Nokia E90 with American 3G? Not looking good
So we've been sitting on this whole E90 controversy for a few days here, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Fact is, a part of us is hoping that we can will an HSDPA 850 / 1700 / 1900-sporting Nokia E90 into existence, but we shouldn't have to; the need for firms like Nokia and Sony Ericsson to wake up and spend the extra few bucks to shove global 3G radios into every last one of their phones is painfully obvious. Anyway, numerous readers have pointed out that the document in the E90's FCC filing referencing WCDMA on the 850, 1700, and 1900MHz bands is merely pointing out (for no good reason, may we add) the FCC's own radiation limits on those bands, and is probably not indicative of what bands are present within any particular device. We personally wouldn't think the FCC needs to be reminded of those limits in a test report, but perhaps we'll let the technicians be technicians here and we'll stick to our writin' gig. If y'all hear any good news about Nokia coming to its senses on this one, please be pals and pass on the good news -- but in the meantime, we'll go back to our 3G bellyaching.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
IOTA @ Mar 8th 2007 2:20PM
So, what network would this work on anyway? Neither Cingular or T-Mobile have 3G networks where I live. News on either company rolling out large 3G networks is sparse at best, do you all have info on 3G networks (HSPDA, not EVDO) in the US?
Hubert @ Mar 8th 2007 3:08PM
This is the same as for all the yelling about the iPhone lacking 3G - what use do you really have for a 3G device in the US when the coverage is so lousy?
Mark Gillespie @ Mar 8th 2007 3:24PM
Well, the Americans did decided to adopt a seperate system to the rest of the world, what do you expect?
rory @ Mar 8th 2007 3:29PM
I don't remember being asked what system us Americans should adopt.
Nokia is killing me, give me this phone or the N95 with 3g please.
xbit @ Mar 8th 2007 3:46PM
The problem is that even if Nokia did release it with the US 3G bands, I doubt an American carrier would pick it up.
We've seen it before with so many other high-end Nokia smartphones. AT&T sometimes have a sniff around (like the Cingular-branded N80 that was spotted) but rarely release anything. T-Mobile don't seem to be interested at all and Nokia have pulled out of the CDMA market, which rules out Verizon and Sprint.
Saving a couple of dollars per device when you sell a million phones a day adds up to big bucks. There's no sense in Nokia adding US support if it isn't going to make them money.
Vince @ Mar 8th 2007 7:10PM
In the US, the problem has been that the 2100 band isn't available to the mobile phone operators. I have no doubt that Tmobile would liked to have used the global UMTS standard, but simply had no way of doing so. Cingular based their WCDMA network on the bands they had access to, 850 / 1900. Tmobile had to acquire spectrum for their WCDMA network, and unfortunately it was in the 1700 band.
It would be nice if the E90 does support 1700 / 1900 WCDMA, but I would bet against it for the reasons xbit pointed out.