I've spoken to Orange today and they have informed me that the 8900 is not supported on their UMA service, only the 8320 and 8820. This is the opposite of what I was told when I question the lack of UMA on the Bold and was told the 8900 would support it when it was release. My partner is using an 8120 via UMA/Wifi without any problem and she is on Orange. Has anyone had any luck getting UMA to work on an Orange UK 8900?

why dont you try... connect it onto your wifi router and see if you get a capital UMA on your device, if you do then UMA is working on your device and your provider

I tried it at work on both out internal and internet only wireless networks. It connected to the networks and allowed me to browse via wifi but did not swap over to UMA. However, when I tried it at home on my wifi network it connected and swapped over to UMA. What would be stopping UMA from working? The internet only wireless network has no firewall rules or similar blocking outbound access.

UMA ability is part of the firmware, not the OS. If your phone is not UMA enabled in the factory (usually from the carrier), there's apparently no way to get it to work.

see here:
Blackberry 8900 UMA Support on T-Mobile USA with T-Mobile Germany phone - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

lellobello

That wasnt his question. The 8900 is a UMA enabled phone.

I think the issue may be with the router, if you are getting it at home but not on those other routers then there is an issue with those routers. Either they are blocking the ports needed for UMA or something of the sort. But if your UMA is working at home then I would think all is good!

I am looking to use a 8900 with UMA on my orange Livebox, can you confirm that got UMA to work with orange though your home router, is it a livebox?
Thanks

Andy

I've been using my 8900 on UMA on a number of routers and ISPs without any problems for the last couple of weeks. Orange will not offer any support for it as its not a certfied Orange Unique phone but it does work.

Thanks Matthew, I was sure it had to work as it supports the UMA/GAN standard of all the others. Just a shame the Bold doesn't as its 3G also. Its got to be marketing an politics at orange... just like they haven't released a new ericcson phone with 3G and UMA, which they sell in France.
Cheers and will let you know what Orange say when I push them on the 8900 support

Forgot to ask, are you using orange broadband and router at home?

I have just ordered a 8900 through my business rep, and he told me Orange will support UMA on 8900 on the next firmawre upgrade. The UMA works fine, as I was using it on my personal BB before I sent it back.

Yeti

I have BIS - Orange business

UMA seems to work.

I moved from an o2 8900 to an Orange 8900 JUST to get UMA.

I live in a patchy phone reception area in London and when EDGE and GPRS both disappear UMA pops up to the rescue..

Not very nice quality but seems to work..

I don't thinks its got all the sophistication of USA UMA - I wouldn't trust it to 'seamlessly' hop over from UMA to GPRS / EDGE as I walk or drive away from my house. (I need to test that!) But perhaps it will come in handy on trips abroad.. One can only hope - and THAT what I want it for - I am sick of getting killed on outside UK work trip phone bills

No one knows anything about UMA in the UK - especially not the network operators!

As for the billing - on these forums those speculations lead to epic arguments and contradicting opinion.. I think it is NETWORK dependent - so its no use a German or US based person trying to tell you... But good luck finding someone that works for Orange UK that actually KNOWS the answer.... You might just have to wait and see how your monthly bills come out to really find out for sure..

Post your news on it here and good luck..

I just ordered an 8900 for Orange UK (home) I had emailed the sales operator who I had got pricing from previously requesting the 8900. When she called me she said that she thought that the 8900 did not support Unique but on enquiry to her 'data team' they said yes no problem! and yes the order has gone in, 8900 arrives next week....

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here, but what is the difference between WiFi, UMA, EDGE and GPRS?

My Orange 8900 links fine to my home router (Sky Broadband)-labelled as UMA in top right of screen- and is pretty fast, but out and about I still appear to get online via wifi even though I have not attached to a local router?

Wi-fi connects like a laptop does. will only work in range of the router.
UMA allows for calls to go through wi-fi. when connected, UMA can connect back to your router to use for calls over wi-fi while still getting data.
EDGE is the american version of GPRS in uk.
They are 2G. and in caps means connected for data over mobile network.

I have just got a 8900 through Orange. They provide both my mobile and broadband. The 8900 switched seemlessly to UMA when i get home and I'm in range of my livebox.

