[Hands0n]

Update - This is now all working correctly (see below) all by itself.
Whereas previously it was 100% reproducible, hence the creation of this post, it now will not malfunction. So I am leaving this post intact - there is a sub-theme to it below - just in case anyone else runs into the same problem. I hate tech that fixes itself like this. But there you go, that's RIM for you ;)


It is hard to place this appropriately. It is a BB issue but will affect Orange users mostly as they are the only ones who will have use of UMA in the UK at this time (1Q/2010).

Basically, if you want to use UMA then you have to switch off the Bluetooth on the handset - in our specific case a BB 9700, but I'm reasonably sure that is the same for all UMA-equipped BBs.

There is absolutely zero documentation on this and our experience is that even Orange CS don't know to suggest checking this before going to all manner of extremes to try and help get it working.

Also, if you bought your BB handset from anywhere else than Orange you're on your own. They will not attempt to help you even if you are paying for contract airtime with them. Check elsewhere in this part of the forum for some discussion and links on BB and UMA on Orange - there are some helpful links and information scarce in other parts of the Internet ;)

There are several #fails here:

Blackberry for creating such a constraint but not telling its users, anywhere
Orange, for being so bloody minded as to refusing to help its airtime customers with a BB just because it wasn't bought from Orange
Carphone Warehouse, for very dishonestly selling BB handsets with Orange contracts in the full knowledge that there is no support from the mobile operator
Carphone Warehouse, for not setting up specific support for the very situation that they create

[Ben]

Without wanting to sound like a broken record, this is exactly the sort of thing that can't happen when one buys an iPhone! Manufacturers need to take a keener interest in the chain that delivers their product to the customer.

[Hands0n]

Yup. Its that "experience" thing again. What a failure in such terms was the Blackberry Storm 9700 last evening. Between me and my lad, both of us the upper side of highly technical, and him working for P4U with 'hotlines' to Orange there had to be some two or three man days spent getting it working reliably.

What was so puzzling was why the UMA would only work occasionally. It was just a coincidence, and him fiddling around, that we sussed it for ourselves. He occasionally switches the BT off and when he did so last night the UMA popped up instantly. Switch BT back on and UMA dropped without warning or any reason being given.

I don't care what the reason is, there should be clarity in the documentation accompanying the handset, and at the very least Orange's Blackberry support staff should know this little thing!

I suspect that RIM have economised with the design, preventing both radios or protocols to function.

[nitro23456]

Hi

I have a BB Bold 9700 on Orange and the UMA works perfectly for me with bluetooth turned on. My ISP is also Orange and it works fine with both turned on.

Curiously when I visit my parents house (ISP BTInternet) and connect to their wifi it doesn't work although I have only tried this once..... I ought to visit the olds more often! Any ideas on this as the UMA should work with all ISPs

In fact I shall visit them tomorrow and try turning bluetooth off if UMA doesnt show. I will post my results.

What ISP are you with? as I say, its fine with orange broadband.

[nitro23456]

Curiously when I visit my parents house (ISP BTInternet) and connect to their wifi it doesn't work

.

the UMA that is, all other wifi services do.

[Hands0n]

Hi Nitro23456, welcome to Talk3G and thank you for contributing -

May I ask what version of BB firmware are you on. I guess I should have been at least that specific :) It could very well be a software version thing. I'll check with the lad later on today and post his version on here.

As regards UMA not working at your parents - the answer is possibly quite simple. Certainly I would investigate the parents router - many routers will automatically allow the required IPSec ports through using UPnP, but it may be that your parents router either does not support UPnP at all [or very well] or some other device has already grabbed these.

UMA requires a number of network ports to work for it to establish a VPN with the GAN servers in Orange. Typically you will need TCP/IP ports 4500 and 500 available. If your parents are already using a VPN solution then there will most likely be a conflict that may not be resolvable. Generally, if I need two VPNs I set up Port Forwarding in the router defining two pairs of IP ports. These would be TCP ports 4500 and 500 to the first VPN device and UDP ports 4500 and 500 to the other device. Generally, VPN protocols try using UDP and if they cannot will switch to TCP. Blackberry seem to recommend using TCP ports to the handset (IPSec/TCP ports 4500 and 500).

My lad and I use Sky broadband with Netgear/Sagem routers that support UPnP very well. As soon as he walked into my house his BB linked up and the UMA session established instantly.

[nitro23456]

v5.0.0.351 platform 5.1.0.98

Parents router is a belkin N router backward compatible with the blackberry's G

Il have a play with it later.

