My Cingular 2125 SmartPhone is not connecting to the network anymore. I can’t make nor receive any calls. Evidently this is a known problem with this phone.
What’s interesting is that last week Lora (who also uses a 2125) and I were comparing notes on some odd behaviors we’d noticed with the phone–numbers being dialed without us doing anything, the phone answering by itself, switching into modes I hadn’t selected, and so forth.
Not only that, but this past month I had an unexplained $70 data charge for a single day last month. In all, the computer-generated bill said I transferred 11 MB of data over two hours. I doubt it. I called Cingular tech support and they thought it was part of the known firmware issue that the thread above is associated with. (Cingular did remove the $70 charge by the way.)
For now I’ve disconnected my data service. Yeah, that means no image uploads to Flickr, no browsing of the Internet, no IMing. But I just don’t feel comfortable having a network feature with unexplained transfers like this.
The Cingular tech support folks suggested that I upgrade to an unlimited plan for an additional $20/month to avoid the fees. I’m not too keen on this though until I better understand what’s going on. After all, why pay an extra $240/year for what may turn out to be a bug on their network?
In the meantime, my SIM card is dead because of the firmware problems and Cingular is overnighting a replacement. Sweet. That means tomorrow I’ll need to download the HTC firmware upgrade for the phone which the link above points to. But first I’ll need to make sure everything is backed up on the phone. The update will delete all the settings and personal data on the phone. What fun 🙂
I’ve given a heads up to Lora (who has the same phone and Cingular service) so she can watch out for this upgrade too. You don’t want to be on a trip and have your phone stop working. Nor do you want an unexplained extra $70 charge to appear on your bill.
I’ll let you know how the upgrade goes. I see that one person already says that the upgrade didn’t solve the problem for them. Hmmm. Could be time for a new phone. Maybe I should try my luck with a Treo Smartphone.