GoWireless

GSM devices cannot use HSPA while on voice call. I use the AT&T Note on T-Mobile. I have 4G LTE for data, but once I get a call or make a call, I quickly drop from LTE to UMTS (3G). It also takes a while to get back up to LTE after I end the call, usually it goes up to and remains on HSPA for a while. It probably takes a while to get back to LTE because of the scan time in the device. 

 

I also plan on buying the Note 3 as soon as I can if it has triband LTE. Any updates on the FCC docs coming through for the device?

 

It could be the fact that you are using an AT&T phone on T-Mobile and its lack of HSPA AWS, combined with how the transmit paths on the phone are set up is why you cannot get data while on a call. It's possible that the TMO version of the Note, which does have HSPA AWS support can make simultaneous voice and data work.

It could be a political decision, retribution for VZW. Or it could be a technical reason, since band class 13 is the only one of the bunch that has an inverted FDD downlink/uplink.

 

AJ

Interestingly, if you look at the image in post #58, you'll see that the low band antenna on the the device is connected to a four position switch, with only 3 positions of which are being used (cellular+smr, gsm900, and LTE b17). Assuming the rest of the rf components can handle the inverted link setup, it shouldn't be difficult to adapt the design to add support for VZW's LTE band as well.

I was on a weekend trip to Williamsburg this weekend. I managed to get LTE around the area of the Kmart on Route 60, but that was it! 3G service was AWFUL. Not usuable whatsoever. At the Premium Outlets on Route 60 near Route 199, service was so bad I couldn't even send texts. I kept roaming switching between Verizon and nTelos. Could not send a text on nTelos to save my life. (Granted, there were tons of people at the outlets, but still.)

 

I really was disgusted with the state of things down that way. On the other hand, I had LTE in all the little podunk places on Route 13 on the Eastern Shore of VA. Go figure.

What I find particularly egregious is that if you look at Sprint's official coverage map, you get the impression that Williamsburg is completely blanketed by 4G. Oh well, Hampton Roads has for a long time been the step child for Sprint on the East Coast. Seems like for a while there they were actually making some pretty decent NV progress in the area then they sort'a slowed down. T-Mobile at one point was well behind Sprint in putting in LTE but has been making some decent strides lately. I hope Sprint starts picking up the pace soon. We are almost a year into deployment and I still see a lot of 3G only areas, even high traffic ones. That said, where there is 4G it is usually very good.

55015 is the Individual-Liable (consumer) PRL. 54015 is the Corporate-Liable(Business) PRL. The CL ones have 3G data roaming enabled, the IL ones are limited to 1x roaming in most areas.

 

If you are a business, you have preferential roaming agreements in addition to the rest of the CL benefits that Sprint has

Thanks.

Could someone explain the difference between 54015 and 55015?

I went from picking up LTE anywhere in Norfolk/Chesapeake/VA Beach to nothing at all.  After spending more than an hour on the phone with a Sprint rep, the issue is slightly better, but I've noticed I still have to airplane toggle to pick up LTE signals that I had no problem getting in the past.  I have a rooted GNex, but the thing is, my wife's stock iPhone 5 has the same issues.  Anyone else experiencing this?

I have not noticed this recently. Have you tried to do a PRL and profile updates?

 

What I have noticed is that there are quite a few areas where there is excellent 3G reception but no 4G at all. In other words, even though the market has been launched for some time, there seem to be a number of towers that Sprint still hasn't gotten to yet.

Confirmed, even with MF9, the Sprint Galaxy S4 is worthless as a smartphone anywhere except the US.

 

Well, I personally wouldn't quite go that far because based on what folks are reporting on XDA, there do appear to be some carriers where the data seems to work without modifying the APN settings. Also, rooting too is an option for some users who are comfortable with doing that.

