Forum FAQ, Donate your knowledge in questions, answers and help!

[bobl]

As you can probably see the Newbie FAQ is pretty scarce on information. I also know that regular participants of the board and answering the same questions again and again. I've created this thread so we can start building a FAQ, so please reply with questions/answers etc.

Please feel free to correct others in this thread, we'll all learn!

I'm gonna get the ball rolling, with these questions (I am about to rush off to work, so I don't have time to answer them!)

1) What is unlocking?
2) How do I unlock?
3) What is flashing?
4) How do I flash?
5) What is a SIM card?
6) What is dct3/4?
7) Can I have a code to unlock my mobile?
Where can I get free games?
9) Where can I get free minutes/SMS
10) What operating system should I use?

There are plenty more, so feel free to add questions are start answering mine. I'll (with others) help put them together into one answer to each question. Also, if you want to help me do this, please PM me or reply to the thread, help is much appreciated!

Cheers

Bob

P.S. btw, this is from an idea by mexusbg I hope he's helping too!

[Thanh]

Hello
I share some things which i know, if i should be wrong, please someone correct me

1) UNLOCKING = make it possible to use ANY SIM_card in a phone which has previously been restricted to only ONE SIM-card or ONE service provider/network
2) You need a DATA CABLE and SOFTWARE such as Nokia Tools, Rolis etc and, of course, a computer DCT-3 phones can easily be unlocked with that combination, newer DCT-4 phones (the ones that have GPRS function) can be "remotely unlocked" by typing in a code. It's got to be the CORRECT code, and only a certain number of tries (3? 5?) are allowed, after that you need a cable, too.
3) FLASHING is changing the phone's OPERATING SYSTEM, or FIRMWARE. This can be done to upgrade to a newer version which got bugs fixed, or to modify the phone's features (add ringtones, change graphics, add features). In some cases, flashing can make a "new" phone of an old one (8210 can be 8250, 3310 can be 3315). It is called "Flashing" because the phone's operating system is not on a harddisk, but in a chip which is direct programmed, a "flash memory" chip, hence "flashing".
4) FLASHING requires a FLASHER CABLE, or "Box", or "Dongle". These are pieces of Hardware which include electreonic circuitry, not just plain cables. Also needed is special FLASHING software for the computer, and FLASH-FILES ("Operating system files") for the phone. They come in diferent versions ("Windows 95, 98, ME for the phone") and different language packs. To avoid problems, a FLASHFILE should consist of MCU and PPM matching with each other.
5) SIM = Subscriber Identification Module, it is a chip that holds your phone number and also some memory for use as a phonebook or SMS bank. There are 16k and 32k SIM's around (others, too..?) which have different sizes of memory available. A GSM-phone won't work w/o SIM, except emergency calls to 911, 112 etc...... depending on countries.
6) DCT = Digital Core Technology, kind of "Hardware version" and similar to "Pentium 3, Pentium 4". It describes the kind of phone used, such as DCT-2 the older phones 81xx, 31xx and DCT-3 the current ones 33xx, 82xx etc and DCT-4 the new ones with GPRS such as 65xx, 83xx, 7210 etc. Also, as far as i know, the FIRMWARE in DCT-3 phones is kind of direct readable hence easy to flash/modify but in DCT-4 it is encrypted, therefor yet impossible to modify.
7) If it is a DCT-4 phone, it could be done in the correct section of this forum, because ONLY DCT-4 phones can be unlocked via code (as far as i know)
at my own website http://thanhwap.tripod.com and also many many others
9) honestly - no idea
10) Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Unix, Linux, FreeBSD or whatever... if you have software that runs on your system, use it. Different systems support different softwares, but there's some for every system. I am using XP pro and never had a problem with any application yet, but YET have never flashed (or tried to flash) a phone myself due to non-availability of the required hardware (dirt poor guy here).

Dear Bob, i am happy that i could answer a few questions....... i love t share what i know, because i know it from people that shared before me, and we all exist on the base of contribution from others.
Kind regards....
your Thanh

[bobl]

Excellant replies mate , I learnt something anyway

I would still put a recommendation in for operating system. Newbies are gonna find it a lot easier on 98, then XP Pro

Question 9 was more of a trick question , generally free stuff is hard to find. The best thing for free SMS is free SMS Centers but I think I'll need a better explanation...that's for later

So, any more questions? And more answers ?

Cheers

Bob

[mexusbg]

2) DCT3 phones can be unlocked by code! But i can't find the generator for it. When a operator lock a phone, they give you the code after 1 year. Hope someone can find it.
7) Yes use the atteched file to do it (READ README.TXT).
9) Free minutes (there are some prmotinons in Bulgaria that give you some free minutes , or you get 20-25 minutes if you are handycapt). To do it yourself it's inpossible (Possible but illegal 1) get someones simcard and clone it - free minets for you,but he pays. 2) In the past there was one way, but the operators fixed it (Ericsson bug).
10) I flashed with 98, now i use XP Pro.
XP is better and faster. Me is same as 9
If you are going to flash from XP, install USERPORT
Use Rolis or Knok, (the latest Rolis is writen for XP - but i don't like it, get an older version and run USERPORT)

[mexusbg]

Here it is

[bobl]

Nice one mate, I'm starting to compile this FAQ, I think what would be nice is some tutorials.