[Hands0n]

Hmm, thats interesting ... the lad has the same firmware 5.0.0.351 (554). So what is it about his specific BB 9700 that stops the UMA working when BT is on? Curiouser and curiouser :)

As far as I know the Belkin N is UPnP compliant. Therefore it could just be that another VPN has already occupied the network ports.

[nitro23456]

Is it when bluetooth is turned on without being connected to another bluetooth device or is it when it is connected that you have the problem?

For me.... I get out of my car where my BB is connected via bluetooth to my car kit.... it disconnects and I walk into my house and UMA is instantly available. i.e. blue tooth is 'on' but no longer connected to my car kit.

[Hands0n]

How very odd - the BB UMA is now working correctly even with Bluetooth switched on. How daft is that then? Yet yesterday it was having none of it!!! I hate it when tech gets as flaky as this. Sadly it looks like I'll have two BBs to have to take care of in the home, three in the family :(

I'll un-sticky this thread and let it evolve naturally.

@nitro23456 - do let us know how you get on at your parents with their router on BT Internet.

[nitro23456]

Well this is most strange in my world as well....

Went round parents and the BB wouldn't even connect to their wifi. I powered it off and on and it connected but no UMA. Looked at router settings and it all seems fine..... reset router and hey presto UMA worked! it then proceeded to stop working and eventually even threw itself back off the wifi.

I left non-the-wiser, although blue tooth made no difference at all off or on.

[Ben]

Mhm. Sounds like updating the firmware on the router might be the next port of call?

[bad toro]

i have a similar problem....

the UMA logo is always red and rarely green. i need to use UMA at home due to poor GSM signal. for some reason the bold 9700 recognises the router but doesnt switch to UMA even though my settings are WiFi preferred. i have tried with bluetooth disabled but still no change.

i have even port forwarded the router!

Any one suffering this too?

[Hands0n]

Hi bad toro, welcome to Talk3G

UMA only works with BB handsets on the Orange UK network. As far as I know, at this time, no other network supports UMA for BB.

Can I ask if you are on Orange? If so, is your handset Orange branded or is it one of those unbranded from Carphone Warehouse or Phones 4U? The reason for asking is that UMA does not work out of the box with unbranded BB handsets, and Orange will not support you in trying to get it to work. However, all is not lost. Here on Talk3G we have full instructions on how to configure UMA for an unbranded BB. If you cannot locate the utility to unlock the Engineers Menu then send me a PM and I'll try and help you with that.

[bad toro]

Hia

The handset is from an Orange shop and is also branded and i'm on the orange network too!

The handset finds the router when i'm home as a house icon appear with the router name at the top of the screen along with the name of the network - orange. the handset still tries to use the GSM network and the signal strength bar shows this too. Very rarely the house icon goes green and the word orange disappears and the signal bar shows UMA but when i try to make a call the UMA goes and GSM tries to take over and the handset crashes!

I have set up the phone for WiFi preferred and this seems to be the only setting i can make.

PM sent for further help!

[Cornel]

Sorry, I hope this isn't too off topic, but has anyone been able to compare the voice quality on BB UMA Orange with Vodafone's Sure Signal?

I don't really mind about the various pluses and minuses of both systems, other than wanting a mobile which i can reliably use for outgoing and incoming calls while at home.

[Hands0n]

Hi Cornel, welcome to Talk3G

As it happens ... I have :)

I have a Vodafone SureSignal for my Vodafone kit and my lad has his BlackBerry on the Orange network that auto-connects to the home WiFi when he is in range. We did actually try some subjective tests making calls from each handset (Vodafone=iPhone and Orange=BlackBerry Bold 9700) to the house landline to try and maintain at least some equivalence. I have to say that, subjectively, the quality of each was indistinguishable. Both were clear and accurate.

One thing to bear in mind with UMA technology (as used by SureSignal and BlackBerry devices) is that the quality of voice is variable dependent upon what else activity is on your ADSL/Cable service, also how fast that service is. Even if one of the links (uplink or downlink) is busy that could be sufficient to introduce jitter into the voice call and thereby impact quality.

So, in an attempt to answer your closing comment, the quality you get [from either] is going to be entirely dependent upon what typical use you make of your Internet connection. If you're one of those that downloads the entire Internet each 24 hours then you'll likely have atrocious voice quality. Equally, if you make a call while performing a very demanding download the same will happen. Moderate use of your Internet connection while using it for voice will be unnoticeable - certainly, browsing, email and the like will not impact.

