Re: Colnago C60

On 1/8/2025 7:43 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Tue, 7 Jan 2025 23:01:43 -0500, Frank Krygowski
 

That visit was 2007. Poland, Czechia, Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

 OK, no maker and model of flip phone.  So, I have to guess.  2007
would probably be a 3G phone.  LTE was initially introduced in 2009
with a fairly small number of cell sites.  By about 2009, there were
sufficient LTE sites available to offer service in metro areas.
Anyway, with an AT&T phone made before 2007, my best guess(tm) would
be it was a 3G phone using GSM, GPRS or EDGE.  I'm not sure this will
help, but it does show some of the possibilities:
<https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Cellular_network_standards_and_generation_timeline.svg>

That Frank went to Europe in '07 doesn't mean he had an '07 phone. My guess it that it was an older analog phone. My dad kept his analog Motorola flip phone with an extendable antenna until it did'nt work any more. The reason it stopped working is because Verizon stopped support of the analog protocol, not because the phone died. They sent him a notification  'as of yadayada date at yadayada time Verizon will no long support use of your yadayada phone on our network'. Sure enough, at the specified date and time, he tried the phone at it simply showed "no service" on the display. He had no reason to upgrade his phone before then, he could talk  and text - which was all he needed. I'm suspecting Frank was in the same frame of mind WRT cellphones. It was an older phone (maybe many years, as was my fathers) that did exactly what he needed it to do, so there was no reason to upgrade.

 

Europe switched from 2G and 3G to 4G (and now some 5G) protocols,
which also included some added bands.  Shutting down the 2G and 3G
networks is still work in progress.
>
"A Complete Overview of 2G & 3G Sunsets"
<https://1ot.com/resources/blog/a-complete-overview-of-2g-3g-sunsets>
>
My guess(tm) is your flip phone was 2G or possibly 3G which is why it
didn't work on a 4G network.  However, since this was AT&T, it's
possible that the SIM chip that AT&T sold you was misprogrammed,
incorrectly activated or just plain defective.

>
If the SIM card were bad in that way, would it work in the U.S.?

 Maybe.  I used "defective", as in electrically broken.  Is that what
you meant by "bad"?  The SIM could be setup for the correct protocol,
but the wrong frequency bands, system ID, etc.  It only takes one
programming error, and it won't work or do something strange.
Similarly, it also could be a provisioning error at the cellular
providers end.  Only one way to do it right, but plenty of ways to do
it wrong.
 

The phone was fine at home.

 I assume that means it was fine using the original USA SIM and not the
European SIM.

I think you missed it. They didn't give him a new SIM card. They said his phone would work fine the way it was.
I think the issue wasn't a bad/misprogrammed SIM, it was basic network compatibility. An old analog CDMA phone wasn't going to work on a European GSM network regardless of the ability of anyone who may have replaced the SIM card (which wasn't done). I'm willing to bet the phone didn't have the hardware to support GSM even if they gave him a new SIM.