Anyone fancy writing one on unlocking with their favourite tool?

Some more questions:

How can I put games on my mobile?
(MobiMB+Cable, WAP etc)

What's an MCU, PPM and EEPROM?
MCU=Flash
PPM=Lang
EEPROM=EEPROM

What is dejan format, wintesla format?

Cheers

Bob

[chunkhead]

Here's a Knok95 Unlocking guide (With Pics) for newbies! Check further down the post for more!!!

[chunkhead]

Here's a Rolis Flashing Tutorial (With Pics) for all newbies!!! Check further along this post for more!

[bobl]

Nice one chunkhead!

I plan to have finished compiling the FAQ by Sunday night...but then again it may take even longer with all your great tuts

Cheers

Bob

[dr.bizar]

Hi all I wrote this for my site - but theres no reason it shouldn't be here aswell.

Here you will find answers to most of your questions - and the some - hope you enjoy it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the beginnig there was nothing - then came nokia


Why flash my phone ?


To get rid of bugs
To get some extra features
Change the language on your phone
Add new ring tones
Or like in my case - just to mess around inside your handset

Now you might ask... what happens when I flash my phone ?
What happens is... u overwrite the existing prg. block with another.

To Flash your phone you will need a Flasher cable and a mbus cable,
or a combined mbus/flasher cable. See how to build one in "schematics" section.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Lesson nr 1. Always backup your phone !!!
Lesson nr 2. Always backup your backup !!!
Lesson nr 3. Always backup your backup of the backup!!! (He He - tricky)



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Lesson nr 4. When your messing with your phone there's some basic abbreviations you will have to get familier with...


FAID & MSID
IMEI
SP locks

FAID & MSID
I will not explain alot about FAID (Flash Authority ID) and MSID (Mobile Subscriber Identifier) structure and algorithms, as this is only for geeks like my self to know. ALL u need to know is: It's nessesary to update/reset FAID after flashing a new PPM to the phone. This procedure is nessesary to update the EEPROM calcsums, and as the handset uses these sums to LOG -
(connect to service nets) setting FAID is very important.
There's alot of progs out there who can do this for u - so don't worry about this...

Some geek info...
The algorithm used for calculateing the FlashAuthorityID
The inputs for this algorithm are:
- 13 bytes Phone MSID
- Checksum of flash parts
The output are:
- 12 bytes "Flash_Authority_ID"

IMEI
The GSM MoU's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbering system is a 15 digit unqiue code
witch is used to identify the GSM/DCS/PCS phone to a network.

When a phone is switched on, this unqiue IMEI number is transmitted and checked against a database
of blacklisted or greylisted handsets using the network's EIR (Equipment ID Register).
This EIR determines whether the phone can log on to the network to make and receive calls.


Greylisting will allow the phone to be used, but it can be tracked to see who has it (via the SIM info).

Blacklisting bars the phone from being used on any network where there's an EIR match.

EMEI structure. E.g 350005/10/3361999


350005 - Type aproval code (TAC)

10 - Final assembly code (FAC)
3361999 - Handsets serial number

How to display a phone's IMEI number: Type *#06# on the keypad. This code works on most phones.

SP locks (Service Provider Locks)
Most of the times when u buy a phone, the phone is locked to a specific service provider (tele company). There's 4 locks on your phone but you will only have to learn obout 3 of them.


SIM lock.
If your phone is locked to the sim you cannot use any other sim than the one you have.


OPERATOR lock(network lock)
If your phone is locked to an operator, you can only use SIM's from this operator in your phone.


CODE lock (product lock)
If your phone is locked to a code, the phone checks a special "password" (GID) on the SIM that must match your phone.

To unlock these locks see the unlocking tutorial



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Lesson nr 5. Your phone SW basicly consists of 3 parts - the MCU the PPM and the EEprom...

The MCU (Micro Control Unit) SW is the main software whitch initialices the phone on startup, and where all the needed funtions for proper work of phone is stored. So the MCU is actualy your phones operating system. Don't mees with MCU SW unless you wish to UPGRADE current software with new one, that have fixed bugs, or got some new functions. The MCU of the Nokia is based on ARM architecture (Advanced Risc Machine). Most of the code uses Thumb instructions. For those interested in ARM specifications : this site www.arm.com has detailed information.

The PPM (Post Programming Memory) data block defines different user groups, like language groups. Since there's a lot of languages and fonts over the world the RAM wouln't be able to hold all this information. so nokia made the PPM format. So when u see a PPM language pack "A" don't be puzzled, "A" just defines whitch languages the given PPM packet holds. In one PPM file there is approximately 1->20 different language grupes. The PPM also holds your ringtones, and menu structure. (very funny, but hardcore to mess with)

The EEprom (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-only Memory) holds all your "personal" information Like EMEI nr
If u don't have a clue on what ur doing, DON'T mees around inside the eprom block at all, due to the fact that changeing EMEI, or other ID data in your phone, is considered illegal, and will give a centence up to 5 years, in some countrys. But if you "accidently" fuck up your EMEI, do not PANIC just use "Noktool 18" (see the guide "I screwed up")


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Lesson nr 6. Cable types

Mbus: is a half duplex, 2 way serial bus (uses one line to phone) This is the most commonly used Data cable
This cable is used for unlocking, updatin FAID, logos/ringtones etc. When u buy a datacable it's proberbly an
m-bus cable. (goes trough the serial cobba)

