[edit: this story has a mostly happy ending. my 8320's wifi, it turns out, is all that.]

Here's the short version: I love my 8320, but the wifi is a joke in its present state. I'm looking for suggestions and opinions about whether I have a defective 8320, or whether there's anything I can do about poor performance.

The longer version? Same story I've read from others about UMA not working. If "mobile network" is enabled, no UMA call lasts more than 20 seconds without switching over to the GSM network. And with GSM disabled, I get varied (and unacceptable) results, but usually the call has alternating periods of silence on one end or another. This evening I tried the same test at starbucks, and at my mother in law's house, and got the same results. During one test yesterday I was able to get a few minutes of reliability out of a UMA call, but sadly that was the exception that seems to be proving the rule.

Even if there were no wifi on this handset it would be the best cellphone I've ever owned. But the box says wifi, and so I want it to work: I want fast browsing and I want UMA.

What other diagnostic methods are available? Are there T-Mo servers I can ping or site statistics I can check? How on earth can I figure out where the trouble is? Would it be any use to call T-Mo for help? Do I have a defective unit?

Below, proof that my network is OK. First, here's the bandwidth usage reported by my router when I visited a page here from my BB, not 5 feet from the router. During this test my 8320 reported full signal strength. Note the prolonged, sporadic download, at speeds less than those advertised for EDGE:



Next, my MacBook, downloading the same page via wifi, through two walls and about 30 feet:



Then a little showing off: downloading a big file from a fast server using wifi on my MacBook:



Finally a little confirmation from VoIP Providers - VoIP Services - Broadband Phone Company Providers that my latency is OK:



What to do?