Re: Augmenting mobile-broadband-provider-info

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2009-11-23 at 17:15 +0100, Marcel Holtmann wrote:
> Hi Antti,
> 
> > > you can't trust the network name string returned by AT+COPS since there
> > > are so many factors coming into play here. So first of all you have the
> > > names stored in the modem itself, then the names stored on the SIM card
> > > and then the potential updates over the network. Every hardware does
> > > different things to present the result of AT+COPS.
> > 
> > AFAIK if there's a name stored in the SIM card it will have precedence
> > over the ones stored inside the modem. And the ones that network sends
> > are probably most reliable. I have to look though the specs if there's
> > any information on this.
> > 
> > Anyway the point is that in most situations we should have a correct
> > alphabetical name for the provider, right? 
> 
> I have seen different hardware with the same SIM card give different
> names. And I also have seen different SIM card with the same hardware
> result in different results.
> 
> Also you have the problem that names change over time and some hardware
> and SIM card combination returns still the old one, while newer pieces
> would give you the new name.

T-Mobile USA hasn't been Voicestream Wireless since 2002, but my ZTE
MF627 (a quite recent device sold by 3UK) returns:

+COPS: (2,"AT&T@","AT&TD","310410",0),(3,"Voicestream Wireless Corporation","VSTREAM","31026",0),

The SIM is a T-Mobile US SIM that is known to return "T-Mobile" in most
other cases.  And what's up with the "AT&T@" and "AT&TD" anyway?

Basically, we simply can't trust that the COPS results are going to be
in any way accurate...

Dan