Flasher cable: uses paralell comunication and are used for upgrading SW, and
Reading/writing edited ver. to phone. (Goes truogh the paralell cobba chip)

Fbus: uses full duplex seriel comunication with a RX and TX line. When using programs with synchronized
comunication, this eliminates the need for start stop and parity bits. This is the fastest of the two datacable types.
(goes trough the serial cobba)

Dongles - Some programs need a dongle to launch.. A dongle key, is a hardware key,
and are put between the LPT port and the Datacable. These are used instead of software keys
because they are more difficult to hack.
Eg. you will need a proper dongle to run Wintesla and winddl


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lesson nr 7. Settings and OS

In this lesson i will explain about port access, first i will tell how to set up
your system, and if you want to know more, scrool down and enjoy.

When Flashing or writeing to phone using mbus, the data is transmitted directly to phone
via LPT or com port. Directly means, that the data ain't modified by eg. drivers.
How the data is transmitted, is decided by protocol settings in your bios, and in some cases
also in your OS (operating system).

Theese are the settings you will need to setup:


In your bios, you will need to set the LTP standart, to ECP/EPP
(Hit "del" or "F10" during boot)


If flashing under WinXP, or any other NT system, the securety settings will prevent you from writing,
directly to LTP/COM ports, therefore you will need to run "userport.exe" in the background.
This file over-writes the securety settings.
Also you will need to activate the win98 emulation, under properties of the given file eg. "Rolis.exe"
(this setting are only available in winXP)

----> continued in next msg

[dr.bizar]

----> continued


Lets dig a little deeper: geek info )

A problem that plagues Windows NT/2000 and Windows XP, is it's strict control over I/O ports. Unlike Windows 95 & 98, Windows NT/2000/XP will cause an exception (Privileged Instruction) if an attempt is made to access a port that you are not privileged to talk too. Actually it's not Windows NT that does this, but any 386 or higher processor running in protected mode. Accessing I/O Ports in protected mode is governed by two events, The I/O privilege level (IOPL) in the EFLAGS register and the I/O permission bit map of a Task State Segment (TSS).

Under Windows NT, there are only two I/O privilege levels used, level 0 & level 3. Usermode programs will run in privilege level 3, while device drivers and the kernel will run in privilege level 0, commonly referred to as ring 0. This allows the trusted operating system and drivers running in kernel mode to access the ports, while preventing less trusted usermode processes from touching the I/O ports and causing conflicts. All usermode programs should talk to a device driver which arbitrates access. The I/O permission bitmap can be used to allow programs not privileged enough (I.e. usermode programs) the ability to access the I/O ports. When an I/O instruction is executed, the processor will first check if the task is privileged enough to access the ports. Should this be the case, the I/O instruction will be executed. However if the task is not allowed to do I/O, the processor will then check the I/O permission bitmap.

The I/O permission bitmap, as the name suggests uses a single bit to represent each I/O address. If the bit corresponding to a port is set, then the instruction will generate an exception however if the bit is clear then the I/O operation will proceed. This gives a means to allow certain processes to access certain ports. There is one I/O permission bitmap per task.

There are two solutions to solving the problem of I/O access under Windows NT/2000/XP.

The first solution is to write a device driver which runs in ring 0 (I/O privilege level 0) to access your I/O ports on your behalf. Data can be passed to and from your usermode program to the device driver via IOCTL calls. The driver can then execute your I/O instructions. The problem with this, is that it assumes you have the source code to make such a change.

Another possible alternative is to modify the I/O permission bitmap to allow a particular task, access to certain I/O ports. This grants your usermode program running in ring 3 to do unrestricted I/O operations on selected ports, per the I/O permission bitmap. This method is not really recommended, but provides a means of allowing existing applications to run under windows NT/2000. Writing a device driver to support your hardware is the preferred method. The device driver should check for any contentions before accessing the port.

As you already know, any 32bit program will cause a Privileged Instruction Exception. Many hacks have been produced for I/O port access under Windows 95 and 98 such as .DLL libraries. Should you need to run such a program under Windows NT, an exception will occur. Userport can be used to make existing programs that access the I/O ports work under Windows NT/2000/XP.

16 Bit Windows and DOS programs will run on virtual machines. In many cases existing applications should be transparent on Windows NT/2000/XP. However others just refuse to run. The virtual machines has support for communication ports, video, mouse, and keyboard. Therefore any program using these common I/O ports should run, however there is often a problem with timing. Other MS-DOS programs accessing specific hardware requires VDDs (Virtual Device Drivers) written to enable them to be used with Windows NT.

The Virtual Machine will intercept I/O operations and send them to a I/O handler for processing. The way the Virtual Machine does this, is by giving insufficient rights to I/O operations and creating an exception handler to dig back into the stack, find the last instruction and decode it. By giving the VDM full rights to I/O ports, it has no means of intercepting I/O operations, thus creating less problems with timing or the need to provide VDDs for obscurer hardware.

In order to change a processes IOPM, we must first have the process ID for the process we want to grant access too. This is accomplished by creating the process ourselves, so we can pass the ProcessID to our device driver. An small application is used which accepts the program name as an argument. This application then creates the process (i.e. executes the program) which starts and continues as another process in the system.

