[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III General] FactionOne:
You see... This is why I love XDA-dev... There's all manner of interesting stuff on here...

I've been having similar strange issues with data (particularly HSDPA) on my Kaiser lately...

It's doubly-intersting there are separate antennae for GSM and UMTS. That would fit my situation perfectly...

My Kaiser had worked perfectly (albeit slowly) from day one for between six and nine months into ownership. Recently I noticed ActiveSync wasn't hitting my exchange server. Initially I thought it was just a network 'glitch' and that a Soft Reset and/or a few more miles into my drive would get things playing-ball again. Unfortunately neither worked.

The problem seemed to be that the handset would acknowledge the availability of HSDPA, try to connect, fail, the signal would then drop off completely. Next the phone found signal again, found GPRS, then HSDPA and would repeat the process. It didn't seem to even attempt to use a GPRS connection instead. I tried to connect in various locations thinking that there was something odd happening with my local cell site. Results were much the same.

The following day I was still having the same problem, and after ActiveSync picking up email once (in an area where the phone could ONLY find GPRS) but not again for some time, I called T-Mobile UK's customer support folks thinking that there might be an issue with their data backbone.

The first two people I spoke to were drones - they took the post codes I was in when having problems, punched it into their rather pessimistic coverage database (funny how the sales department one is quite optimistic) and explained that I shouldn't expect HSDPA in these locations. COMPLETELY sidestepping the points that a) I OFTEN spent time in these locations with the Kaiser tethered to my laptop enjoying decent HSDPA, and b) the handset was pretty convinced it was available, but wouldn't connect - nor was it failing to find HSDPA and 'falling back' to GPRS.

The second of the drones was slightly better in so much as she suggested I switch network to GSM (from Auto) in the phone settings. ActiveSync was then able to connect; I was quite impressed with a bit of progress being made, but that was quickly replaced with disappointment as she then continued to say that I should always switch it manually in areas where HSDPA wasn't available/working. I protested somewhat that this was a new thing, as the phone had previously always connected via the best available medium; this fell on deaf ears and the call came to an end not really any closer to a solution.

It was on the third call to T-Mobile that I happened to get through to a chap who is possibly the best customer-facing tech guy they've got. He instantly identified that I'm a geek and was happy to talk to me in those terms.

(I'm not sure whether I should post his name here or not, if he makes too many customers happy I'm sure he'll be promoted away from his position where he's potentially a great help to us!)

Again he took the post codes I'd been in when experiencing problems, but instead of palming me off with the signal coverage nonsense, listened to my description of what was safe to describe as 'normal' service in these locations, and how the current situation differed. He then started to examine the historical HSDPA Retainability figures for each mast relevant to the post codes I'd given him.

He explained that T-Mobile aim at a minimum of 98% HSDPA Retainability from their masts, if the figures for a given day drop below that level they expect connectivity issues and will normally send a field tech to investigate/repair. Most of the masts in my area had been performing in the low to mid 80s over the past few days. It started to sound like the problem was becoming apparent...

So, I was politely asked to try to log some details (signal strength, location (post code), time (as close to exact minute as possible), and any unusual behaviour) on five occassions, at least an hour apart over a 24 hour period so that he could escalate the issue with the back office team. I agreed to do this (and he was quite surprised at that - but the way I see it I might as well try to help fix the thing as much as possible, being obstructive and giving it the 'No! I pay you for it to work!" rant wouldn't help anyone).

Anyway, I started to make quite a detailed log of issues I was having; but in doing this I dug out one of my old Hermes and each time the Kaiser failed, the Hermes succeeded. Obviously it doesn't take herr Einstein to figure out this was now looking like a handset fault. I tried a Hard Reset on the Kaiser (just in case - I hadn't installed anything for months anyway), but that failed, so it's looking pretty concrete its a hardware issue.

I guess something's happened to the UMTS antenna in the handset, we'll find out in due course as it's about to go in for repair...

Regards,

Rob.