Phone can't make or receive calls.

[DarwinW]

Hi, recently I've been having a problem with my phone (Newman K18), it can't make or receive calls.
When I try to ring someone it will hang up straight away.
When someone calls me they will just hear a beeping sound.
Texts and mobile data still work fine.

Things I've tried:
- Restarting my phone many times
- Re-inserting the SIM
- Looking through all available settings.
- Factory resetting the phone

I called my carrier (Three UK) and they weren't any help.

In order to diagnose whether my phone was faulty or the SIM, me and my friend swapped SIM cards.
- With his SIM card in my phone everything worked fine (So my phone is not faulty)
- With my SIM in his phone everything worked fine too (So the SIM is fine)

So I am absolutely lost as for what to do, tried a lot of googling and not found any way to fix it.

Any help would be appreciated; Thanks.

Darwin.

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section)

 

[Rukbat]

What I qould do depends on whether the phone is still under warranty.

If it is, bring it to the carrier and ask that they fix the situation or replace the phone.

If it's not, I'd research further. (Since your diagnosis determined that neither the phone, the SIM nor the account setup is at fault, unless you beleve in he supernatural either there's no problem or your diagnosis is faulty.)

 

[DarwinW]

My phone is Chinese and I bought it sim free from the internet. It is under warranty, I doubt replacing the phone would really help.
My carrier just suggested I get a new phone :L

I should mention that I did manage to make a call on my phone but it happened when my phone was roaming; so connected to a different network temporarily, seems like Three's fault eh? But as I said they didn't seem to know what was wrong.

 

[John Bean]

When you swapped SIM with a friend were they both the same network? If not you need to try a different 3 SIM to isolate the source of your problem. If you don't have one pop into a 3 shop and ask them to try a test SIM in your phone. Don't tell them you're already a 3 customer, just that you want to see if your phone is compatible with their network.

They're usually quite helpful with this sort of thing when you're a potential new customer.

 

[Hadron]

3 only have 3G coverage in the UK (no 2G), so if there's a compatibility problem they are the network most likely to suffer as there are fewer options. But texts and data are working, so it's probably not that simple. Do you know what bands the handset you have bought supports (from a Web search it seems there are different versions)?

I'm not surprised 3 couldn't suggest anything, as that handset will never have been tested by them.

 

[mikedt]

I just checked the K18 there's differing info about them. It might be 3G, but probably China Mobile's "TD" flavour, which means no 3G outside of China.

Newman is one of those brands that usually sells through supermarkets in China, which usually means they might not be much good anyway.

 

[John Bean]

My experience with 3 is that a non-3G phone can't register with the 3 mobile network - a 3 SIM simply doesn't work in 2G phones - which isn't what's happening here. According to the OP it can not only access the network but mobile data and SMS work (so it's must be a 3G phone) but no voice calls work.

All very odd.

 

[mikedt]

My experience with 3 is that a non-3G phone can't register with the 3 mobile network - a 3 SIM simply doesn't work in 2G phones - which isn't what's happening here. According to the OP it can not only access the network but mobile data and SMS work (so it's must be a 3G phone) but no voice calls work.

All very odd.

Yeh, and the OP has a Chinese phone that is completely unfamiliar in the UK.

Just been looking again at Newman's site(in Chinese).
??????_???_??_??????

It appears to be a dual-mode, dual-SIM. One SIM position is TD-SCDMA for China Mobile, and the other SIM looks like regular 3G WCDMA for China Unicom, which should work in the UK on 3.

@DarwinW(OP), have you tried swapping the SIM positions, SIM1 to SIM2 or vice versa?

 

[DarwinW]

Hi, everyone, thanks for the replies, I'm pretty sure my phone is 3g compatible, it says in the description from where I purchased it (reliable right? ) but also when using the internet it will often say "3g" above the signal bar when in 3g signal, so I suppose that's fairly reliable.

I don't know if I got this across in my original message but originally the SIM and phone worked together perfectly, for about 2 months I think.

The phone does have 2 SIM slots, one is for mini SIM and one for standard size SIM, I'm using the mini slot as my SIM card is that size, I have an adapter so I'll give it a go in the other one.

These are the bands listed on the site I bought it from (merimobiles)

3G Network:
WCDMA/HSPA: 2100MHz
2G Network:
GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Thanks everyone,
Darwin.

*edit* tried using the other SIM slot, exact same problem :/

 

[DarwinW]

When you swapped SIM with a friend were they both the same network? If not you need to try a different 3 SIM to isolate the source of your problem. If you don't have one pop into a 3 shop and ask them to try a test SIM in your phone. Don't tell them you're already a 3 customer, just that you want to see if your phone is compatible with their network.

They're usually quite helpful with this sort of thing when you're a potential new customer.

I tried this the other day, another Three SIM and it had exactly the same problem, guy in the shop had no idea what was wrong either.

Help?! Anyone...?

Thanks.