I am currently in France until August 2nd and after successfully getting Sprint to unlock my Galaxy S4, I travelled here about 2 weeks later. On my wife's HTC EVO Design4G, I put in her 'Free Mobile' SIM card and voila, 3G & H data as well as MMS and voice and SMS service began working fine on my new number attached to the SIM. On my Galaxy S4, I put in the SIM and went to configure the APNs only to find that they are in-configurable! In fact they are not even accessible without a shortcut app leading you to the APN page where all the settings are greyed out and if you want to add a new APN, the new APN page is unusable and greyed out as well.

Until there is an update, this phone does not seem to be 100% international despite Sprint's claim since only half the services work. The only services that work are the same ones that will work with a 10€ flip-phone over here (Voice and SMS).

I have searched high and low and those that know me know I do not give up on a technology question or error until I have it fixed or have convinced the company to fix it. However, this one has me beat. I do not root my phone for multiple reasons, the least of which is I do not like the idea of owning a $700 brick. There are other reasons as well which are out of my control.

I should not have to root my phone, however, to be able to access the features that Sprint claims are available on my phone.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Can anyone help? I am posting on this forum because you guys have discussed APNs and the Galaxy S4 and I love S4GRU and have gotten results from you all in the past!

Help! I'm in France and would LOVE to be able to use some of the 3GB of data that came with the SIM card plan on the phone that was guaranteed unlocked by Sprint. Suggestions?

Merci!

What you are trying to do is not possible without rooting in the MDL and MDC firmware versions. However, there's a new firmware with a lot of updates that came out yesterday and it's possible that Sprint enabled APN access in it.

Any status update on the 850mhz UTMS situation on this phone?

 

We had a similar issue with Photon 4G,

 

The phone had the technical functionality for 850mhz UTMS, but it was disabled in the radio.

 

Then a KDDI radio was flashed and it unblocked 850mhz UTMS band

 

Since this sounds similar,I think it is being blocked by the modem,  and not being held back by the rom or kernel.

 

Hopefully a workaround will be found for the Sprint GS4 since its 100 times more popular then the Photon ever was.

 

Are you sure about UMTS 850 being blocked on the Photon? Remember, this thread is about international use of the phone, not domestic use. Seems like the post you are referencing is talking about making the phone useable on domestic GSM networks.

 

I am think the Photon was always capable of UMTS 850 use outside the US.

According to Samsung, it does support quad-band UMTS: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SPH-L720ZKASPR-specs A rumor got started that Sprint specifically disabled the 850Mhz band, but I never saw that substantiated. Perhaps someone got it confused with the HTC One which does lack 850/900 UMTS radios. The APN can be edited, but I'm not sure exactly how (I have to get my phone unlocked first!). Unlike the S3 though you do apparently have to root.

It wasn't just a rumor. The Samsung spec page for the L720 actually said UMTS 1900/2100 initially and it got changed later.

 

Even after root, it is not simple to modify the APN settings. And what of unlocked, unrooted S4 owners? They may be SOL.

 

On the good side of things, since the phone does appear to possess UMTS900, that does make it a more capable roamer than the AT&T and T-Mobile variants which lack that band.

Hmm strange. It worked for me on blukuban ROM. I used the build prop editor program mentioned on that site to get it to work.

 

It moved all the menus to the mobile network menu (not roaming even though the description says to set options for roaming, networks, and APN's). There I can set network mode which I set to gsm/WCDMA and natively edit my APN.

 

Strange indeed since I believe blue kuban is a TouchWiz based rom, albeit it may be the least TW-like of all the TW based roms. Hopefully someone will figure out what's the magic property that will enable an editable APN menu on stock. There is a dialer command that needs the MSL which I don't recall what it is at the moment that will show you the APN but will not allow you to edit it.

 

If you find out about Pelephone, let us know. Thx.

Followed the instructions here:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-note-2-rooting-roms-hacks/241691-mod-add-apn-editor-system-settings.html

In short, add the following code to the build prop and you have the option to modify your apn natively:

ril.sales_code=LOL

ro.csc.sales_code=LOL

Doesn't seem to work for me on stock MDL rooted. In fact, after doing this and rebooting, not only does the APN config not appear, but I also lose the ability to switch to GSM/UMTS mode at all! (All that's available on the network mode list then is CDMA and CDMA/LTE.) After deleting the two lines from the prop file, the GSM/UMTS option shows back up though.