Gues thats all for now - for more like this visit my website

[bobl]

@dr.bizar

Thanks very much for donating your knowledge!

Very good reading, do you mind if I cut bits of it out? A block of text is never encouraging for a newbie

Thanks again

Bob

[dr.bizar]

@bob - no problem.

@everybody


- I realy think its great what bob is doing so i wanna cotribute with some more info.

Here are some tutorials - all from my site. - Only one condition:
Plz don't use them on your own site - without a prober link to my site

rename a6ttachment to .rar instead of .rar.zip

Plz tell me what you think.

[bobl]

Thank you dr.bizar.

I repacked the tutorials to tutorials-dr_bizar.zip

I hope you don't mind, just some sort of conformity in naming + not everyone has Winrar, I am trying to make this as open to all as possible.

Thank you very much for you donation once again

Bob

[chunkhead]

@bobl:

Here's my tutorial to "CONTACT SERVICE"! I felt this was nescessary due to me giving the same advice over and over and over...

[bobl]

Thank you, renamed and uploaded to the FAQ

Bob

[chunkhead]

Here's a beginners guide to 3310 => 3315!

[THE-MATRIX]

Great Info !



thanx guyz !




knowledge is PwOeR !

[chunkhead]

Proof Read FAQ!

[bobl]

Thank you chunkhead mate , I found one minor error and upped it to the FAQ, very good work

Cheers again

Bob

[chunkhead]

Here's my complete guide to water damage repair! I did this as I am tired of putting it in all the threads!

@Bobl

Here's the intro I thought would be good!

Guide to Water Damage Repair! Pictured, step-by-step guide to repairing your water damaged phone! Method can also be used for other minor hardware problems!
*NOTE*: If you have water damage, REMOVE YOUR BATTERY NOW!!!



Cheers,

Chunkhead

[Nanda]

CDMA and TDMA are the two major air interface technologies for digital mobile telecommunications.

CDMA stands for "Code Division Multiple Access" and TDMA stands for "Time Division Multiple Access". The main purpose of these technologies, as you may notice by the "Multiple Access" bit in each of their names, is to better utilize the radio spectrum by allowing multiple users to share a same physical channel.

What is really confusing is that these terms are often used to designate CDMA- or TDMA-based transmission protocols.

What people commonly refer to as CDMA is actually a CDMA-based mobile phone protocol, IS-95. That's the technology most "CDMA" Nokias use. It is largely used in the American continent and in some parts of Asia. It has also been implemented in Australia as a replacement for their analog network. Another CDMA-based implementation is UMTS or WCDMA or simply 3G mobile technology.

The term TDMA is often used to refer to the IS-136 standard. IS-136 TDMA was the first digital mobile phone technology to be used in the USA and is still used in most American countries.

Many people do not know this, but GSM is another TDMA-based technology. However, it uses completely different, more complex transmission protocols that significantly improve GSM performance over competing TDMA standards such as IS-136 and iDEN.

[Nanda]

How does CDMA work?

This is a very basic explanation but ought to do the trick:

CDMA-based mobile phone technologies operate by converting each particular call into a stream of bits that is ramdomly encoded and transmitted over the network in an entire frequency slot (channel).

That means every call, that is, every stream of bits, can be transmitted simultaneously over the same frequency without interfering with each other - since each one is encoded separately and only the receiving cellular antenna (the radio base stations that handle that call) will be able to "understand" the encoded bit stream ("Code Division").

So every CDMA handset and every CDMA antenna operate at the same frequency, with the system handling all calls at the same time - totally contrary to the TDMA principle of breaking up calls in time slots and handling the "pieces" one at a time ("Time Division").

It's said that a single CDMA channel can handle up to 10 different calls.

A good analogy for how a CDMA-based network operates is to imagine a room full of people trying to talk to each other in pairs. In a CDMA network each pair talks in a different language which is not understood by any of the others, therefore all can talk at the same time without interferring with the others' conversations.

Hope this helps,

[Nanda]

Next up I'll post "How does TDMA work?", "CDMA advantages and disadvantages" and "Do the differences between CDMA/TDMA/GSM matter to most people?".

That should be done tomorrow

It's 01:23 here and I really need to sleep!

Cheers,

[BOEBOE]

My 2 cents:

How is CDMA superior to TDMA?

Short answer: It supports more calls in the same spectrum, and it dynamically allocates bandwidth more easily.

Long answer: Spectrum is extremely expensive; it has to be purchased from various governmental licensing authorities at auction, and sometimes these auctions have involved billions of dollars (or equivalent monetary value in other currencies). It represents a considerable investment by a carrier.

Generally speaking, CDMA will carry between two and three times as many calls simultaneously as TDMA in the same amount of bandwidth. This is due to something known as "frequency reuse" and is very well explained on this page.

The other major advantage of CDMA is dynamic allocation of bandwidth. To understand this, it's important to realize that in this context in CDMA, "bandwidth" refers to the ability of any phone to get data from one end to the other. It doesn't refer to the amount of spectrum used by the phone, because in CDMA every phone uses the entire spectrum of its carrier whenever it is transmitting or receiving.

