GSM "Upgrade" Kills Treo 680, Centro Phone Calls

Posted By: Tim Carroll Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:42:46 AM

Treo 680 File under extremely-bloody-annoying. A recent software upgrade pushed out to Nokia-Siemens GSM base stations on T-Mobile in the US and O2 in the UK (and who knows how many other global carriers) has had a rather extreme side-effect on Palm's last two GSM Palm OS devices: voice calls are knocked for six and your end of the conversation will begin dropping out, with your caller noticing that your voice cuts in and out intermittently for a few seconds at a time, and sometimes going completely mute. Reports from frustrated users have cropped up all over the 'net, with some claiming the problem is not limited to Palm's phones.

Worse, however, is the corporate buck-passing that appears to be taking place. The carriers concerned are blaming Palm, whereas Palm has essentially EOL'd these phones and has no intention of releasing further ROM updates that may fix the issue. A post on the T-Mobile forums with information from a base station engineer explains the situation in much greater technical detail here. The long and short seems to be that a fix is not coming anytime soon from either party - leaving consumers, as usual, holding the sharp end of the stick.

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t-mobile

Gekko @ 11/15/2009 4:38:18 AM #

when's the last time t-mobile sold or supported a PalmOS device? Treo 600 in 2004? so what do you expect???

RE: t-mobile

SeldomVisitor @ 11/15/2009 6:33:09 AM #

Yeah, apparently Nokia knows the problem and has a "fix" but I'd bet bucks the fix will fix the current crop of T-Mobile phones (small number) that are having the problem, with non-T-Mobile phones left by the wayside.

RE: t-mobile

vorlon @ 11/15/2009 7:11:33 AM #

> when's the last time t-mobile sold or supported a PalmOS device? Treo 600 in
> 2004? so what do you expect???

Don't you think, that roaming customers, who might have bought a Centro this year, might be a bit annoyed? O2 is British, and also sold Centros recently.
So you think, that I should buy a new phone for the next time I visit the UK or US, just because both Palm and the operators don't give a crap about their former and/or roaming customers?

RE: t-mobile

krpage @ 11/15/2009 8:17:53 AM #

> O2 is British, and also sold Centros recently.

Um. The Palm UK store is STILL selling the Centro, unlocked, for use on all UK networks - it's a current product here:
http://www.palm.com/uk/en/products/phones/centro/index.html

More to the point, surely by default sooner or later the troublesome Nokia-Siemens update will be rolled out across all carriers using their hardware - this has the potential to affect all GSM PalmOS devices everywhere.

RE: t-mobile

Gekko @ 11/15/2009 11:43:06 AM #

time to buy a new phone.

Thanks for the news

dsaroff @ 11/15/2009 4:42:19 PM #

I read this today, Sunday, as I was waiting to fly to England. So, I called my wife to let her know and instruct her to call my work mobile.

I phoned her on my Treo 680 and noticed that about every 5 seconds there would be a sharp burst of static. While not catastrophic, very annoying. At least I know that it's nothing on my end. *sigh*

One reason I bough my Treo 680 was to use overseas.

RE: Thanks for the news

gally @ 12/9/2009 5:29:11 PM #

Yes! Thank you! I'm NOT crazy! I have been after T-Mobile for more than two months on this EXACT issue - even going so far as to file a complaint with the FCC (what a joke that process is). T-Mobile basically was completely unwilling to support or even BEGIN troubleshooting on the issue since both my 650 and 680 were not T-Mobile branded and (they claimed) that the 680s from a carier they had aquired were not giving them any problems.

So I was basically forced to "upgrade" to the Touch Pro2 - for a very tidy sum. I finally got some compromise from them on the issue since I had confirmed that my 680 has NO PROBLEMS on the ATT network. They agreed to basically throw in the second Touch Pro2 for my second line along with some other concessions that would give me the usual 2 year upgrade pricing on another handset anytime before the next 2 years are up (WinMo7? T-Mob Pre?) as well as holding the costs of the data plans.

But still, being forced to part with $1000+ of perfectly functional hardware AND software just to be able to not have my voice drop out constantly - was not happy about that or the process I had to go through to get a fair package of concessions.

Anyone on ATT need a factory unlocked Palm branded 680 in great shape with extras?

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