 

Unfortunately the app didn't work because android 4.0+ blocked non system apps from changing the apn. A simple edit to the build prop enables the stock menu in mobile network settings. After correcting the apn I get a working data connection on both frequencies.

My uncle has pelephone so ill try to borrow his sim when he doesn't need it and see if I can get an 850 frequency connection.

Glad we could figure this out!

Awesome! Glad you got it working.

 

What property did you set? Is it available in stock MDL?

 

I think another option would be to make APN Israel a system app through Titanium Backup and then it should be able to modify the APN.

I wonder if you are having APN issues. To date I don't think anyone has figured out how to manually alter the APN settings on the Sprint variant. Sprint always has to mess with their phones, making things harder. Arrgh!

 

Try installing the app "APN Israel". See if that helps.

 

Thanks for the screenshot! Looking at it, it does appear that the phone can connect to UMTS900 in non restricted mode. That's good news.

 

Anyhoo, try the app and see if it helps. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

EDIT: FYI - I believe APN Israel needs root permissions.

Which one has the WiFi issue I heard about and all the bloatware that is not removable?

What wifi issue?

 

Haven't noticed any wifi issues at all on mine.

Tried it at work and got band 5. As soon as I tried to take a screenshot it jumped back to band 2, but luckily I caught it again. Here's the screenshot. Hopefully this confirms we have UMTS 850 as well. Good news.

Great, though I think to be certain, still need confirmation you can make a call or use the web on UMTS 900 or 850 (or for it not to display "limited service" on the band screen), so what you might find out in Israel would still be beneficial to know. I say this because Sprint's idea of "disabling" GSM means to cripple a band such that it is available for emergency use only.

Thanks for all the info.

 

So I was very eager to check that my unlock worked because of all the problems people were having with unlocking previously. I dont have a GSM phone, but then I remembered my Verizon work phone, iPhone 4S has a micro SIM that I thought could work in my phone even though Verizon is a CDMA Carrier. So I thought what the hell and put it in. BOOM GSM850!

 

Hope this is enough to validate that UMTS850 should be working. I know I don't have a "3g" icon and it says GSM850 not UMTS850 but since I'm using a US SIM and the phone isn't unlocked in the US my phone shows no service as yours does.

 

Also, I'm assuming this means that I am unlocked and should be good to go once I buy a SIM outside of the US.

 

Lastly, my uncle was asking me to buy him an S4 in the states for use in Israel because it is much cheaper here. If I buy an ATT or T-mobile one are those able to be unlocked without calling ATT or do I have to buy the factory unlocked international version?

Actually, GSM850 support was never in question. Quadband GSM support was publically known and acknowledged. It is specifically UMTS850 and 900 that were not confirmed. If anything, what you found out concerns me a bit because if AT&T has UMTS 850 deployed at a certain area, I think they tend to to try to have users with capable handsets connect to it rather than GSM 850 due to spectral efficiency issues (in fact, because of this, they want at some point in the future to completely shut down GSM). Also, note that you got "limited service" (i.e., not a usable signal, only good for making emergency calls, as expcted in the US), and also that that no company in Israel has GSM 850 deployed, only UMTS 850; Orange does have GSM 900 deployed though).

 

As for an S4 for Israel... I think you'd be much better off buying the intl 9505 version. One, I do not believe either company will unlock the handset for you if you are not a subscriber (and even then with all sorts of restrictions) and two, as I mentioned previously, the AT&T and TMO versions do not support UMTS 900 which is used by Orange in some places. Also, there's the issue of firmware updates, which in Israel would probably be easier to get for the intl version. BTW, if any of your relatives have Pelephone (preferably) or Cellcom (or their MVNOs), try to to see if you can use their SIM for a bit just to check if you can get a non-limited UMTS850 signal (because like I said earlier, Orange's UMTS 900 is not that widely deployed).

 

As an aside, if you were able to get on AT&T's UMTS850 service, it should have said something like "band5" instead of GSM850.