TDMA works by taking a channel with a fixed bandwidth and dividing it into time slots. Any given phone is then given the ability to use one or more of the slots on an ongoing basis, if it is in a call. For instance, if the channel is 200 kHz wide with 8 slots, and the phone is allocated one of them, then the phone has effective bandwitdth of 200/8 = 25 kHz. This bandwidth is allocated to that phone while the call proceeds, whether the phone actually uses it or not. In other words, when you're in a call with TDMA and being silent because you're listening to the other person speak, your phone still uses that full bandwidth to transmit silence.

CDMA is more efficient about that kind of thing. In both TDMA and CDMA, the outgoing voice traffic is digitized and compressed. But the CDMA codec can realize when the particular packet is noticeably simpler (e.g. silence, or a sustained tone with little change in modulation) and will compress the packet far more. Thus the packet may involve fewer bits, and the phone will take less time to transmit it.

And that's where this odd idea of what "bandwidth" means in CDMA comes in. For in a very real sense, bandwidth in CDMA equates to received power at the cell. CDMA systems constantly adjust power to make sure as little is used as necessary, and compensate for this by using coding gain through the use of forward error correction and other approaches which are much too complicated to go into here. The chip rate is constant, and if more actual data is carried by the constant chip rate, then there will be less coding gain. Therefore, it's necessary to use more power instead.

Conceptually, a given cell sector can tolerate a certain amount of total received power before it becomes difficult to decipher all the channels being received. If one phone uses more of that power allocation, there is less available for the others.

But this is an advantage, not a disadvantage, for it can be stated a different way: if one phone uses less of that power allocation, there is more available for the others. This is the right way to look at it, because this is going on constantly.

In a TDMA system, suppose that the phone needed more or less than the 25 kHz slot. "Less" is a non-issue because there's no way to get smaller. "More" would require that an additional slot be allocated to the phone, which would require a protocol-level exchange: the phone says to the cell "I need more bandwidth", the cell finds some other phone on that same channel and tells it to move, clearing an additional slot, then sends a message back to the phone telling it "OK, you can use this slot in addition". This might take quite a while, and by the time it's complete the need may have passed.

But CDMA actually does this dynamically and on the fly. When the CDMA phone realizes that it doesn't need to transmit a full digital packet, it will use a "half rate" packet, or "quarter rate" or "eighth rate", and will transmit for less time. Packet transmissions happen fifty times per second in current CDMA systems, but a phone with a half-rate packet to send will pseudo-randomly send half the symbols during the 20 millisecond packet.

Received power at the cell is an instantaneously measured quantity. If two phones are transmitting at half rate but at different times, the cell is actually only receiving power from one phone at a time. Effective bandwidth in CDMA is thus actually being dynamically allocated at all times. And when you are listening and silent, the phone drops to eighth rate and uses virtually no bandwidth at all.

This is very nice for voice traffic and is an additional reason why CDMA is more efficient in use of spectrum, but where it will become particularly valuable is when data transmission becomes a significant use. That's because common data use is very bursty, even more than is voice traffic.

Consider how you use a browser, for instance: you click a link and in a short interval your computer downloads many kilobytes of data. You then sit and read what was downloaded, and there's virtually no data traffic going on.

In a CDMA system, it would be very easy to allocate a considerable proportion of the bandwidth of a sector to a single phone for that interval. Nothing special needs to be done except to allocate that phone a considerable proportion of the power, which it could do without requesting permission from the cell.

High spectrum efficiency and dynamic allocation of bandwidth are the principle reasons why the entire wireless telecommunications industry is moving to CDMA. The current generation of GSM is based on TDMA, but the next generation will use a CDMA air interface.


Thanks to: http://home.san.rr.com/denbeste/cdmatdma.html

[Thanh]

Hi there!
Nice chunk of info....... respect! And thanks a lot!
I am not into CDMA (yet) as in my city the CDMA network is just new and yet no Nokia phones available (Shame!) but once they bring something like a 6685 which is a 6610 for CDMA (and doesn't exist yet!) i will switch systems for sure.
Reason: Data speed!
Situation here today: GSM via GPRS offers 43.1 kb/s (advertised), a friend of mine uses it and gets, when lucky, 30 kb/s with his laptop. Standard dialup goes at a stable rate of 9.6 kb/s even the phone would allow 14.4, the network doesn't.
Now Hutch's CDMA 2000-1x advertises "up to 153 kb/s" and that has been tested by a Bangkok Post reporter (BP is our local english language newspaper) with a "Hutch Air Card", kind of a PCMCIA modem which works wireless, using Hutch's CDMA network. The guy could get a LOWEST data rate of 135 kb/s and the highest he got was, well, 153 kb/s! Consider this:
In Bangkok, the average user got dialup, promising 56 kb/s and the lucky guy (me included, at home!) get's 52 kb/s out of that, if there are REALLY good lines in the building. Most of Bangkokians have to ticker along with anywhere between 10 kb/s and 40 kb/s..... the lines here are at some places really crap, don't blame the ISP's alone
Now in my office, a bit outside Bangkok, on a good day and not raining i get 43 kb/s and when it rains, that drops to 18-21 kb/s..... terrible.
A "Broadband" connection available from some providers is in fact a standard ISDN which gives 128 kb/s and cost a HELL of a lot of money, plus you pay for the amount of data transferred. Also available is a cable connection with 256 kb/s but only in areas that are wired to the UBC cable television network, and that are not too many areas. Sure you get leased lines and satellite connections, but you got to be millionaire to afford that sort of stuff here.
What i want to point out is, that using a CDMA phone as a modem on Hutch's network gives you data speeds better than the "ordinary" broadband! And i am sure that many people use their new Hutch phones actually as modems..... as it is yet the main advantage of that network here, they yet can't send MMS or SMS to GSM networks...... but that will come, too, i hope.
One question: Is CDMA facing the same problems as ADSL where you get good transfer rates, but when more users come onto that same base station, the speed get's slower and slower?
Please enlighten me..... i'm interested in CDMA
Thanks in advance....
your Thanh

[Nanda]

Well the issue of data transmission in CDMA really deserves a separate thread in the relevant section, but since this is a FAQ build-up thread I think I can answer you here and use the reply in my complete FAQ later.

