HTC HD7 switching between bands

[Anonymous]

Hello all,
The basic problem us we live on the outskirts of a town with open countryside, this is lovely but has limited cell phone coverage.
Over the last three years I have tried all of the cell phone providers ending up with Orange via UMA, this was ok but not stable enough to be reliable.
My neighbour howver had an old O2 phone on GSM, this worked fine so just to be sure I bought an O2 SIM which I tried myself, Great I thought and ordered the above phone.
Phone arrive, switch on little or no reception, yet my O2 older handset sat next to it shows wall to wall coverage.
Then I realise the HTC is trying to find either 3G or HSPA occasionally dropping onto the edge service which I guess is GSM - for some reason it only shows a couple of bars with call quality quite poor, it also drops calls and sometimes cannot connect to live mail.
Help!
Thanks in advance,

[Anonymous]

It's handy to know what features use what frequency for example, I went to the US last month and left the data roaming and Wi Fi options enabled - I ran up a bill of almost £100 for four days, not just on data but texts too.
A couple of slightly o/t questions if I may;
1. If I switch off data and roaming will the phone still 'roam' to find a carrier in the US for voice calls only, also will emails still come through on 2G?
2. If I switch off data and roaming but leave Wi Fi on will it find my US office network or will it not even begin searching of it?
Is there a table or reference anywhere for what does what?
Ta,

[jonsie]

Yes to both but I would only switch the wifi on when you want to use it. Constantly on will mean it's continually searching for wifi connections and will be a burden on your battery.
Also make sure you switch off voicemail before you leave the UK, the way it is routed means you will be charged silly rates if someone leaves you a message.

[Anonymous]

Cheers for that, so just to clarify emails will still come through with roaming and data switched off overseas?
If its coming through on the 2G voice is it still classed as data, sorry to be pedantic on this but I never seem to get a clear answer when researching myself.
btw, switching off the 3G option has made a huge difference, the phone works normally with no missed calls, in addition the battery life has doubled to around two days.
Could this be something to recommend to O2 customer support?

[adamtemp64]

If data roaming is off unless in wifi coverage abroad no emails will come through as cell data is blocked 2g/3G

[Anonymous]

Thanks again Adam,
As I mentioned in my post about researching the subject it may not be clear to users, indeed two replies from knowledgeable posters with different answers to the same question.