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I'm using an xperia ray on the 2degrees network in New Zealand.

On my old phone, a huawei ideos u8150, I get perfect broadband speeds and a constant connection when usig hspa and 3g. Using the same sim, exact same network and identical apn settings (which I've checked several times) and in exactly the same location I can't get online very often and when I can it's unusably slow besides an occasional brief flash of speed.

The weird thing is the Ray shows full bars and a 3G logo as though I should have no problems. That's most of the time. Much of the time I just have full bars with a little R as the 3G seems to dissapear even though data is turned on. The readout will flick between full bars, no bars whatsoever, and full bars with a 3g or an H symbol. When I first got the phone it spent most of it's time saying there was no network at all. I'm not sure what changed but it seems to be better now.

Secondly, when making calls it says "connecting" for quite some time before it actually connects. Even then the call is often mangled and this is showing full bars.

Intitially I thought it would be an APN settings issue, but after contacting my carrier and checking my old phone settings I can rule that out. Secondly I thought it could be a sim card issue, but swapping the sim back and forth from my old phone yields the same results: perfect connection vs useless connection.

So what with my initial disconnect issues and current connection issues it seems like my device has a faulty antennae or at least buggy network drivers or something.

I have a few questions:

Should I be treating this as normal? Ie. do SE phones have weak antennae?

Is this a known defect on some Rays, or is it unusual?

My phone is a chinese model (parallel import is legal here). Would the fact it's designed for the chinese market have meant there are hardware differences which are messing with my connectivity?

Thanks in advance for any help. For now I will probably go back to using my old phone. If I can't get a quick fix here I'll try returning the phone under warranty.

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Fair enough, I'm backing up now with that app. Let's see if I can get the antennae issues fixed, no point in anything else if not since I'll just be returning it for an exchange.

And thanks for your help so far

uliwooly-wooly

Anytime

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I backed up the phone using the tool, then downloaded and used the SE update service to reinstall the firmware. I then manually entered the APN settings from scratch, being extra careful.

No change. The phone says I have full reception and the 3G/H logos are doing their thing, but web pages will not load most of the time. *Occasionally* one will suddenly load fine like before but then it's back to epic megafail.

The company I bought it from have offered to replace it just now via email. I'll get another one and see if there's an improvement. If it's good, I'll come back here to ask about moving to the generic international firmware version and getting rooted (my ideos was rooted and had CM7 which was excellent). Thanks again for your help.

uliwooly-wooly

no problem CM9 we'll be available soon

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Major update: I've been in contact with my provider and my supplier, and it turns out that almost all SE phones have issues with data on the 2degrees network. The phone was parallel imported from Hong Kong I think, so I suspect the HK models must have slightly tweaked settings on some firmware or hardware level as far as how the 3G and HSPA works. Probably something to do with the specific networks in HK they're aimed at and frequencies or whatever - at a guess.

SO I've had no choice but to trade it for a non-SE phone, in this case a Galaxy S plus. For me it's a downgrade - the much bigger form factor being the biggest issue. The Ray was simply the best phone for me. While I could have changed to Vodafone, they simply can't or wont compete with 2degrees prices for data use. Data is all I really use.

So thanks for the help. And that's the end of that.

uliwooly-wooly

The 2degrees network uses works on

2G 900/1800 MHz (GSM/GPRS)

3G 2100 MHz (WCDMA)

ST18i

2G GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900

3G UMTS HSPA 900 (Band VIII), 2100 (Band I)

ST18a

2G GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900

3G UMTS HSPA 800(Band VI), 850 (Band V), 1900 (Band II), 2100 (Band I)

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Ah. So would that be the problem then? Interesting. Mine was the ST18i . It was sold labelled as a phone that should work on 2dg.

In that case why did it sometimes work for brief flashes? Seems odd to me.

uliwooly-wooly

oh it will work on your network but only 2G

I dont know which 2100 band your network utilize

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Ok, so, I've sent the phone back in exchange for a Galaxy S+

Yuk.

I want the SE back. I want it to work.

So I'll ask here: how would I go about flashing the SE to a generic international firmware? I want to try it just in case the chinese 3 network has some random firmware settings that were messing with how it dealt with 2dg over here.