As explained before, every CDMA site operates on the very same frequency by splashing randomly encoded bit streams across a channel. Very clever stuff, but it has its limitations.

A problem that may occur is channel pollution. Channel pollution occurs basically when you have too many CDMA sites close together, for example in city centres or other densely populated areas. When you have too many sites and no-one is decisevely "dominant" over the others, this may result in a decrease in the bit rate that a phone is able to pick up correctly (that is, without too many bit errors). This results in a loss of call quality, or data transfer rate, even when the phone is showing a very strong signal.

Another form of pollution and one that more closely relates to the ISDN problem you mentioned is signal pollution. It occurs when there are too many users in a channel - again a situation that'd most commonly happen in a densely populated area, but in this case where there's an insufficient number of CDMA sites to handle the traffic.

In a cellular system, the various forms of signal degradation go up with the number of users connected to the system in a particular area.

To compensate this, a GSM system could employ 'frequency hopping', that is, it could make each user change the transmitting freqency slightly to unclutter a channel. Or it could simply reduce the transmission duty cycle (since it's a TDMA-based technology and therefore bits are transmitted in an intermittent fashion), where the network would handle shorter data bursts. Both methods would decrease call quality/transmission rates to maintain connection.

In a CDMA system, however, everything operates in the same frequency and transmits at the same time. So, to compensate for an increased number of users in a channel, the systems tells each phone to transmit at slightly higher power. Handsets can rapidly reach their maximum transmission power, however, and when that happens each addtional user that connects to the system would decrease the useable channel.

So you end up in a situation where signal bars in you phone decrease raidly with the increase in the number of users in that area. That's why CDMA users sometimes get very different signal strenght readings in a same location in different times of the day.

And since signal pickup degrades, so does call quality, or data transfer rates in your case. Sorta like the ISDN issue you mentioned.

I've seen both types of signal degradation and they're just as bad as the problems any GSM or TDMA network faces.

So CDMA 1x operators advertise higher data transfer rates. But due to the problems I explained above, and due to the fact that they're most likely to happen exactly where you'd probably use your phone (hardly anyone would use wap in rural areas, right?), in the end the actual CDMA rates are equivalent to GSM/GPRS ones most of the time.

Hope this wasn't confusing!

Cheers,

[Nanda]

The working principle that BOEBOE very rightly explained above is true for all CDMA systems, BUT there's a catch that he didn't mention and that stops anyone saying that either CDMA- or TDMA-based 2G and 2.5G technologies are superior.

CDMA performance in the terms BOEBOE explained depend on the width of the channel being used to transmit data.

So it is true that in a WIDE frequency channel, that is, in a situation where a high bandwidth is available, CDMA should prove to be the more efficient air interface type.

Hence the 3G system of choice in most countries being UMTS, or W-CDMA. W-CDMA is WIDEBAND CDMA.

Now, in 2G and 2.5G networks such as the current CDMA IS-95, CDMA2000, CDMA RTT 1x or whatever you name it (it's all the same thing really) networks we have around the world, we're talking narrowband.

And narrow-band CDMA is just as efficient as any GSM network, not more not less. In fact, in terms of voice call quality GSM does have the edge because it uses a much better voice CODEC.

So I repeat, in 2G and 2.5G terms it is TOTALLY INCORRECT to say that either TDMA-based technologies (GSM, IS-136, iDEN, PDC) or CDMA-based technologies (IS-95, RTT 1x) are superior.

And I know this for a fact, I have used three systems (GSM, CDMA, TDMA IS-136) and while IS-136 may lag behind a little in data transfer (beign strictly 2G while the others are now 2.5G), these technologies are equivalent.

[Nanda]

BTW, let's not make this thread a CDMA x GSM debate.

This has been debated all over the place, and I'm a veteran in this battle.

In the end, I like both and buy whichever offers me the cutest Nokia at the cheapest price!

[Thanh]

Hello again
I agree, don't let this become a kind of "second CDMA section"....... but i thank you so much for this detailed information, which i printed out and keep
If only Hutch had some cute Nokia's i would go for it....... but let's wait and see, they'll come, i'm sure
Kind regards...
Thanh

[Thanh]

@Nanda

Hello again
I could not resist to post this.... i'm using a 6610, i am sure you know how it looks.....
Now, i FOUND a phone that's gonna be mine if Hutch should bring it here in thailand... the Nokia 6585!!
Have a look.........

http://www.wapzon.com/web/devicedeta...id=1641&Bid=10

What do you think? 6610 as CMA 2000-1x and even enhanced features over the "ordinary" 6610
I WANT IT !!!!
Ummm it also runs AMPS 800 - does that mean i could even use it on D-TAC's "new 800" analog system, which IS AMPS 800 and dirt cheap in terms of airtime???

