# Does the MSM8655 SOC in our phones have a GSM radio built in?



## tekhna (Aug 9, 2011)

So there's some confusion as to whether the MSM8655 has a GSM radio built into the SOC or not.
Wikipedia seems to think it does if I'm reading that right:
GSM (GPRS, EDGE), W-CDMA/UMTS (HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+), MBMS, CDMA2000 (1xRTT, 1xEV-DO Rel.0/Rev.A/Rev.B

Some pretty vitriolic threads over at xda seem to say otherwise, while some other phones that have the MSM8655 in it are advertised as having CDMA/GSM capabilities, like the Fujistsu Toshiba IS12T.

It seems like there probably is a GSM radio in there, and if we could somehow get a backplate with the GSM antenna in it then the Thunderbolt could be a world phone, just swap the back plate depending on where you are. Might need to unlock the radio somehow too. Far-fetched, but it'd be cool to try out.

Edit: Looks like the MDM9600 has a GSM radio in it too.


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## barcodelinux (Jun 19, 2011)

Well, according to the spec sheet for the Snapdragon processors located here ---> https://developer.qualcomm.com/sites/default/files/snapdragon-specs.pdf, the modem that ships with the MSM8655 chipset DOES have a CDMA/UMTS (HSPA+, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 1x Adv., 1x EV-DO Rev. A/







radio built in.

This is not to say that HTC/VZW didn't order a variant of that chipset that excluded the GSM portion of the radio or somehow deleted it from the build. I did notice however, that same spec sheet listed the camera as a 12MP (which we only have 8MP) but the SVDO capability (which we have) is excluded from the modem description. That being said, I don't know how accurate that document is and I can see why there would be a controversy over it.

Interesting.


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## jolness (Jun 29, 2011)

Even if it is thete. writing the ril for the GSM chipset too would be a nightmare. The Droid 2 global aosp builds still don't have GSM


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## g00s3y (Jul 12, 2011)

barcodelinux said:


> I did notice however, that same spec sheet listed the camera as a 12MP (which we only have 8MP)


That's what it can support, The CPU doesn't have a camera itself.


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## tekhna (Aug 9, 2011)

jolness said:


> Even if it is thete. writing the ril for the GSM chipset too would be a nightmare. The Droid 2 global aosp builds still don't have GSM


Interesting about the D2 RIL, I didn't know that. Why is it so hard to get a GSM RIL to work in this situation?


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## RegnierD (Jul 1, 2011)

tekhna said:


> Interesting about the D2 RIL, I didn't know that. Why is it so hard to get a GSM RIL to work in this situation?


Because the RIL doesn't exist. It would have to be programmed from scratch to work with all other aspects of the phone. It would be a nightmare for anyone that hasn't ever written an RIL before, which is a lot of people (and likely anyone that has never worked for an SoC writing RIL's lol).


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## arnshrty (Aug 10, 2011)

jolness said:


> Even if it is thete. writing the ril for the GSM chipset too would be a nightmare. The Droid 2 global aosp builds still don't have GSM


Miui does and so does cm

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt using RootzWiki


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## IvanNCase (Oct 20, 2011)

I think what brought this up is that the someone found out the rezound could do gsm even though it didn't officially support it. Before that happened I would have said no way but now I can't say for sure. I can say I did try a T-Mobile sim and it didn't work but still there might be a way.


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

The Qualcomm LTE chipset in the Thunderbolt and the Rezound are the same. Whether the radio firmware for the phone (what you flash in the bootloader) will allow you to pick up GSM signals is another thing. That and the antennas may or may not pick up the frequencies. They may, but not be advertised to, since verizon really does not like world phones since people flash them to other carriers.


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