BlackBerry Torch 9800 UMA (Unifon) on the Orange Network (Orange.PL)

UMA stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access. It is also sometimes called GAN (Generic Access Network). In short - UMA - enabled phones can use WiFi as base stations. Home / office WiFi or public WiFi. It is a very nice feature. It offloads the mobile network - MNOs like that. It lowers your bill when roaming (UMA / WiFi calls are not considered roaming calls) - subscribers like that. And sometimes it is the only way to connect (as in my case). I live in a deep remote valley outside the city and I do not have coverage. UMA solves that problem, as at home my phone uses my WiFi.

UMA does not require doing anything special -launching an application or setting up call forwards. Once configured, it can even hand a live call over from GSM/3G to WiFi and vice versa.

The downside of UMA is it requires special support on a handset (terminal). And only a small number of handsets are UMA - compliant. But the good thing is UMA is supported by almost all BlackBerries. I have been using UMA for almost two years now, on a BlackBerry Curve 8900 on the Orange.PL network. But my 8900 have up the ghost a week ago (it probably had enough of me dropping it on a concrete floor). Looking for a new phone I decided to go for the new Torch 9800. Called Orange, but they did not even know such model existed. So I bought it SIM-free. Unfortunately when it arrived it knew nothing about UMA. So I had to hack it. I mean properly configure. So here is the story. The method described below is a generic method, but certain settings refer to Orange.PL settings, for other networks you will need different URLs and certificates.


First I had to enable the Blackberry Engineering Setup. To do that you need to invoke the engineering menu by pressing Alt+Shift+H, and entering a special passcode. The passcode calculator is here: http://www.zibri.org/2009/08/hidden-things-are-usually-best.html. To get your passcode enter your device PIN, the APP version (as you see on your screen, including the space and parenthesis, like "6.0.0.246 (695)", the uptime and select how long you wish the passcode to be valid. Then simply type the generated passcode. Nothing happens as you type but when you finish, the Engineering Menu opens.

Choose the [Mobile Network Engineering Screens] and scroll down to the bottom where is the [GAN Control...]. There are basically two things I had to set up. The SEGW and GANC addresses.

• SEGW: uma.orange.pl
• GANC: hbsc.centertel.pl

The rest I left unchanged.

The second step is to [Utilities] and [Session Manager]. Pressing the menu key there is the [UMA Options] item to select. It will either show an existing list item (like "Factory Defaulted") or use the [New] option to create one. You will be prompted for Display and Operator name (I entered Orange, but anything should work). Then uncheck the [Use default UNC address] and enter:

• Provisioning UNC address: hbsc.centertel.pl
• Provisioning UNC port: 14001

Again uncheck the [Use default SEGW address] and enter:

• Provisioning SEGW address: uma.orange.pl

For the UMA protocol version select the [UMA v. 1.0.3] from the dropdown menu.

The last thing (and the most important one) is picking up the certificate. It is used by the handset to authenticate itself when setting up a secured communications tunnel via the public Internet to the MNO's network. The dropdown offers all certificates from the BlackBerry certificate vault. In my case they got there in the first place during the migration phase. Before I started playing with UMA, I used the Blackberry Desktop Manager to "Switch device" from my old Curve 8900 to the new Torch 9800.

The certificate I found works with UMA at Orange.PL is the [Equifax Secure Certificate Authority]. I don't know if it is factory preloaded on new phones, or I copied it from the previous UMA-enabled phone.

Anyway setting things like above, and enabling WiFi network, allowed my phone to switch from 3G over to UMA. It works rock solid. The call quality is better than it used to be with the Curve 8900 (more horsepower?). So that is about it. Looking forward to some comments if people find this article of a value. There has been a word Android is going to support UMA, which is great news, as it would broaden the base of available UMA - enabled phones (after all not everyone is a fan of BlackBerries).