My Nexus One – Getting it to work in Ireland on 3

I recently got a Nexus One. Shipped it all way from The States to Ireland. Best phone I have ever had. I use it for everything. It replaced my HTC Diamond running Windows Mobile 6, that I have had for about a year and a half. I find that with this phone I tend to not even use my laptop for casual email or web browsing anymore (provided I’m not sitting in front of it), its just that fast and the UI experience is fantastic, probably due to the high res screen, a whapping 800×480 px.

So to get the phone to work well in Ireland I had to make some changes to the network setup of the phone, since it was set up for the States and the networks there in. I’m currently on a pay monthly with 3, with a 1 gig monthly download limit.

To get the phone to work with 3 I had to change 3 things with the network configuration specific to 3′s network. If your on another network like Vodafone, O2 or Meteor, you’ll have to get the settings to get the phone to work on their network. A quick Google should get you the answers you need.

Access point details for 3 Ireland Network

1. On the home screen, press the settings button.
2. Then press “Wireless & network settings”.
3. Then press “Mobile networks” at the bottom.
4. Click on “Access Point Names”.
5. In here, click on the settings key and click “New APN”
6. Fill in the details below.

APN: 3ireland.ie

Server: http://mobile.3ireland.ie/bb/HutchKey/

MMSC:http://mms.um.3ireland.ie:10021/mmsc

MMS proxy: mms.3ireland.ie

MMS port: 8799

MNC: 05

Everything else can be left at defaults. These settings should not get you on to the 3 Network with a fully functioning Nexus One.

Getting the 3G Config right

The next step was to change the 3G set that the phone was using. WCDMA is what the phone used for 3G connectivity. The problem with it here is that my phone would not stay connected to the 3G network, it just started roaming a lot and would never go back to the native 3 Network. To change this follow these sets:

1. In the phone app dial “*#*#4636#*#*” This will bring you into the “Testing” menu.
2. Here then select Phone information.
3. Scroll down to “Set preferred network type” and change this to “WCDMA only”, the default should be “WCDMA preferred”.

Once I had changed these settings the phone worked great here in Ireland. I have no issues with it since, well other than the very poor battery life but that was to be expected from this SuperPhone. I really don’t think I could live without it now, having everything you need to stay connected at your finger tips all in a small neat package.