Orange in the USA?

[Motel75]

I was just reading the following page: http://www.roaminginfo.de/html/orange_in_usa_.html -- it says:

"On the left are two images made in my hotel room near San Francisco airport. Curiously, alongside Cingular, the British Orange network (network code 234 33) could also be picked up on GSM 1800. Neither this frequency nor this net is expected here. It is unclear why this could be received and used.

Here are a few more views of the Orange network from the monitor mode. There is only one cell, broadcasting at 720 in GSM 1800.
A British Orange card that I happened to have with me displayed no "R" in the roaming indicator, meaning it was on the home network.
On the right is the screen during a connected call.

The images were made on 14 and 15 August 2005 in a room at the Hampton Inn, 300 South Gateway Blvd, South San Francisco, CA."

I've no idea what that was all about, but it could be

a) possibly a field test of GSM 1800 using a "real" network or

b) an extraterritorial Orange station for the use of UK airline staff (On the German-Polish border, for example, you can pick up Vodafone and TMO from Polish towers in the areas where the German border patrol works, such as Rzepin; however, it's 15 km from the border, not another continent, and the same frequencies.)

c) a hoax of some sort, either by the site owner (which seems unlikely) or someone playing around with GSM testing equipment and letting people place phone calls

d) a yet undocumented weather issue that allows the signal from a single tower to bounce halfway around the world and allowing the recipient's signal to bounce back to exactly the same location

e) a possible Orange in-flight GSM system on a parked aircraft that this person was able to pick up.

Of these, I think b and e are possible, though I've heard nothing about either one, and a is a faint possibility.

Any ideas?

[DRNewcomb]

Interesting and well described. I don't know if I can add any value to the discussion.

1. Don't GSM 1800 & 1900 share the same set of channel numbers? So there would be a channel 720 on 1800 and a 720 on 1900. Is it possible that the channel you were monitoring was really on 1900?

2. There's a lot of electronics manufacturing in the SF Bay area. You might have picked up something being tested.

3. I've picked up GSM signals hundreds of km from the nearest site but that was over water.

4. Do I understand correctly that you were actually able to use the Orange signal to make a call?

[Motel75]

It wasn't me, it was the person writing that article.

As for your question 1), as the image shows (you have to look fairly closely) the software they were using indicates a clear 1800-MHz signal. And yes, they were able to make a call, which would seem to be a genuine signal, not just an equipment test. Weird.

[petkow]

I take it the UK Orange card he had was prepaid. His description of the event is pretty detailed. I wonder why he didn't post which destination he called or how much he was charged for the call?

It is all quite interesting though!

On another note, how does one get into that 'monitor mode' on the Nokia 6230i he is showing? (or for that matter on any phone?)

[andy]

Originally Posted by petkow

On another note, how does one get into that 'monitor mode' on the Nokia 6230i he is showing? (or for that matter on any phone?)

I've browsed this a bit, but not actually done anything

http://www.mwiacek.com/gsm/netmon/faq_net0.htm

[inquisitor]

The GSM1800 basestation in San Francisco is part of Orange's R&D centre, which they opened in 2005 (see: http://www.orangepartner.com/site/en...er_centres.jsp). The exact location (500 m away from the Hampton Inn) is:
Orange Labs
801 Gateway Blvd, Suite 500
South San Francisco,
CA 94080, USA

Btw in Germany, where we've only GSM900 and GSM1800, there's a GSM1900 basestation from Cingular at the USAF airbase in Ramstein.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by andy

I've browsed this a bit, but not actually done anything

http://www.mwiacek.com/gsm/netmon/faq_net0.htm

Thanks Andy... On second thoughts it may be wise for me to stay out of there. Knowing me, I will change some setting and kill a phone!

[andy]

Originally Posted by petkow

There are also of course those 'picocells' on passenger ferrys and cruise ships. On a crossing from France to UK I got some icelandic carrier! (can't remember who it was though I remember getting the Roaming SMS with "Welcome to Iceland" etc.)

Even across the Channel ?! Not Dover - Calais then. Which ferry company - one with longer Spanish routes as well?

It reminds me - the first time I ever used a mobile phone was 1989, borrowed from a friend, to the UK from the docks at Caen. Roaming hadn't been invented that I know of, and I'm not sure if UK and French analogue networks were compatible (or whether there even was a French one).

I've never checked up on this or whether the signal would have been across the sea. I didn't even think to ask J whether he'd used the phone in the previous 2 weeks; then it just seemed like something expensive I wouldn't contemplate for a few years (my brother-in-law used to work for Vodafone - near the beginning the merchant commission on a contract sale was £1400!)

Originally Posted by petkow

Thanks Andy... On second thoughts it may be wise for me to stay out of there. Knowing me, I will change some setting and kill a phone!

Likewise - that's why I saved it in a Favourites folder and forgot about it until you asked

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by andy

It reminds me - the first time I ever used a mobile phone was 1989, borrowed from a friend, to the UK from the docks at Caen.

In the days of big analog phones it was not uncommon to find people using cells as much as 90 to 100 miles from the tower. This required a high location, such as a hill or a tall building, and a very good antenna. But it was possible.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by andy

Even across the Channel ?! Not Dover - Calais then. Which ferry company - one with longer Spanish routes as well?

I was crossing from Roscoff to Plymoth (around 5hrs). You're right, on other days the same ship also did the much longer Santander to Plymouth. It was in June 2004 and as far as I remember the ship was the then brand new mv Pont-Aven from Britanny ferries.

A bit of googling on the matter has shown me that Brittany Ferries, Minoan Lines, Superfast Ferries and Discovery Cruise line all use SIMMIN (from Iceland Telecom) as their airtime provider, and Geolink OceanCell handles the sat uplink services. Apparantly everything is fairly pricy, but not as bad as it used to be. By the sound of it outgoing SMS are charged at around €1 and incoming and outgoing calls are all around the €0.80/min mark or standard 'old fashioned' roaming rates

Question begs to be asked, but for people who works on these ships (or who travel on them frequently) could they buy a prepaid Frelsi card from SIMMIN (http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/islanda/siminn.html) and get cheaper call rates? I doubt it!