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Switching from 3g to 2g possible?

S

stihl29

Lurker
When looking at the specs for my phone, it says you can get more talk time from 2g, how do i switch back and forth ?
 
You have to enter the service menu to do it. Either download SamServMode from the marketplace, or enter *#*#197328640#*#* into the dailer. From there, to into the debug menu, phone control, UE state control and you can force the phone into 2G or 3G from there.
 
I tested this out and I decided I may not use it. Before you change the UE State for the first time, check check out what your CURRENT CONNECT STATE is. If you haven't changed your UE State since your last reboot before you access this the state will be "RAT is DUAL".

DUAL as is Dual mode (3G or GSM, whichever works in the area you are in). When you change RAT to GSM it limits your phone to GSM. That's what you want it to do. But, when you change RAT to WCDMA, it doesn't go back to Dual mode, it switches to 3G only. So if you lose your 3G connection you won't be able to connect to available GSM signals in the area unless you reboot your phone.
 
I don't know if anyone else who has done this has noticed or not, but sadly, this method doesn't do a particularly good job of forcing anything at all really. This method behaves more like a preference rather than a rule. For example, if you're in a weak 3G are but strong 2G area, then you might want your phone to be forced to use the weaker 3G signal for data vs the stronger 2G. However, using the UE state control, you're really only setting a preference. In other words, where with other phones, if you have them set to exclusively use one type of signal vs another, if that type of signal runs out, then you effectively have no signal, even if the other type of signal is strong. Not the case with our Captivates. If you set your UE state to 2G only, and say you have no 2G signal, but some 3G, then the phone will still switch over to 3G.

Basically, from what I have seen, the UE state control only changes the phone's preference for one type of signal vs the other, but it's not exclusive; if you have 0 signal of one type, but still a little bit of the other type, it'll still fail back to the non-preferred signal type as long as there's at least something there.
 
mnemonicj said:
I tested this out and I decided I may not use it. Before you change the UE State for the first time, check check out what your CURRENT CONNECT STATE is. If you haven't changed your UE State since your last reboot before you access this the state will be "RAT is DUAL".

DUAL as is Dual mode (3G or GSM, whichever works in the area you are in). When you change RAT to GSM it limits your phone to GSM. That's what you want it to do. But, when you change RAT to WCDMA, it doesn't go back to Dual mode, it switches to 3G only. So if you lose your 3G connection you won't be able to connect to available GSM signals in the area unless you reboot your phone.
Click to expand...

Turning Airplane mode on and off will reset it to Dual. No reboot necessary.
 
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