[Cornel]

Excellent, thank you! That's a much more detailed answer than I had hoped for! There seemed to be lots of posts across the net about both of them not working well, so that's encouraging.

My connection is usually in the 3-5 MB down / 1 MB upload range with only browsing and internet use, so I should be ok. I like the idea of avoiding roaming charges here and there by getting the Orange BB970 UMA solution, but reading between the lines, do you think SureSignal is slightly more reliable? My key motivation was really that I spend around £40 a month on mobile calls from our landline, while using only a fraction of my monthly minutes, because the signal here is so scrambled. So if there is any way of having voice calls in near landline quality, I would be happy enough!

[Hands0n]

Glad to be of help. :)

Your line speed and use sounds very moderate and quite suitable for the UMA traffic whether it be SureSignal or native to the BB9700 (a delightful handset). Bear in mind that UMA on the BB9700 is only Orange at this time. I know of no other network providing this capability to native handset UMA.

With SureSignal there have been a lot of teething problems. If you are using a VPN to your home then you'll need to allow for that in the configuration of your router. But apart from that it works well.

VoIP is not without its challenges - the key seems to be to ensure that the ADSL/Cable line is not being heavily used when you're using it to make calls.

I like the SureSignal because it will work with any 3G handset from Vodafone.

The UMA technology is designed for your particular problem of poor signal area.

Do let us know what you eventually choose and also your experience of it. :)

[dwr2011]

Hi Handson.

I have three blackberrys in the house. Pearl, and two curves 8250's. The pearl and one of the curves all connect to my bt home hub fine but one will not, the new one. On all three the green lights on WI FI are on but one continues to search for a network. So one the new one we can search the net through the home hub but just not make calls. It does not show orange as the preferred net work like the other do so as that is the only difference i am assuming this is the problem but i dont know how to rectify it. It is a phone call to BB or orange? under mobile network connections the mobile network says 'none' but the other two says 'orange'. other than imput this manually i can not see how to change it. Any ideas how to make this curve UMA work with orange through the BT Home Hub like the other two?

Spent a couple of days on this already so would appricate any help you can offer!!

Helen

[Hands0n]

Hello Helen, welcome to Talk3G

As the new handset is an Orange handset my first instinct and advice is to all Orange CS and ask them to refresh the settings for your BB over the air. They can resend you the network settings, and if you describe that the device has no Orange settings the Orange customer services should know what to do. If you get no joy try calling them again. Sometimes it takes a few calls to get someone who knows what to do.

If all that fails then do come back on here and we'll see what we can advise you to do :)

[faceymark]

Thanks very much, turn bluetooth off turned phone off and on works great thanks so much, being trying for days to get in to work, and yes you are correct orange have know idea.




Update - This is now all working correctly (see below) all by itself.
Whereas previously it was 100% reproducible, hence the creation of this post, it now will not malfunction. So I am leaving this post intact - there is a sub-theme to it below - just in case anyone else runs into the same problem. I hate tech that fixes itself like this. But there you go, that's RIM for you ;)


It is hard to place this appropriately. It is a BB issue but will affect Orange users mostly as they are the only ones who will have use of UMA in the UK at this time (1Q/2010).

Basically, if you want to use UMA then you have to switch off the Bluetooth on the handset - in our specific case a BB 9700, but I'm reasonably sure that is the same for all UMA-equipped BBs.

There is absolutely zero documentation on this and our experience is that even Orange CS don't know to suggest checking this before going to all manner of extremes to try and help get it working.

Also, if you bought your BB handset from anywhere else than Orange you're on your own. They will not attempt to help you even if you are paying for contract airtime with them. Check elsewhere in this part of the forum for some discussion and links on BB and UMA on Orange - there are some helpful links and information scarce in other parts of the Internet ;)

There are several #fails here:

Blackberry for creating such a constraint but not telling its users, anywhere
Orange, for being so bloody minded as to refusing to help its airtime customers with a BB just because it wasn't bought from Orange
Carphone Warehouse, for very dishonestly selling BB handsets with Orange contracts in the full knowledge that there is no support from the mobile operator
Carphone Warehouse, for not setting up specific support for the very situation that they create

[Hands0n]

Thanks very much, turn bluetooth off turned phone off and on works great thanks so much, being trying for days to get in to work, and yes you are correct orange have know idea.

@faceymark - Cool, thats great to know it worked for you also. Thanks for the feedback and good luck with the 9700 going forward.