Hi all

I actullay work for orange on the 3rd line support team, we deal mainly with network faults,mobile broadband, blackberrys and media technical support. While seraching forums for some info regarding a customers issue i came across this post and wanted to clear a few things up for you.

Firstly, the 8900 on orange does support UMA and orange tech support does support customers with UMA issues, however generic or other network models may not, this is down to the firmware version of the h/s not the software version as lellobello stated. There is no way to update the firmware on these devices.

Secondly use of UMA depends on the wi-fi router in use, back in the day the router had to support something called openISP in order to use orange UMA over anything other than orange livebox's, this has since changed and orange UMA can be used on any router that supports it (which is most of them)

As for Billing, well this is based on your standard network charge, so you basicly get billed the same way you do for mobile calls. Your bill will be no more or no less using UMA. Browseing over wi-fi is of course free as you are using your own wi-fi connection not our network.

Hope that helped.

Yes that did help but my problme is that UMA seemed to work a few days ago but no longer does so. SMS messages seem to be sent via the router but when I'm in network range I can no longer either make or receive phone calls. Unless of course I switch Wifi off.

Does UMA show in caps on the h/s? which router are you using? what happens when you try to make the call? when people call you what "tone" do they get i.e busy, or dead tone? Atm orange has a few issues with UMA affecting customers, so if i cant get it working then it will most likly be down to this issue.

Are you able to delete the paring and re-pair the h/s to the router?

Yes it does show in caps. It's a Netgear router and if I try to make a call I get a failed call message on the BB. I have tried ringing myself via landline and get an engaged tone, with mobile I get a network busy error message.
I haven't tried deleting the pairing.
If the thing had never worked I probably would have thought nothing about it. If I want to use the phone at home to access the 'net I can, so the wireless connection to the router is OK, but I can also use my laptop so why would I want to use the phone for that in any case.
The problem really arises if I forget to switch Wifi off when I'm at home - I can't be contacted on my BB.

Right then tbh it sounds like your one of the unlucky ones that is affected by the current issue with UMA, its only affecting a small number of customers and is intermittent, you might find if you delete the pairing, soft reset the h/s and pair it again that the service will come back, but you could lose it again tomorow. We are sending these examples to Rim to deal with so if i was you i would call orange tech support (156/157 from your h/s) and they will escalate this for you.

Now tried doing a battery out reset and the ability to make and receive calls via UMA seems to have returned - but for how long????

Well if your not affected by the current issue (which is resolved for most customers now) then it should hold. From the fact you can connect at all you must have the correct firmware so it should be fine. If you lose the connection, either soft reset or as i said in the last post delete and re-pair the devices. Not to shift the blame but the UMA feature is built in by RIM not orange, so the best we can do is support it and escalate to RIM if we find an issue with it. For now i would just roll with it and follow what i said if the connection fails again and you should be fine.

Thanks for that, I am interested as I have both a 8320 and now a 8900.

My 8320 work every day without any issues via a BT hub. the 8900 does not and never has. Orange have told me now four different stories when I called them. One said we do not offer UMA anymore on these handsets when the latest call a helpful person told me that 50% of thier customers cannot recieve UMA but this will change shortly as their is an issue. I am, like a lot of others upset with the signal orange offer at home and need UMA to get a reception. I feel we need to be told one way or another. If it's the firmware then why if RIM say that 8900 support UMA if Orange have played around with that then Orange are to blaime, if it's Orange then they should say. I am not have a go at you, it's not your fault but as you have come on the site and Orange do no tell us, you are the only help we can get. Thanks

I am starting to get somewhere now. Spoke with Orange yesterday and apart from them telling me to do the same things as before, it would appear I am missing the part on the 'Network Options' menu. On the 8320 there is an option to choose 'connection preference, which my 8900 does not have. They told me to update but I am on the correct version '4.6.1.206' So they are now talking to RIM. What next.