Kind regards....
your Thanh

[Nanda]

Sounds great Thanh, but back when the 3586 was about to be released I saw photos of 3510i/3530s in various websites, being described as the 3586 for CDMA.

However the 3586 turned out to be quite different from its GSM/TDMA counterparts (4-way directional key for instance).

So I think this website may be publishing a photo of the 6610 and calling it 6685. Brazil is, along with the USA, the first country to get the newer CDMA Nokias (we're their second-largest CDMA market as Nokia doesn't sell CDMA phones in China), and I have yet to hear from Nokia Brasil, Nokia USA or anybody else about a 6685.

But don't worry, whenever there's a new GSM model a CDMA version of it follows a few months later. Not necessarily identical (that hasn't happened since the 61XX series) but very similar.

Cheers (and back to FAQ!),

[dr.bizar]

BTW - just a little search tip:

If you want to find *whatever* on nokiafree use google.

just search for: nokiafree [your search term]

Works great

[Thanh]

Hi there :)
After a full day of reading forums and websites regarding ONE topic, i opted to post this into the FAQ, i think it should be here.
Are YOU one of those people who always complain about Nokia giving you "only" 4096 colours on the screen, or "only" 4-channel polyphony in the ringtones? Keep reading this post!

I am no geek, i just use the materials given to me, and since years i am happy with Nokia's cellphones, ALL of them i yet used to have were just great phones.
Nowadays i am using a 6610 and i am looking forward to the arrival of the 6585, which is the exact same phone in CDMA version. I love the 4096 colour screen at 128x128, and i love the 4-channel poly tones i have.

What do YOU do with your phone, that you say "the screen sucks, Samsung has 65k colours"? It is the way YOU put the wallpapers in the phone, and, more important, THE SOURCE, the picture itself!
You can have a wallpaper, done by yourself, from a picture taken with a gigapixel camera and cropped/resized/compressed to make a nice, 1kb wallpaper. It "sucks" and you blame it on the phone's screen.
Here is a tiny guide how to USE the phone's 4096 colours:

Pick a photo from your computer, preferrably one with good contrast and lighting.
Open it with a photo editing software, i recommend the (free!) iPhoto Plus, which comes bundled with a wide range of printers and scanners. This program is dead-easy to use.
There, crop the picture to make it a perfect square. Check the pixels, if you cropped it to 986x986 it is fine.
The brighten it up, if needed. Set lighting and contrast so that you have a REALLY good looking picture. Do this BEFORE the resizing process!
Then save it as a jpg file. Important, save it NOW as jpg, not bmp and later need to convert - that step costs quality!
Now you got a way too big, but else perfect picture.
Open this with PhotoShop 6.0 (BEST program for that purpose!) and resize it. Use the "resize for online purposes" option as it gives you a comfortable way to get it exactly the way you need it, here 128x128 pixels. If you use the "traditional" way, remember, each step costs quality.
Now you will have a 128x128 pixel square which still has all the information and colours in it. When you now go to "save as", select once again jpg for the format, and save it under no lower than "10" for the quality. You will get a file with a size around 20-25 kilobytes, which looks HUGE but, do you really NEED 752 wallpapers to change them twice an hour?
The just created picture upload to a website account, preferrably a Tripod one, as they allow remote downloading or "hot linking". Do NOT upload the picture via data cable and Nokia's software, because THAT is compressing the image and creating that "shitty Nokia screen" look.
Once you got the file in a web account, fire up your WAP browser and download your own picture from that account, just WAP to he file directly, bypassing any webpage. Tripod allows this practise! Where Fortune City, for example, does NOT allow it.
The phone will download the picture, which may take a few seconds, and then you can save it into the gallery and from there set as a wallpaper. As the file itself is of a high quality, so will it display on the Nokia's screen! And you won't anymore think "only 4096 colours" because you don't f***ing see any difference!! Believe me on this, i am running a small wallpaper service online (don't wanna spam here) and i create such pictures of the "better kind" and people keep asking me "why do they look so much better than when i upload via cable?"
Well, that was the way to do it.

Ringtones.
You got a four-channel polyphony, which means that the phone at any given time can play four different instruments or notes simultaneous. It does NOT mean that you have only four instruments available! There are dozens of instruments available to be reproduced, but as said, only four simultaneusly.
Now, the most important on a RINGtone is, beside it's melody, the AUDIBILITY, that means, volume. Again, people argue (and yet again, with Samsung!) that Samsung's have 40 channels. Yes, they do, and they sound great, BUT......... put the phone in your pocket and sit in a crowded bus. You just can't hear it when it rings! The beautifull sound of those 40 channels doesn't reach your ear.
Now, Nokia presents you with four channels, that means, you can easily create your own tones, or modify existing ones, using midi software. You don't have to jiggle with 40 or whatever channels, just four. See this side of the coin, too. AND you can make them LOUD! Yes sir, that works. I have a collection of Nokia poly tones, of which some are inaudible (too soft) and others almost blast my ears. I have four channels, but one of the four makes it an actual RINGtone, the others make it sound nicer than the buzzer tones. A polytone, made of only percussion instruments, is hardly a RINGtone, right?

