Hello,

After looking around for replacement phones to my 5800 Tube, I’ve decided on the Nokia N900. I have a question about what to do, though. I can order it from Dell.com, unlocked, for the lowest price on the net. Will I just be able to pop my Cincinnati Bell SIM card into the phone and it work off the bat? I know that usually GSM phones do not need to be “activated” like phones on Verizon or Sprint. I do have the unlimited data plan and a call plan and everything. Should I just be able to pop and go? If not, what’s the procedure of getting it to work on the network?

And what is this talk about a 3G sim card? How do I know if mine's 3G or not...it came with my 5800 Tube and says 64K-A on it.

Thanks!

It should just work if you put your SIM card in it. Whether or not you get 3G depends on the frequencies your carrier uses. The N900 uses the 1700/2100 MHz band.

At the very least, you should be able to make calls and use EDGE even if your carrier doesn't use those frequencies. As for that "3G SIM" card thing I've never heeard of that one

I have a n900, and have been using it on cincinnati bell. All I had to do was put my sim card in my n900, and change the internet connection settings to wap.gocbw.com, and username: cbw.

My sim card says 3g on it, but I am not sure if that is required to get 3g speeds. If yours doesn't work with 3g, you should be able to get a new one from a cincinnati bell store.

Is it probable to say that if I did, indeed, need to get a new 3G sim card...they'd probably charge me 40 bucks for it on top of an activation fee, right? xur17, could you by any means send me a photo of your sim card so that I could compare it to my own? Thanks!

I'll see if I can find a camera since I normally use my n900 to take pictures (and the sim card is under the battery). They shouldn't require any activation fee or anything, and I seem to remember people saying that they swapped out their old sim cards for 3g ones for free.

I see, I see. Well that makes me feel better about the whole thing. It definitely takes the cake for the type of phone I want. It makes me pleased to know it works perfectly on my carrier.

Yeah. I get 3g speeds of >3000kbps a lot of the time, and coverage seems to be pretty good. The roam on t-mobile, so when I go out of town, I still get 3g a lot of the time.

Nice. I was assuming that would be the case. On my Nokia 5800 Tube, I can switch from T-Mobile to AT&T to Centennial and others, whichever when I'm out of town so the free roaming is great. I always have a signal. Never going without 3G is also great. I do know that T-Mobile surprisingly has the widest range of 3G, ...at least for the places I constantly travel to.

Okay, so I got the phone in the mail today and popped my SIM card in, voila! Picks up my carrier perfectly and goes in and out between 3 and 3.5G on T-Mobile. Loving the experience so far. It's fabulous!