FCC Approves 3G Nokias, Cingular Does Not

Sorry, guess I missed that part....

But how long will it take to add that feature? Release this one, and wait on the new one shortly..... us customers are impatient 😁

They have to send it back to Nokia so they can add another chip to make it support WCDMA, and work with the 850/1900MHz bands.

No, it already had WCDMA 1900, just not WCDMA 850.

Since it already had WCDMA and the antenna for GSM 850, this is mostly radio software and perhaps some hardware tweaks. ...but nothing like adding a whole new chip.

Oh okay. Thanks Rich for the clarification.

I agree with what you said Rich, but my question is, do you think Nokia will modify this phone to suit Cingular, and do you think this will damage Nokia's relationship with Cingular??

Icyhot said:
I agree with what you said Rich, but my question is, do you think Nokia will modify this phone to suit Cingular, ...

Yes, Nokia is working on a modified N80 with WCDMA 850 for Cingular. I'm not as sure about the 6282 - as of a month ago, that was still in the air.

... and do you think this will damage Nokia's relationship with Cingular??

It already has. Apparently Cingular simply requires WCDMA 850 on all its new 3G phones, but somehow there was miscommunication about that between Cingular and Nokia. At CES, a Cingular spokesperson outright told me they were not happy with Nokia about this issue, so apparently they place the blame on Nokia.

Nokia, IMO, makes the best phones. And since I am a long time Cingular customer, I am afraid we will be the ones who suffer in the end from this "miscommunication" error. Two conglomerates like this should not point fingers, but get it resolved as you said will take place, and share equally in the blame.

I say it is only Nokia's fault. Making phones without 850 is a bad decision in the first place. Why make a phone that will only operate on half of the network? I am surprised that manufacturers still don't understand that 850 is just as important as 1900. Whenever they think of adding 1900 to a US phone, they should never forget about 850. They should ALWAYS go together. We are no longer in the 90's when GSM only operated at 1900. Its about time someone did something about it. So I applaud Cingular on this decision. Maybe Nokia will learn the lesson from now on.

First thanks Rich for the clarification. Based on the responses it appears that the worse case scenario is Cingular does not sell the N80 because Nokia does not agree to add WCDMA 850. But the N80 will still be available with 1900 WCDMA plus the quad GSM band. But to Rich's point it makes good business sense for Nokia to add WCDMA850 especially when it does not involve new chips as Rich pointed.

Earl/fitzco

Cingular specifically told me last month that an N80 with WCDMA 850 was in the works - in fact I think they said it was already in their labs for Q2 release. I don't think there's much question about that one. The 6282 is the one that might not be released. (Although there is still the 6280 for Europe/Asia.)

That is great news, because the N80 is the only way I will do a Cingular contract or any contract. I am contract free but prefer a quad band phone and prefer Nokia phones so I will wait for the release.

Thanks

Earl

I would like it if Nokia just fixed 6282 also as having that and the N80 would be a gr8 addition to the US lineup. As stated before no one should be playing the blame game just fix the dang phone and keep it moving. I can see why they wouldn't be happy with Nokia though as the 6682 had alot of issues with its release also so Nokia does need to pick up some of its slack.

The 6682 issues were, IMO, Cingulars fault. The Cingular branded ones were causing issues with the 64k SIM card. I have a 6682, along with a 32k SIM, and have no issues with it whatsoever.

And a little off topic Rich, but what, if any, news do you know about the E70 coming to Cingular. It is lacking the WCDMA 850 also, correct??

The main specifications as listed on http://www.phonearena.com

Nokia N80 main specifications:

* Sliding form-factor
* GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 1900/2100MHz
* 352x416 pixels, 262k color display
* 3 mega pixels camera with LED flash, which can snap CIF videos
* Additional camera for Video Calling
* FM radio
* MP3/AAC formats for music playback
* 60MB memory
* miniSD memory expansion card slot
* Infrared, Bluetooth, USB2.0, and Wi-Fi (802.11g) connectivity

Even without the WCDMA/UMTS 850 for Cingular from my point of view it is a buy once Nokia start selling the N80. This way I can maintain my no contract status with Cingular and continue to be month to month. I can live with EDG...
(continues)

I wouldn't bet on a non-Cingular N80 supporting Cingular 3G services like Cingular Video...

I wouldn't bet on it either. There is always an opportunity cost. My preference for an unlocked for travelling will have to be weighed against not having the Cingular branded. Then again I do not know whether Nokia will sell the N80 unlocked or configured for Cingular.

Yes, I would agree. Cingular seems to not like unbranded handsets when it comes to premium service. I have an unbranded 6682 and I cannot use serveral of their offerings such as MobiTV and MobiRadio on it. They just won't install and word from MobiTV is that Cingular asked for it that way. I would expect Cingular Video to be no different.

So.... i guess the thjing to do would be to buy an unlocked cingular branded one lol... or get yours unlocked after 90days of being active on cingulars network.........

It looks like Nokia is getting close to releasing this phone:
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/N80/0,7747,feat:1,00. ... »
Is this model going to be the one that supports WCDMA 850? Going by the service specs on the bottom of that page, it only lists WCDMA 1900. If not, is Nokia still planning to release a version that supports both WCDMA 850 and 1900?