Wow thanks for all the info!

 

Cm doesn't have this screen unfortunately. I'll play it safe and use a touchwiz rom while I'm abroad. Not too big of a deal.

 

I'll be there for 30 days so I'm going to go with the 30 days + 2gb data. Not bad at about 40 bucks.

 

This website has it for about 60 bucks (http://prepaidisraelisim.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=64_67&product_id=86). I'm guessing the 20 bucks is their fee for the card. Or I could just buy it there for 10 bucks then call in and add the plan through orange. Will keep you posted on my findings. Leave in about a week.

 

Yes, it looks like they are doing a 50% mark-up.  The actual cost of this package "on the street" is 150 NIS (last item on this page: http://www.orange.co.il/he-il/cellular/service_plans/bigtalk_cards/ ) plus, they are also charging 50%-100% more for the SIM card. Not too bad for them

 

For a one month's stay, Orange's deal is probably the best around. (Post-paid, a similar package goes for about 100 NIS but for one month it's not worth messing with that. The post paid packages do generally include a larger data allotment and free unlimited international calls though.) All of this is thanks to a new company called Golan Telecom ( https://www.golantelecom.co.il/web/index.php , also known as "Free Mobile" in France) which started providing services in Israel last year and completely upended the entire wireless market there, bringing prices down across all providers by 60%-70%. They do not do prepaid at this point, but will sell post-paid packages to tourists - convenient if you were going to stay a while.

 

Orange's UMTS 900 deployment is fairly recent and thus not that widely deployed but if you do pick up a usable signal, do let us know as that will confirm UMTS 900 support. The AT&T and T-Mobile S4 variants BTW do not support UMTS 900.

 

Anyhoo, hope you have a nice trip!

I didn't actually connect to 850, was just browsing menus in*#0011# and saw that gsm 850 is listed there.

 

I'm going to Israel and I believe they have 850 there, so will let you know if it works.

 

How can I tell what band I am connected to? Also what steps did I mention that could break CDMA800? Want to make sure I didn't mess anything up. Is there a radio image I can flash to restore defaults?

 

Attached is what I see on stock when I issue *#0011#. This is with the Sprint SIM left in the device and after changing the the network type to GSM/UMTS. As you can see, the phone is getting on AT&T's network using UMTS1900. You can tell by it saying "Band 2", occasionally I will get it to go on T-Mobile and it will say "PCS 1900", meaning GSM 1900. As you can see though, it says limited service, meaning I can only make emergency calls. I have also tried it with a provisioned AT&T SIM and it still said "limited". What does it show for you on CM10?

 

As for Israel and UMTS 850...

 

There are three main cell providers in Israel. These are their 3G UMTS bands:

 

Pelephone: 850 (primary), 2100 (secondary). BTW, they do not do 2G GSM, also I think they may still have their old CDMA network up so if you leave your phone on CDMA it will try to roam on it.

Cellcom: 2100 (primary), 850 (secondary).

Orange: 2100 (primary), 900 (secondary).

 

If you could get your phone to provide you with coverage with which you could make a call there and you could figure out how to show which band you are on using CM, please let us know if you can get on UMTS 850 or 900. On Cellcom or Orange you may need to be deep inside a building for that to happen since the "low" bands are secondary for them. On Pelephone I would think it would happen most of the time since UMTS 850 is their primary band.

 

BTW, all three providers have excellent and inexpensive prepaid options, though depending on how long you'd be there, one provider's offerings may be better than another's. I would recommend getting a "plan" refill card rather than a value/amount refill card. Depending on the company and card, they can usually give you unlimited usage for a certain number of days, say  2, 7, 14 or 30 days which is more convienent than trying to figure out how many minutes+bonus minutes you'd be getting with the stored value cards. For example, on Cellcom you can get a 7-day unlimited domestic calls and texts + 250MB web for $13 (49NIS). SIMs can be purchased in many kiosks and post offices and usually run around $10-$15. All three companies have excellent coverage thoroughout the country.

