that put the phone together to produce a limited number of units.
THIS is cheaper? I think NOT.
More likely, the radios are the same. The 900 MHz band is simply disabled by software loaded on the phone. Software solutions are cheaper than retooling hardware.