Originally Posted by PETEFLYS
I purchased two unlocked nokia phones in Sin and have been trying to use them in the US with a Cingular plan. The problem is the phones do not get a signal in most areas and seem to be having a trouble finding a strong signal.
I am also trying to get the web broser to work but it is set up for SIN use.
Is there anyway to get the phones to work better?
Do the phones you purchased support 850MHz? Many phones do not. If it does not, you will experience severe problems on Cingular as you'll be limited to the 1900MHz towers. Since you do not mention this, or whether the phones are triband/quadband/whatever, I am guessing this is your problem.
Most of the world (e.g. almost everywhere but the US, Canada, and some other places in the Americas) uses 900MHz and 1800MHz for GSM and 2100MHz for 3G UMTS. In the US, 850MHz and 1900MHz are used for GSM, and 1900MHz is also used for UMTS (making most foreign-purchased "3G" phones useless for Cingular HSDPA service.) Cingular uses both 850MHz and 1900MHz, with 1900MHz also carrying UMTS. T-Mobile uses only 1900MHz and does not support UMTS yet (there are VERY limited areas where they have 850MHz roaming partners.)
There are many threads on this. Use the search function for more information.