 

For calling back to the 'States I would recommend localphone.com (I would recommend them for intl' calls from the US too). They give you free local numbers for each of your contacts and they also have a traditional pin/pinless calling option. They also support SIP calling and have their own android app.

I received a call this morning from a sprint CSR that they have unlocked my phone. Trying to order my international SIM delivered to the US so I can make sure it works before I leave.

If you just did it this recently then you should be fine. You could even put an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM in there and you will no longer get the "invalid SIM" warning. However, while the phone will register on T-Mobile or AT&T, you will only be allowed to make emergency calls.

 

How did you tell you we're on UMTS 850? Did you change the mode to GSM/UMTS and then run the RF menu? If so, did it say "GSM850" or "Band 4"? In any case, unfortunately, that still doesn't prove 100% that Sprint didn't set the band to allow something besides emergency only use. The only way to tell 100% I think would be to use the phone on a foriegn carrier that uses UMTS 850 and see that you can get on that band in unrestricted mode.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know a full proof way to say for sure that your phone is unlocked until you get overseas. One would hope that with the fiasco they went through with the unlock that they did in fact fix this problem once and for all.

 

BTW, what country are you going to?

Great. Sprint has told me that I am unlocked, and I did do the Unlock UICC on my phone menu, which gave me a confirmation.

 

Browsing the *#0011# menu, i noticed the 850 band is there, so I'm thinking it should work while I am abroad. Also have heard people are able to use GSM Mode on AOSP ROMs via the *#*#4636#*#* menu and changing to GSM only. 

 

Is there a way to check that my phone is unlocked through one of these menu's without a GSM SIM Card? I really don't want to get abroad and find out I'm unable to use my phone.

 

How long ago did you get the unlock done? I ask because Sprint only recently fixed the unlock issue. Prior to that users got the confirmation that their device was unlocked after pressing 'unlock UICC' after reciving the OTA but the device actually remained locked (to the dismay of several folks on the XDA forum who went overseas thinking that they were unlocked when in fact they weren't).

Update: Sprint seems to have finally managed to figure out how to unlock the S4 and the One.

 

Henceforth, I have gotten my S4 unlocked. I do have a foreign carrier's SIM I can try but in my area (SE Va.), Verizon hogs the entire cellular band (as a reult of the Alltel acquisition) and so even if I could get the device to pick up American providers' signals, it'd be on 1900 and so I wouldn't be able to tell if UMTS 850 is disabled.

I looked on Samsung's website and they have the following for sprint variant of the GS4:

 

Frequencies and Data Type LTE: Band 25; CDMA 1x/EVDO Rev.A: 800/850/1900MHz; HSPA+/UMTS: 850/900/1900/2100MHz; GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz[/size]

 

Calling sprint is useless as the word "frequency" or "band" usually instantly confuses and reps I've spoken to... 

 

Are we sure that this band is disabled?

 

I want to use my phone on Orange in Israel and based on my research uses GSM 900/1800 frequency and UMTS technology. Do you think it will work? [/size]

 

Also, I use CyanogenMod on my phone. I know I probably need to be on touchwiz ROM for unlocking when I call Sprint, but can I use CM after I'm already unlocked? There is a setting to enable LTE/CDMA/EvDo/GSM/WCDMA in preferred network mode and I can change my CDMA subscription from NV to RUIM/SIM. Does anyone have experience with this? Much appreciated[/size]

Initially the Samsung spec. page omitted UMTS 850 and 900 and has since been updated. However, several sources did confirm to me that 850 was disabled and 900 not included so at this point I am not sure what the device truly supports. All of this is sort of moot and impossible to confirm anyway because Sprint doesn't appear to have a working method to GSM unlock the S4 (or HTC One for that matter) yet.

##DEBUG#, then you'll need to enter 777468

Thanks!

What's the code to get into the engineering screen on the SGS4 (stock unrooted ROM). I tried puching in *#*#4636#*#* on the dial pad but nothing happens. Do I need to enable some special mode or something? Do I need to press something after the last *? Am I missing something?