There is a later version of 4.6 for the 8900 - see http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...ml#post1483500

I have a terrible Orange signal at home, and thought UMA would solve my problem. It took a while for the handset and router to 'learn' they could do this (as I've been told), but UMA started popping up on my h/s two or three days after I first got my BB. Unfortunately, even if I have 'wifi preferred' under mobile network settings, I can stand OVER my router and it will still jump back to a GPRS signal with one bar whenever it wants to. It also likes to switch whenever I try and make a call on UMA, which inevitably drops the call. Good in theory, but doesn't really work well for me.

8900 bought on vodafone unlocked for Orange, no UMA on this firmware

UMA is not firmware it's hardware. If the original network does not support UMA then the device does not and firmware won't change that.

I read the problems you have encountered with the 8900, and having gone through the same I thought my experience may help.
I spent the last 2 weeks explaining to different departments within Orange that the menu did not seem to have any reference to UMA. After tons of diagnostics and conversations with lots of different people, Blackberry 3rd Line support at Orange agreed that it is most likely a handset problem.
A replacement arrived on Friday, and connected to my home hub instantly.
If you have had no luck connecting to UMA with your 8900, I suspect you had the same duff handset as me, which most likely had the wrong firmware on.
I thought maybe I was being thick, but having now had a 8900 that is set up right, the connection is so easy and instant, it is fairly easy to tell if your phone is not working right.

Hope this helps.

Orange UMA works fine on my 8900, i even use it when i,m in the USA, i get all my instant messeges, email, sms, phones calls all through wifi only with no roaming costs

nickcushing, thanks for the advice - got my 8900 last Thursday, everything works except UMA, connects to several Wi-Fi routers I've paired it, can surf and e-mail through Wi-Fi but will not show UMA, switch of Mobile networks and try and make a call just get "restore radio connection" message, or at home where in half the house I simply get no orange signal get the "call failed" message.........
so the reason I had the phone, is for the one feature that won't work arrrggghhh.....
Spent hours on the phone to orange technical support, getting nowhere.
I'm missing the connection preference selection menu under Mobile network options, I just get Data, Mobile Network, and Network Selection (auto, manual) not the all important forth one.........

Based on your comments, I'll get on the phone and tell them to send me a new handset...........
Will let you know if this brings success.....

SUCCESS!!
New handset arrived on Saturday Morning, after many many many lengthy conversations with Orange. The Tech department wanted it for testing so they could understand what was causing the probelms on an unknown population of handsets......"we don't want it to to be replaced like normal as it'll simply go into the system and we'll lose the evidence" they said "OK" I said, "where do you want me to post it then", they supplied an address but were not willing to send a new handset until the tech testing area had received it.......leaving me without a handset for an unknown amount of time.

Eventually, after a "you've admitted its faulty, please just replace it or I'm cancelling the upgrade and I'll be off to Vodafone" conversation - a replacement was despatched......the courier took the old one, so they've lost their precious evidence, due to their own processes.

Stuck my memory card and SIM card in, switched it on paired it with my router, swapped to UMA as soon it lost or struggled with the Orange signal, no messing.

Hope this helps other poor souls in the same situation I was........

p.s. Its brilliant and has sorted my coverage issue.

I've been following this thread with interest for a while since I've had my Orange BB 8900 (six weeks) and experienced the same lack of UMA. After being fobbed off by Orange for a while now, they eventually replaced my handset (thanks for the advice), which worked corectly straight out of the box - and 'UMA' is actually listed within it's firmwear, unlike it's predecessor.

hi for what its worth i have a BB CURVE 8900 ON ORANGE that had UMA access but it stopped working. Orange told me that there was an issue that would not be sorted within the foreseeable future. I went round brothers house and connected to his wi-fi and UMA worked, problem has to be my router so i went and looked, enabled upnp and gaming mode, IT WORKED.
this may help you or it may not, just thought i'd share

updated latest firmware and still no uma for orange..

checked router bthome hub but nothing standing out...

Hi, I have been reading this topic on UMA, I have a netgear router and UMA always switches on when I get home. Also my parents have no Orange signal in their house but I have connected vuia their BT router and again I get UMA.

How does UMA work, if I have no Orange signal at all but a UMA connection through a router does this mean that I can still make calls?

Thanks for any help.
Neil.

Yes, thats what UMA is for. Making calls and sending texts when you have no signal.
I dont know the details of how it works, just that it does.