Activating an ancient (GSM?) Nokia 2190 phone on AT&T
 

I have an ancient, Nokia 2190 phone on "Sprint". I am trying to get it to work with AT&T.

Yes, I am pretty sure this phone is GSM, and not CDMA:


This was "Old Sprint", which ran a GSM network. more recently, they switched to CDMA. Please don't say otherwise unless you know what you're talking about.



Model number: 2190 (NOT the 2190-e model, which isn't GSM)
Type: NHB-2ND

This is the 1900 Mhz version of the 2110 for the North American market.

I am trying to use this phone on AT&T, however I get an error message: "SIM CARD REJECTED". I believe that AT&T in the US supports 1900 band, and I also believe this phone is 1900 band.

I believe I already unlocked the phone. The phone had an old, (Sprint PCS?) SIM card already inserted. Inserting an AT&T SIM card caused the phone to say a message about wrong type of SIM card. This page had an old DOS program, nsl exe, I used to generate the unlock code to unlock the phone:


Now, when an AT&T SIM Card is inserted, the phone turns on and doesn't say anything about invalid SIM. However after it fully boots up, the phone eventually says "SIM CARD REJECTED". Any ideas how to get it working?

I tried it with several different AT&T SIMs, and a T-mobile SIM, and got this message. The ancient SIM card it came with doesn't get this SIM CARD REJECTED message.

My best guess, is either:

• I didn't unlock the phone properly
• There is some setting /proramming on the phone that needs to be changed
• there's something wrong with the AT&T sim cards, they're 3v and need to be 5v....?
• some other incompatibility with the SIM card i inserted

Any input would be helpful. I want to get this phone working for fun, not as a regular phone to be used.

its rejected because it uses a 5 volt sim card and all modern cards made after 2011 use 1.8v and 3.3v. Previous sims were 3.3v and 5v.

Also, AT&T has shut down their 2g GSM network on January 1st 2017, so even if you get a hold of an old AT&T/Cingular sim card you will not find signal.

FYI, as far as I know all Nokia 2190 (non-E) are factory unlocked, meaning they will take any 5v sim and register on network. My Sprint model is unlocked and so is my Voicestream, but my PacBell 2190E is not.

Now your best bet is to find a pre TM9250 t-mobile sim and activate that. They are all going to be expired, but maybe you can still activate one if you find a new one and the right T-Mo rep. I use a TM9073 sim in my Ericsson CH388, never tried it it my 2190's because all their batteries are now ****. I'll dig them out and let you know.

It does that because the memory size is more than 32k.

Lycamobile (Tmobile MVNO) cards WILL Work with these phones for some odd reason.

My Sprint 2190 will NOT see the Tmobile network, yet the 3 2190 E-s that I have will happily register as if it's 1995 again.

When ATT had 1900 active in the area, and I had a 32k SIM that I managed to activate until they nuked it, the Sprint 2190 WOULD see "USA 41 // USA 26" but when attempting to register it would say NO SYSTEM ACCESS.

I'm very intrigued as far as what the difference between the 2190 and 2190E could be as far as this behaviour.

Hey hi

I have an Nokia x2-02 mobile, where as the problem I m facing is when I insert the battery automatically vibrator starts, any one could please help me out what would be the problem?

Thank you

Nokia 2190e ( Pacific Bell ) need help with Unlock
 

i have Several Nokia 2190E from ( Pacfic Bell ) and i would like to Unlock one So i can Use it for T-Mobile! ive Tried all the Free .org nokia sites and it Has Produced nothing! funny part is i used that site for years and it used to generate Codes but now its just adds ??? anyway if you can help please reply thanks!

Find the NSL program and use that to generate an unlock code. You’ll need a Windows 98 PC/Virtual Machine to open the program.

response to musicbymuzak :
Update for this now ancient thread. I tried using lycamobile SIM cards, but was never able to get it to work. Probably the ones I tried were not 5v sim cards?


T-mobile wouldn't activate old 5v SIM cards, saying they're expired. I wonder if there's another service that would still work (or a way to get guaranteed 5v sim cards that are compatible)




response to sdwyz74 :

When I first created this thread, I tried all the online unlocker sites and none of them worked. Then I found an ancient website that had a link to a exe file that would generate unlock codes. I think the file was super small - like 4kb even! the link was broken, but I found the file was hosted on archive dot org



this might be it, search for "Nokia NK503 i simlock elektroda"


and that file will be on the last post on the thread. Would be great if somebody could upload here!


you'll have to use the emulator program, "DosBox" to open the file, as it won't open in windows/mac. You don't need windows 98