Filip Norrgård’s blog @ filips.net
Filip’s blog about mobile technology, tech itself and other stuff

What’s Up, UMTS?
27 April 2007 in Phones & Root | Comments enabled

After reading about problems with Sonera’s 3G (=UMTS) network in the Helsinki area, I’ve started getting problems with Saunalahti’s (aka. Elisa) UMTS network in Vaasa as of recently.
 It is quite strange this time around, though. People can’t really call me - all right, they can try to call me but they get all kinds of strange error messages or I ”never answer” to their call.
Well, I can’t answer if the phone ain’t ringing, can I?

The problem seems to be in the network and not the phone. It is the only reasonable conclusion I can make for when I today went into a store, where they apparently have a GSM repeater, the phone made the switch to GSM as UMTS probably doesn’t have great reception without a repeater there.
Quite soon after the phone went GSM, a phone call came in. Apparently, the caller had tried calling me several times but without any success until now.

I’ve seen this behavior before, but the other way around, I couldn’t call nor send SMS to anyone when I was connected to the UMTS network. Switching to GSM made it all work again. That was the result of a malfunctioning UTMS antenna on the network operator’s behalf, or so they told me.

So, I think I’ll be running on the GSM network for the moment and leave the trials and misbehaviours of the UMTS network alone for a few weeks time… (Yes, I’ve sent a report to Saunalahti, but they can take some time to answer to their emails. Large organization and all that makes email answering take some time, I think.)