Help Nexus S AWS version usage on a U.K. network?

[satori3000]

Hi All, thanks in advance for reading this. I'm in Canada using a Nexus S from Wind Mobile. Wind has a slightly off colour network that means the specs of my phone are slightly different than normal carriers. From what I understand so far T-Mobile has the same network set up. I need to use my phone in the UK and I'm trying to figure out if there's any way of doing this. the baseband version reads I9020 XXKI1
The Wind website lists the following for band info:
Frequencies / Bands: GSM/GPRS/EDGE : 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz HSPA AWS 1700 MHz, 900 MHz and 2100 MHz

Can anyone make any suggestions on how I get this phone to work in the UK... do I have any options, or am I stuck having to use roaming fees which are set at $2 a minute... that's just ridiculous that anyone should have to pay that.

 

[jhawkkw]

If you're phone supports both GSM 900 & 1800, you should have no problem getting signal. Just buy a prepaid sim card from a carrier over in the UK (assuming that it's sim unlocked) and activate it. Since it also seems to support 2100MHz, it seem's you're likely to have hspa data as well.

 

[satori3000]

If you're phone supports both GSM 900 & 1800, you should have no problem getting signal. Just buy a prepaid sim card from a carrier over in the UK (assuming that it's sim unlocked) and activate it. Since it also seems to support 2100MHz, it seem's you're likely to have hspa data as well.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

First off I thought all Nexus S phones were sim unlocked, I thought that was one of the big attractions of the phone, are there some that are not sim ulocked? Then I have read in a few places that Wind/Mobilicity/T-Mobile have an AWS version of the phone and it can't be used in the UK... but I'm not sure if that is disinformation or now, that's really why I came here, I was hoping a specific Nexus S forum may have more clear and specific info on this subject.

The Wind mobile website has the following specs though so it's not clear to me that it being AWS makes it so that it can't use HSPA... sooo much disinformation out there with conflicting stories, it would be really helpful to have some concrete info on this.

 

[jhawkkw]

What they're really saying is that their Nexus s had the extra band to cover the aws frequencies. They still have their the normal frequencies and thus would be usable. I also assume it's sim unlocked, but I'm not sure if your carrier locked then for some strange reason. It's a pretty common thing in the states with every phone you buy from a carrier being sim locked with the exception of the iPhone 5 and Nexus 4.

 

[satori3000]

It's a pure Nexus phone, everything I'm reading says that the only locked nexus was the Galaxy Nexus and that was only because Google let Samsung talk them into it that one time. Nexus 4 and the Nexus S appear to be the same in that respect.

Have a look at this thread, some guy is saying that there are 2 versions of this phone. Is the Nexus S unlocked? - Future Shop Community - 285954
Is he wrong? No one seems to say he's wrong, but what I read I think he is wrong... sooo confused.

 

[jhawkkw]

It's a pure Nexus phone, everything I'm reading says that the only locked nexus was the Galaxy Nexus and that was only because Google let Samsung talk them into it that one time. Nexus 4 and the Nexus S appear to be the same in that respect.

Have a look at this thread, some guy is saying that there are 2 versions of this phone. Is the Nexus S unlocked? - Future Shop Community - 285954
Is he wrong? No one seems to say he's wrong, but what I read I think he is wrong... sooo confused.

There's actually 3, because sprint released a variant with cdma+wimax radios, lol. I would venture a strong guess that your gsm one is unlocked though.

 

[Bootsock]

My Nexus S reports 'I9020 XXKI1', and it's been working happily here in the UK for about two and a half years, and is not locked to specific network.