Peoples, think about those facts before you continue bashing Nokia's screens and tones, they are in fact excellent if you know how to use them correctly. I give an off-topic example here, to do with cars... but a nice axample!
You know the car "Trabant 601"? Most likely not. It was made in the former GDR, eastern germany before the re-union in 1989. This "car" had a 600 cc two-cycle (!!!) engine with 26 (!!!) horsepowers, yes, still in 1989! It's body was made of plastic (!!!!!) and there wasn't even a petrol-meter on board, when the tank was empty instead you had to turn the fuel cock (!!!) to "reserve", similar to a motorbike. The tank was located above the engine IN the engine compartment, so you had to open the hood to refill the vehicle. This car was the running joke in germany after the wall came down (i am from germany, i know this well!) and nobody took it serious.
Yet there are people who did world-trips aboard a Trabi (the nickname of this car) with not much problems, Trabi's have travelled the Route 66 and have been in Alaska. Some peple STILL drive them, and this car can reach historic ages. I know a guy who drives a Trabi made 1960 - every day! Those people know how to get the best ut of limited resources, and instead of whining and complaining they just use it fr what it was made. The Trabi, after all, is a car, meant to be driven from A to B, and that is exactly what it does. So are Nokia's "poor" screens and tones, they are meant to be used as screens and tones (Really? oh.....) and they do that in an excellent way.

Kindest regards.....
your Thanh

[Abe]

Hi.

First of all:
@Nanda
If that's your picture then i must say that u are preety and very sympatic Nokia Chick

@All
"Some more questions:

"1.How can I put games on my mobile?
(MobiMB+Cable, WAP etc)"
--- MobiMB,Pcsuite.....mobimb is best.Drag and drop files and thats it.
U need to ahe jad and jar files in same directory on pc,and u take JAD file and drop it into phone browser through mobimb.

"2.What's an MCU, PPM and EEPROM?
MCU=Flash
PPM=Lang
EEPROM=EEPROM "
-----MCU is a base software where all settings for mobile are installed.Like win for pc.
-----PPM is only a language pack+tones (t9 also)
-----EEPROM is a security part of flash where IMEI,NETWORK SETTINGS,LOCKS etc are stored.
"3.What is dejan format, wintesla format?"
-----Dejan format is a decrypted WINTESLA flash that dejan did for his easy read/write software for dct3. There are 2 versions of dejan format,both are *.fls but difference is that one is used for his BOX 1.05 and other is used for standard flasher 1.00 that we all use.Wintesla is original nokia firmware format.
Dejan extensions are *.fls and wintesla are *.xx0 for mcu and *.xxy for ppm pack where Y is ppm pack (A,B,C,D,E.....) and XX are last 2 digits of software version ex. nhl4_494.180 (NHL4-7210,4.18 version of software,0-mcu),nhl4_494.18d(NHL4-7210,4.18 vesrion of soft,d-ppm pack)

BR

[Alinus]

MR. Abe, nice to see u active here !

Is good when skilled people hang aroundd

[Abe]

MR Alinus.
Thank you.
Well, nfree is my first forum,and me and ManOn were very close when it started to be BIG forum.I dont know if he is still the admin here. My good days were spent here,and we did a lots of thing here before 1 year and more.
Keep a nice work here.
BR
ABE

[Nanda]

Cheers Abe!

@Thanh

Thanks for the Wallpaper tips, they did the trick for my 3520!

[Thanh]

Dear Nanda
I am very happy that it worked out for you, too..... I was just in the mood writing that "story" because while i could not access this forum, i have surfed the net and seen many websites, customer reviews and even forums where people kept bashing Nokia, saying that the screens are soooooooo poor or the ringtones suck etc etc etc and in the end they all came up with "better get that korean flip phone". It reminded me spontaneusly of the poor old "Trabi" which nobody really liked except people that used it for 30 and more years, because in the eastern part of germany it was sort of the only available car!
I wish now i had a 35xx myself, because i have seen them in the shops here, 3510i and 3530 that is, (no CDMA/TDMA versions available as yet) and their pre-set wallpapers are REALLY crappy...... it is sort of discouraging for people who want a colour screen phone and then got to see THIS, the original pictures look partly like 16-colour only...... That goes as well for the 6610 and 6100 (when i first tested a 6100, i went on to tell my boyfriend not to buy it because the screen is sooo bad!). Well, i got cought myself by judging it from the first view.... and ONLY after i got my very first wallpaper into my own 6610, i learned that those screens are in fact superb.
Now, the 35xx suffers a bit from it's low resolution, in which the screen itself is NOT small.,... that makes the actual pixels bigger, and when you look close, you see very clear the single pixels. Yet, with a nice quality wallpaper, that just doesn't matter anymore......

@all, give the screens a try, get a wallpaper in a web account (a GOOD QUALITY picture!) and when you go and test a phone before buying it (the seller has to allow that!) put in your WAP-enabled SIM card and download the picture..... and then see what i mean. Have two versions of such a picture, say 96x65 for the 35xx models, and a 128x128 for the series-40 phones. Simply name them test30.jpg and test40.jpg........ i think i am going to create two such pictures and post them right here, so you can use those.... i will look for a good rainbow or sphere picture which shows a lot of colours

Kindest regards.....
your Thanh

[Alinus]

@Abe

Yes, of course Mr. Man0n is still our Admin....