Handset network mode settings (GSM or 3G)

Handset network mode settings (GSM or 3G) SearchSearch
Author Message
Nilesh Chand
New member
Username: Nilesh

Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 07:31 pm:   

hi,

We have been using NowSMS to send APN settings via OTA and OMA.

Can you also send handset network mode (GSM or 3G) settings using NowSMS so that the handset will be automatically configured to either GSM or 3G mode ?

regards
nilesh
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 1868
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 04:03 pm:   

Hi Nilesh,

That is not possible using the OMA Provisioning Content settings. (There is a "BEARER" attribute that has a possible value of "GSM-GPRS", however this is a generic value that indicates any GSM/3GPP packet data bearer, not just 2G GSM.)

To the best of my knowledge, the only way of sending this type of settings to a device is via SIM card provisioning.

Unfortunately, this is outside the scope of my knowledge ... but this is how I think it works.

On the SIM there is a file Home PLMN selector with access technology. This is a list of home networks and corresponding technology (GSM/UMTS). I believe this could be set to prefer GSM over UMTS when the handset is using automatic operator selection.

(There are other files on the SIM that have similar lists of preferred networks which operators frequently use to specify preferred roaming partners in other countries.)

To update these files, you'd need to send out SIM update messages. That process is very different from OMA provisioning content messages. And unfortunately I don't have any pointers for you. Assuming that you are a mobile operator, I'd suggest you'd investigate this further with whatever product or vendor you use for managing your SIM updates.

All that said ... I'm curious what you're trying to accomplish.

I'm guessing that you're a mobile operator, and that you want to have different tariffs for 3G data access vs. 2.5G data access.

It would be better to find a way to control this at the network level so that you didn't have users manually connecting to the 3G network.

We did recently add the ability in our WAP gateway to forward a user attribute to indicate whether the user is connected via 3G or 2G (if the access server supports this). It might be interesting to extend this to implement some accounting callbacks in the WAP gateway to allow or disallow access. This way if a 2G subscriber connected with a 3G device, and they tried to browse the web, you could return an error message telling them that they are not subscribed to 3G data services, and that they either need to subscribe or configure their phone for 2G only.

I've gone off-topic a bit. These are just some thoughts/ideas. Unfortunately the original question about sending GSM or 3G settings out to the phone is rather complicated, and SIM provisioning is outside of the scope of what we can help you with.

--
Des
NowSMS Support
Nilesh Chand
New member
Username: Nilesh

Post Number: 2
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 10:49 pm:   

hi Des,

Thanks for your response.

Basically what we want to achieve is to move the users who have 3G enabled handsets to use the 3G network rather than 2G network. The reason being we see congestion on our 2G network and these customers are also contributing to this.

Also, i will discuss with the sim card vendor on the option you have advised.

regards
nilesh