all,

I'm in Japan atm, if you have an existing softbank sim card from a softbank phone, would you be able to use this on a foreign n900?

edit: I did try out the SIM, got 3G and data connection, but upon further reading softbank may charge you an arm and a leg for using their SIM on a foreign device. I don't think this place is appropriate for discussing softbank-specific case like this so I'll post this specific q in other forums. Thx

cheers,
z

(Cross-posting for other suffering MSCIM users)

I have just created a status menu switcher applet, which allows on-the-fly enabling/disabling of MSCIM (no rebooting).

This will save your battery life greatly, and also allows you to use the onscreen keyboard and symbol menu again!

It still has a few rough edges, but will probably be helpful to most people not requiring MSCIM to be active constantly.

Read this thread carefully, and then download the package if you wish to try it.

All usual warnings apply!! I will not be responsible if your device requires reflashing afterwards, etc.

Hey guys,

Been on my n900 for close to 6 month now. I was on bmobile sim and it worked (kinda) great. I'm looking for a better sim-only deal, and stumbled upon Bmobile FAIR. Have anyone used this? Seems like a great deal to me but I'm not sure if this'll work as well for my n900.

Also, I'm in Yokohama area and my GPS can't get a fix (even when I have data connection). Any n900 user in Yokohama?

I'm not in Japan but I have some suggestions that maybe able to help you. You should check if Bmobile doesn't work on pure 850MHz band. N900 is a quadband device but it does not support 850MHz or any particular country specific radio bands such as China which uses some fancy 400+MHz band.

Japan as far as I know used to not provide SIM services. They used to have similar designs as US did with CDMA. However I have heard that they are phasing that out in a bid to slowly conform with the majority in using SIM (thus GSM) services. The only thing however is the radio bands that each operator is allowed to operate on and thus comply with the national regulatory authority.

The GPS signal issue I think is now a widespread known problem if you're using AGPS. Though there has been no concise proof of any probable findings but the bottom line is that nokia's SUPL server is playing up. Many have been advised to use google's SUPL server and has had yielded great success.

To change the GPS server (if you're using AGPS) go into: Settings -> Location (under Connectivity) -> Location server (under Network positioning on the very bottom) -> change to supl.google.com (instead of supl.nokia.com).

If you're not using AGPS mode but only the internal GPS, it will take a fair amount of time to get a proper lock on your current location. Variations under weather and potentially under various areas (such as under a carpark with a roof, shopping centres, etc) can influence the accuracy and thus delay the amount of time for the initial tracking.

Hi Zsugi

I have used bmobile talking SIM U300 (talking and slow internet) on my N900 without any problem. At the moment I am using b-mobile 1GB定額 (internet only). There are different "Fair" Sims. It looks as if some have data only and some have also talking included. If you want to use a data only sim then the setup of this sim card is a bit a pain. You have to send some dbus commands to your N900 (from the Shell). I found a How-To on some blog. After this setup the data only sim works very good. I would expect the "Fair" dataplan to work as well, but I have not tested it. Which bmobile plan have you used on your N900?
With the bmobile 1GB the internet connection is pretty fast, but unfortunately skype is not very good. Sometimes it works well and sometimes not. And talking to stuttering people on the phone is not very pleasant.


I have been to Yokohama yesterday. I am living in Tokyo at the moment. I got some GPS fix, but it took some time. I think it was because of the shitty weather yesterday. So, no problems here.

Cheers,

keynya

hey guys!

@tuxsavvy - tried the supl.google.com the gps sort of work, it's definitely better than before.

@keynya - I am now using the 1gb data only fair sim. It's great - I can do skype call, skype video no problem. Quality drops every now and then but it's expected. I got the DBUS command when I first got in 6 months back, I did got it working with the old USIM300 plan.

am trying the diff map apps now to find a usable one here in jp. why did nokia map have no japan map is beyond me.

Can you tell me what settings did you use for Softbank APN?
I have tried everything I found on the internet, but it doesn't work.
I also tried different user-agents.

I have a gray/white sim card.