Orange - roaming in the USA problem
 

This trip my PAYG Blackberry will not pickup emails nor can I access the internet. Orange have been hopeless, 2 different people, 4 different reasons given that are too stupid to even bother typing in, but I think the problem is that it does not want to connect to GSM (I think it usually connects using this) and shows "edge" as the connection. It connects ot ATT and T-Mobile and is the same on both.

Has anyone else that is roaming with Orange in the USA noticed this recently? It was fine a month ago. Phone calls and texts are fine.

Is it showing edge or EDGE? edge means it has a data connection, but it can't contact the Blackberry servers - which would be an Orange problem.

Can you surf the web? If you can't get EDGE on either T-Mobile or AT&T, you'll need to prod Orange again, as it may be that there is something wrong on their end.

It is showing "edge" (lowercase) and, as you say, it seems it is Orange's problem. Thanks.

Take the battery out for two seconds and force a complete reboot. If you haven't done this, it may help. My wife had that problem last week.

The strange thing is that her phone pulled a Blackberry signal over wifi, but not the cell net. I had the exact same problem on my BB roaming in Northern California last week.

Thanks for the suggestion, I had tried it and to no avail. I am somewhat encouraged that I am not alone ! I am still effin annoyed with Orange and their absolute lack of any form of intelligent response. It seems to me that somebody somewhere has flipped a bit off for roaming. I am in Nor Cal too as it happens.

Which BB model are you using? It's possible your handset doesn't have a radio capable of accessing the US 3G bands (I know TMobile is on 1700MHz; I think AT&T's are on the standard 850/1900MHz bands...)

He wouldn't get the"edge" message if he wasn't receiving a US signal.

And it has worked fine on past trips, last one only about 4 weeks ago.

Can you use/do you have wifi on your Berry and can you use this instead to get mails when near a hotspot? I realise that this isn't perfect by any means but at least you would get something. I agree Orange are a bit cr@p when it comes to customer service/reception in my locations in the UK.

I never suggested the OP wasn't receiving a US signal. But his BB may be looking for 3G on a non-North American band. That's why I was asking about the model, so I could pull up information about the radios & frequency specs.

It's a Curve, it has worked successfully here until this trip and unless the frequencies over here have changed recently (since March) then I don't think that is the issue. When I power the phone up the phone tries to switch to GSM first then switches to "edge". I have not had a chance to try the wifi connection as yet. Perhaps the phone is broken but I know of no way to test it. As others seem to be having the same problem I think that it is Orange's problem and I am unable to get through to anyone that can go off script to try and help.

Orange really are absolutely useless in "helping" it is not funny any longer. I am still waiting for their promised call within 4 hours on Monday. No tosser cares in that company. For the good it will do I shall complain to them when I get back.

We have that too. I went with a FT friend to BCN recently. He rented an international phone from Verizon. He was on the phone with them all weekend on a landline. We could see that it was connecting to a local carrier but wouldn't allow calls. Finally, late the last day, they admitted that no one on their end had ever checked whether the SIM card was activated.

Jumped through a few more hoops and once I had got past the automaton that kept repeating "we cannot guarantee service anywhere but in the UK" and through to the Blackberry support team, they informed me (after sending a SIM update) that there has been a problem with the Blackberry PAYG internet server/service both in the UK last week (I don't recall a problem perhaps I was lucky) and it is also affecting my ability to get email here. I am not sure I believe it but it is going nowhere fast and I am done with talking to them. I know nothing about how it selects networks but the fact that a server is down does not seem to be a plausible reason as to why I cannot connect to GSM and just "edge".

Frequency is not an issue - it shows edge, which means it has a data connection, just not one that lets him connect to the Orange Blackberry servers.

I hate to say it, but I might call someone like cellhire and rent a US Blackberry SIM for the rest of your trip. I don't know of any prepaid US Blackberry plans on GSM. Alternatively, grab a free GMail account, download the GMail client for BB, and buy a US prepaid data SIM from ATT and use the Blackberry as a non-Blackberry PDA.