Re: Compatible carriers
 

A few questions about the PLS8-E (LTE Europe), just to be sure I understand correctly:

- When it is said "Europe and some other countries", what does it mean exactly? Is "Europe" a shortcut summary with some exceptions, or does it really include all countries in the European Union? I wouldn't want to fall in one of the exceptions, if any.
- UMTS is triband, so would it work only in Europe or in other regions too?
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE is only dual band, so does it mean I can get 2G and "classic" phone communications just within Europe?

Re: Compatible carriers
 

Anyone here know whether Neo900 has the right frequency bands for Optus here in Australia? And if so, which modem will do it?

Re: Compatible carriers
 

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/mobile_phone_frequencies

Looks like you want the PLS8-E modem, same as most (all?) of Europe.

Re: Compatible carriers
 

please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UMTS_networks
and
http://neo900.org/faq#networks (NOTE! the PLS8-X seems to not support voice! :eek: )
and try to find decent info about your carriers you want to use.
Always try to use "band" metrics, "frequency" is ambiguous!

I or Neo900 group or even Cinterion/Gemalto can not give any other binding info than the one already available. Sorry

/j

Re: Compatible carriers
 

Some further thoughts on modem selection...

As of current knowledge we can have either good roaming via GSM, or LTE.

What do you think, how long will the GSM networks still be operational?

If they shut them off lets say within the next five years then there is not that much benefit from the better roaming capabilities of the PHS8-P/J/K. OK one could still use the UMTS frequencies, but would loose much of the roaming functionallity and have 4 useless bands, the modem supports.

If they are operational for lets say 15+ years then the roaming advantage is something to take into account.

Still hoping for a firmware for the PLS8-E with additional roaming capabilities like the US variant has. This would make things so much easier ;)

Mith

Re: Compatible carriers
 

That's incorrect, the PHS8 is made for international UMTS, not GSM. GSM is just the 2nd (ancient) level of fallback when UMTS service/network-coverage is not available on any of the bands the PHS8 supports.

Re: Compatible carriers
 

Not supporting voice? Sorry, stupid clarification need:
Does that mean no classical phonecalls?

I want to convert my voucher in pre-order but this is the only blocking step for me: the modem.
All these bands and standards are confusing me. Really. Since weeks.
It is taking me hours to try to compute all these infos and when read, they all are mixed im my mind.

Is there no simple trick to find the one for france for lambda use: phonecalls + internet?

edit: hmm, does that PLS8-X mean PLS8-"any" or PLS8-US[/X]?

Re: Compatible carriers
 

This refers to the PLS8-X variant of PLS8-US which came up recently. Please simply ignore it, I just found no time yet to delete the [/X] from our table of options. The PLS8-US is OK for phone calls.

For France the "simple trick" is:
Do you want LTE (optimized for high bandwidth computing, enabling speeds up to 100 Mbps for downlink and 50 Mbps for uplink) which only works in Europe and even there only on UMTS in some rural areas,
or do you want UMTS-global (optimized for high bandwidth and allows speeds up to 14.4 Mbps for downlink and 5.7 Mbps for uplink) which works pretty much everywhere on this globe?
According to your preferences you pick either PLS8-E (Europe LTE) or PHS8 (UMTS).

Also note that LTE version costs probably a 20 to 50 bucks more than the UMTS version.
We also offer PXS8 for those (US) residents who want to have access to CDMA2000 as well, for Europeans it's quite irrelevant I guess.

Cheers
jOERG

Re: Compatible carriers
 

OK, cool, finally simple!
Thank you Joerg.

And if I understand right this table (post 22), the PLS8-E can not use UMTS if LTE is not available, am I right?

Re: Compatible carriers
 

In addition to LTE the PLS8-E can do
UMTS
900 MHz (Bd8)
1800 MHz (Bd3)
2100 MHz (Bd1)
which seems OK for France from all I can see in the tables provided in post22 (except the attachment)
Please also refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...etworks#Europe which states that all 4 French services do UMTS on bands 8 & 1, PLS8 can do both of them.
So PLS8 can do full UMTS too, in France

cheers
jOERG