New Nokia 3310 Won't Work in US, Canada, Australia. This Is Why

Nokia 3310

The new Nokia 3310 was unveiled at MWC 2017 in Barcelona after many leaks. The feature phone was met with instant adulation. Even though the new Nokia 3310 comes with a tweaked keyboard and large color display. It still held its roots to keep the sturdiness and long lasting battery features alive. One more feature that HMD Global kept alive was its old band frequencies, unfortunately. It inevitably makes the phone useless in many countries, including the Canada, US, Singapore, and Australia.

For two bands 900MHZ and 1800MHz, the original Nokia 3310 supported on the GSM network, something that was fine for 2G connections back then. Nevertheless, these frequencies are not active in many parts of the world with the advent of mobile Internet, including Canada and US. On concord, HMD Global didn’t think that these were important markets and decided to support the old frequencies only.

This won’t work in Australia either while Nokia 3310(2017) will be headed to Asia Pacific. The feature phone won’t work on Australia’s biggest telco Telstra according to Yahoo Finance. That is because it doesn’t operate on 2G bands anymore. Optus and Vodafone are switching off 2G this year too.

As the 2G networks will become inoperable starting April 2017 in the country, the new Nokia 3310 will not work in Singapore. After 2G services end, Singapore telco StarHub said to The Straits Times that “all 2G-only phones won’t support SMS, calls and data services.” This includes Nokia 3310(2017) too.

They need to support at least four bands 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and To be operable worldwide for today’s mobile. Furthermore, with newly formed operators such as Reliance Jio. It managed to attract a record number of subscribers and don’t support 2G or 3G at all. You need 4G support on your mobile for this carrier to work.

Nevertheless, HMD Global’s new and improved Nokia 3310 (2017) only supports 900MHz and 1800MHz frequencies for now. This means it won’t be able to connect to any network in the Canada and US. The new Nokia 3310 won’t work for a large audience in its targeted markets as well in the future, most networks are shutting down 2G frequencies gradually.

If you buy the new Nokia 3310 and travel to any of the countries that do not support the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands anymore. You would essentially be left with a device to play Snake on or take low-resolution photos with. The long lasting battery won’t help Nokia 3310 users remain connected to friend and family in these regions.

HMD Global has confirmed, the new Nokia 3310 will be launched in India in Q2 2017. Other markets that the feature phone is heading to are Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. All of these countries support the old frequencies for now. On concord, the phone won’t connect to Reliance Jio network in India. Nokia hasn’t said anything about a launch in the US. If it does launch it there and it should introduce frequency support for the region.