[Ham.Clan]

I have a Rogers PAYGO Nokia C3 cell phone that isn’t receiving stereo sound via bluetooth with my Motorola MOTOROKR S305 stereo bluetooth headphones.
My son’s Blackberry works just fine with them, but my phone only produces mono sound through the headphones.
The Motorola support page has the following Q/A:

Q - I'm using Bluetooth Stereo headset with my Nokia device, why audio is only mono?
A - Your phone hardware does not support Bluetooth stereo audio profile (A2DP) which is required for transferring stereo audio over Bluetooth.

I have read on many other sites that this phone does support the A2DP profile.
Is the Rogers firmware limiting this capability?
I’m suspicious of this because the phone’s current firmware is V 3.35, however the Nokia support site has the latest firmware at V 4.6.
And Rogers will not allow an update.

 

[recneps77]

Since the C3 is a brand new phone released in 2010, it's highly unlikely that A2DP was not enabled in even the first version of firmware.
It may be possible that rogers has it disabled, but I see no advantage to them in doing that.
(Unless they want to sell you some expensive headphones? But doesn't it have a standard 3.5mm jack?)

You're using the headphones for music, right?
It won't be stereo for calls, as it's in headset profile (one link is in[mic] one link is out [speaker], whereas in stereo, both links are out to you, so you get L&R sound)

I have a set of s305's myself, and they've worked flawlessly with 4 completely different phones I've tried them on.

Perhaps you could try contacting Nokia and asking if there's a known bug in the 3.35 firmware that affects A2DP?

The reason rogers' firmware is out of date is because they want to throw their branding on there, and lock down services you may otherwise get for free ($_$)

This takes time for them to modify the firmware.
If you don't care for rogers' support/warranty, you may be able to flash the generic firmware, or take it to a shop that can do it for you.
But again, no guarantees this would fix the problem..

 

[Ham.Clan]

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I'm using them for music.
I'll try taking it to a Rogers store and see what they can tell me.
Then, perhaps following up with Nokia.
Lastly, maybe I'll get it unlocked and try to flash the firmware with V4.6.

 

[Ham.Clan]

This website states the phone's bluetooth is V2.1 with A2DP.
The Nokia Canada website states the phone's bluetooth is V2.1 with enhanced data rate.
Are these two different things?

 

[recneps77]

No, EDR is high speed bluetooth that allows A2DP to be used
Kind of like Wireless B vs Wireless G (or G vs N)
both use the same frequency and such, but one is able to do more in that same space because of newer tech developments.

 

[BGY11]

Just because it advertises EDR does not mean the device has the A2DP profile loaded.

 

[Ham.Clan]

Just because it advertises EDR does not mean the device has the A2DP profile loaded.

That brings me back to my original thought - is this a feature being disabled though firmware by Rogers, for whatever baffling reason?
If so, would a firmware upgrade enable the feature?
I would really love to get these headphones back from my son!!

 

[recneps77]

If rogers is disabling it, yes, the 'vanilla' firmware should reenable it.

But this goes back to the question - why would rogers disable it?
What is their benefit?

Sure, they could do it for the hell of it, but usually when carriers disable things, it has to do with $$. I don't see how they'd profit out of disallowing A2DP..

 

[Ham.Clan]

If rogers is disabling it, yes, the 'vanilla' firmware should reenable it.

But this goes back to the question - why would rogers disable it?
What is their benefit?

Sure, they could do it for the hell of it, but usually when carriers disable things, it has to do with $$. I don't see how they'd profit out of disallowing A2DP..

I'd ask Rogers, but I seriously doubt anyone at the Wireless Wave kiosk in my mall will know.
This may be my only option...

 

[Ham.Clan]

Well, after contacting Rogers, who passed me on to Nokia as they said it was a hardware issue, I finally have an answer.
Here's what I received back from Nokia's customer service:

Thank you for emailing the Nokia Care Contact Center.

In response to your concern about the sound quality you received on your Motorola headset when connected to your Nokia C3, we would like to inform you that the reason why you only received mono sound on your headset is that the Nokia C3 does not support A2DP Bluetooth profile. The Advanced Audio Distribution Profile or A2DP profile defines how high quality audio (stereo or mono) can be streamed from one device to another over a Bluetooth connection.

The only supported Bluetooth profiles of the Nokia C3 are as follows:

1. Dial Up Networking Profile (PUN)
2. File Transfer Profile (FTP)
3. HandsFree Profile (HFP)
4. Headset Profile (HSP)
5. Object Push Profile (OPP)
6. Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)
7. SIM Access Profile (SIMAP)
8. Personal Area Network Profile (PAN-NAP)
9. Generic Object Exchange Profile (GOEP)
10. Serial Port Profile (SPP)
11. Service Discovery Application Profile (SDAP)

As such a software or firmware upgrade will not allow the phone to support any additional bluetooth profiles. We apologize for that matter.

Rogers better update the specifications section for this phone on their webpage, because it states it is stereo bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

 

[recneps77]

It seems very strange that they wouldn't support that, given a lot of phones cheaper than the C3 do..
And it supports pretty much every other profile.

I suppose you could use try and use that info from nokia support to get a different phone from rogers, since their specs were wrong.
That is, if having AD2P is a big feature for you.