[MDA, XDA, 1010 General] kirkwood:
Cingular in South Florida

Hey there, just adding in my two cents.

I too bought the sx56 Wallaby from an Ebay auction and even though they said it was guaranteed, I am having the same "no signal" at all. Sometimes it says T-Mobile is available, other times it is only AT&T but neither will authenticate me, etc.

Here are the steps I have confirmed so far:

1. As of March 2004 Cingular bought AT&T and now is consolidating nationwide to use the 850/1900 band exclusively. So about that time there was a huge change from the 900Mhz to the 850Mhz with Cingular. Ebay auctions now have dropped at least $50.00 for the device since the change, and they will probably go down now steadily until we can get them for $99. The bigboy on the block is the quad band Treo 600. The only hope here is that these jerks selling the stuff get on the ball and start using the correct unlocked ROM for the device before they sell it to you. Then the price may stabilize or go back up if there is good success.

http://cellphoneforums.net/archive/topic/120651.html

The 900Mhz band is lost, and there are lawsuits and disgust everywhere.

2. http://www.cingular.com/download/GPRS_coverage_410.pdf will give you an idea if you should pursue getting your SX56 to work where you live. South Florida should have good coverage, although the 850Mhz band is preferred by Cingular because they can install less towers and still achieve better coverage and penetration into buildings. In other words, they are not going to go and install 4-8 towers for 1900Mhz when they only need to install ONE at 850Mhz and get the same or better coverage. It is a problem of physics and radio waves, just like shortwave is better than AM radio, which is better than FM radio when talking about how strong and far the signal goes with the same wattage. In other words, your 1900Mhz coverage will not DECREASE with time, but NOR will it INCREASE. What exists now is deemed "sufficient".

3. If you are in the "red zone" on the map, then you should get 1900Mhz coverage, and you can save your 900Mhz coverage for when you travel to the rest of the world such as Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia. That is the "up side" of owning a SX56 as you'll have great reception there, and so it is like owning "half" of a quad band phone, one band in each stack. As far as I know the chip inside the SX56 is what prevents it from tuning to the 850Mhz band, so if an ultra techhie could figure out what this chip was and source it out to a quad band chip, we could all send in our PDAs to have surgery, although there would have to be a strong group of people writing the radio portion of the ROM to use all four bands in the phone software, etc. NOT LIKELY.

4. You have to make sure that the Ebay company that you bought from has not just used an old ROM image that "yes" it is unlocked, but there have been several versions released since. When I signed up to this forum I found my ROM version but not the RADIO version, the lowest here was 6.14 and I have v 6.12. This is going to be the first problem to solve. Also, even though on the back of the device the sticker says "PW10B1" as the model number, and it does not look like it was removed, as well the case is branded with the AT&T wireless logo, the SOFTWARE is telling me that the IMEI is correct for the back of the device, but the Model number is a "PW10A1" which I am sure is not a glitch. Most likely this ROM is a EUROPEAN image that needs to be replaced, even though it says ENG, it may be from Great Britan, etc. As well the Radio Stack is TOTALLY outdated, as there are versions now all the way up to 30.02!!!! So version 6.12 is BAD! and PW10A1 is BAD! You and I both are going to have to be very careful to find an acceptable ROM with a good radio stack, get your ActiveSYNC working FIRST and save a copy of your ROM somewhere, PERHAPS buy a Secure Digital or MMC card for the SX56 specifically (at least 16MB to hold just the ROM image, 32 is better, I have a 256mb to use on mine) and VERY CAREFULLY, with ALOT OF TIME, flash the new ROM image with the radio stack and try it all over again, checking your various settings on the device. The SD/MMC card is REQUIRED if you are moving up to PPC2003 or you can try your luck with the cradle if you are sticking with PPC2002.

5. NOW ON TO CINGULAR: The tech support there is not very helpful at all and especially about these devices. Call in and go to customer support, tell them that you changed phones, that your phone is NOT a gate phone, as it does not have a ESN number AT ALL. You will have to verify that they have your CORRECT IMEI number (located on the back as well as needs to be matched in the software or another 'oops') and the correct number of your SIM card (in my case I lost my whole phone so had to purchase another SIM to begin with to install in the PDA for $25)

6. So, to summarize, you have a long way to go as I do to see what is going to work here in South Florida, but keep your chin up and get on the ball now because each day that goes by, I have been treating my cingular account as a beeper/voice mail only and just calling in and checking it every few hours since I don't have a normal phone.

I will return and post the ROM that I get to work with Radio Stack when I locate the one that has people getting the Cingular signals on it, etc. My first lead is this one, the SPECIAL EDITION:

http://www.mtekk.com.au/browse/page560.html

I will let you know how it goes!