Hey all,
I work for a major telco in Australia and on of the tech guys gave me this answer to an initial enquiry I made. Got one of the orange P900iV and wanted to get it going...
"If the handset uses the protocols setout by the UMTS standard (ie runs on frequency range 1900 - 2100 mhz) it should work, however as optus stands we would not be able to support it, same as all overseas and unsupport handset support we currently offer.
Best to go to spec site for handset to see if it will work on UMTS networks via WCDMA. We have not done any testing with overseas handsets."
I have stuck a '3' SIM card in it and no luck. Phone says 'Unrecognised UIM'. They have a slightly different SIm I think. Still researching that one.
I then checked out Wikipedia and found the following interesting info;
On W-CDMA
History
W-CDMA was developed by NTT DoCoMo as the air interface for their 3G network FOMA. Later NTT DoCoMo submitted the specification to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as a candidate for the international 3G standard known as IMT-2000. The ITU eventually accepted W-CDMA as part of the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards. Later, W-CDMA was selected as the air interface for UMTS, the 3G successor to GSM.
mplementations
The world's first commercial W-CDMA service, FOMA, was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 2001. FOMA is not compatible with UMTS. But the effort for migrating the FOMA specifications to UMTS are indicated by Japan.
Technology
W-CDMA may use unpaired or paired spectrum, though the current implementations of W-CDMA (i.e. FOMA and UMTS) all use a pair of 5MHz spectrum, one for uplink and one for downlink. See Spread spectrum for more information. FOMA uses 16 slots per radio frame, where as UMTS uses 15 slots per radio frame.
On UTMS
Technology
Note: Most of the underlying technological aspects of UMTS are common among all W-CDMA variants. Please see W-CDMA for more info. The followings are some technical information specific to UMTS, not shared by FOMA or other W-CDMA implementations.
Technically speaking, W-CDMA (as per the definition of IMT2000) is merely the air interface, while UMTS is the complete stack of communication protocols designated for 3G global mobile telecommunications and as a direct successor to GSM. However, W-CDMA is frequently used as a general, umbrella term to collectively refer to the family of 3G standards that uses W-CDMA as its air interface, that includes UMTS, FOMA and J-Phone.
Like other real-world W-CDMA implementations, UMTS uses a pair of 5 MHz channels, one in the 1900 MHz range for uplink and one in the 2100 MHz range for downlink.
The specific frequency bands originally defined by the UMTS standard are 1885-2025 MHz for uplink and 2110-2200 MHz for downlink.
NTT DoCoMo's 3G network, FOMA, was the first commercial network using W-CDMA since 2002. The first W-CDMA version used by NTT DoCoMo was incompatible with the UMTS standard at the radio level, however USIM cards used by FOMA phones are compatible with GSM phones, so that USIM card based roaming is possible from Japan to GSM areas without any problem. Today the NTT DoCoMo network - as well as all the W-CDMA networks in the world - use the standard version of UMTS, allowing potential global roaming. Whether and under which conditions roaming can actually be used by subscribers depends on the commercial agreements between operators.
For more UTMS info check out this link -
http://www.umtsworld.com/umts/faq.htmand then on FOMA it had;
FOMA, officially short for Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access, is the brand name for the 3G services being offered by Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo.
FOMA was the world's first W-CDMA 3G service when launched in 2001. FOMA is compatible with standard UMTS, both via the radio link as well as via USIM card exchange, and hence provides several alternative options for global roaming: either with or without change of handset. Since mobile services in Japan are generally more advanced than in most other countries, e.g. FeliCa-i-Mode Wallet Phones, i-Mode mobile data services etc, to obtain full benefit of FOMA services local Japanese handsets are used.
Initially - as the first full-scale 3G service in the world - FOMA handsets were of experimental character targeting early adopters, and were big, had poor battery life and the network covered the center of Japan's largest towns only. For the first 1-2 years, FOMA was essentially an experimental service for early adopters - mainly communication industry professionals.
Around March 2004, with almost full national coverage including subway stations and the inside of most major buildings, and with the introduction of DoCoMo's 900i series of handsets, FOMA achieved the breakthrough into mass sales, and sales soared. As of summer 2005, FOMA has almost 15 million subscribers and is the fastest growing cellphone network in Japan.
That's about all the info I have pieced together so far. Hope it helps. I am still researching and will try and keep posted. Please let me know of any other useful info you find.
Cheers from down under,
The BFG