Database Users

[Q] T-Mo Galaxy Tab Overseas?

Have been dead-set on getting a Tab for a while now, and since Christmas is coming up I'm considering having my family in the states send me a T-Mo Galaxy Tab.
I've been reading over the threads on getting voice unlocked on the T-Mo models. Voice isn't a MASSIVE issue for me, since I use text messaging 99% of the time anyway, but it would be a nice feature to have. I can wait for that though, so it's not a deal-breaker.
The one thing I would really hate to be without would be 3G. My local provider (Vodafone New Zealand) uses UMTS as well, but without AWS. Both T-Mo and VFNZ use 2100Mhz, but T-Mo uses 1700Mhz and VFNZ use 900/1800Mhz. If it's just a matter of ROMs, I'm sure that wouldn't be too much of a problem as eventually the local carrier stores will start selling it, but at the moment the only places I can find it for are importers (and they're charging ~1000USD).
Advice? How likely am I to be without 3G? How likely to be without phone support? And do I have any alternatives that don't involve paying nearly twice what a US model costs?

Your best bet would be At&t's (USA) version of the Galaxy Tab with Quad band GSM.
This is from Samsung's website:
Quad-Band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz);
Tri-band UMTS (850/1900/2100MHz) & Wi-Fi
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/galaxy-tab/SGH-I987ZKAATT-features
There are ways around the voice capability, though it will strictly be over VOIP and not cellular. For example, you can use Skype to call people. As long as you have good wifi coverage, there shouldn't be much difference from cellular.
Your last bet would be to get the totally unlocked and full featured international version of the Galaxy Tab. However, that costs quite a bit more than the carrier locked US versions.

----------

Which Galaxy Tab???

Hey Guys,
I am thinking of buying a Galaxy Tab, but I am unsure of which carrier I want to go with.
I am from the UK, but living in the US. I do go back to the UK occasionally, so want something that works there - this would mean I would either need the T_Mobile or the AT&T versions.
However, I believe that AT&T and T-Mobile use different frequencies for their 3G signal here in the US, with AT&T being the only one that is the same as the UK/EU.
I was wanting to to with the T-Mobile version as I read somewhere that their speeds would be faster, but if 3G is not going to work in the UK, i'll pass on it. T-Mobile also had a subsidised version which is also an incentive.
So, do any of you guys know if the hardware radio has this frequency limitation or is it something to do with the software? I ask this because my AT&T blackberry was able to connect to T-Mobiles 3G network while I was over in the US last time so it is possible to havea radio that can connect to both.... Perhaps they did not do this though for cost savings....

Why don't u buy a Euro tab. There was a post stating he could use the Euro tab with both voice & data with AT&T sim. No hacking was needed

dh010447 said:
However, I believe that AT&T and T-Mobile use different frequencies for their 3G signal here in the US, with AT&T being the only one that is the same as the UK/EU.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't guarantee you that a TMo US Tab would work on UK 3G, but what I can say is that my TMo US G1 worked fine.
Regards,
Dave

[Q] Dubai Tab in the USA

Hello !!
I bought an unlocked Galaxy Tab in Dubai UAE and would like to use it in SF Bay Area.
My Tab's Supported bands are:
GSM&EDGE Band 850/900/1800/1900
3G Band 900/1900/2100​
I would like your advice / experience sharing with subscribing to the most suitable US wireless carrier for my tab.
Would ATT or Tmobile work?
Is 3G an attainable objective?
Which plans would you suggest? I am planning to use this device primarily for mobile web access, with occasional phone calls as well.
Thanks in advance for your kind feedback!
K
PS: pls note I spent several hours trying to find answer on this site as well as others before posting, my apologies however if this question was already asked and answered on this forum.

Hi,
on a recent trip the the US I purchased a prepaid SIM from AT&T for data usage only.
I wanted to get one that allowed me the option to make a phone call but didnt find any luck - all data/phone bundles are for postpaid and tie you to a 12/18 month contract....
Although I must say they were not very sure of what they were doing, I had to convince them that the same iPad packages would work on the Galaxy - keeping in mind that you would have to manually entr the APN settings..

kido007 said:
Would ATT or Tmobile work?
Is 3G an attainable objective?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't get 3G on TMo at all, since your Tab doesn't support AWS 1700/2100.
AT&T supports 3G on 850MHz and 1900MHz, so if you are in a region which uses 1900MHz you should be ok.
The bad news is that prepaid data deals on AT&T are very poor indeed and there don't seem to be an MVNOs that run on AT&T and offer decent amounts of data.
My advice, which is what I've actually done, would be to by a Virgin Mobile MiFi - for $40 a month you get 5GB data (it was unlimited, but that ends at the start of Feb). Virgin Mobile runs over Sprint (CDMA), but using the MiFi at least gives you a decent amount of data for a reasonable price - however, the MiFi will run you around $129.
Regards,
Dave

kido007 said:
My Tab's Supported bands are:
GSM&EDGE Band 850/900/1800/1900
3G Band 900/1900/2100[/INDENT]
I would like your advice / experience sharing with subscribing to the most suitable US wireless carrier for my tab.
Would ATT or Tmobile work?
Is 3G an attainable objective?
Which plans would you suggest? I am planning to use this device primarily for mobile web access, with occasional phone calls...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This tab will work on the at&t network and should go to 3g. Unlocked is a good start, but you will most likely need to flash Roto JME version 4, to get the phone dialer. You should also flash the bell i900 modem instead of the stock modem. You will need an at&t data plan. I don't know what their prices are. I have heard of people using an iphone plan.
There are several good step by step lessons. I saw one by member Queen Amy that is excellent.
Or you can avoid all this and use wifi only.

kido007 said:
Hello !!
I bought an unlocked Galaxy Tab in Dubai UAE and would like to use it in SF Bay Area.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does your Galaxy Tab have the Market App? When I bought mine from Dubai, it didn't.
You might want to have a look at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=818167 for details about how to enable it.

Thank you all!

[Q] Galaxy S5 Active on T-Mobile

T-Mobile uses the 1700MHz and 2100MHz frequencies for 4G LTE data, and the Galaxy S5 Active supports 1700 and 2100, according to GSMArena.
1) Why then is the phone listed everywhere as "For AT&T"?
2) If I buy an S5 Active without a contract, how will data work on T-Mobile? 3G? 4G? 4G LTE?

dandv said:
how will data work on T-Mobile? 3G? 4G? 4G LTE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any given S5 model has the hardware capability to operate on all of the GSM and LTE bands. But Samsung can sell more phones, and carriers can deter you from jumping ship too readily by marketing lots of different S5 models that have various incompatibilities.
The S5 Active or SM-G870ADGEATT is a ruggedized variant, exclusive to ATT. So why is it said to be for ATT? Marketing.
As to compatibility with TMobile, assuming that you SIM unlock it, it can operate on most of the TMB bands. But again ATT has put a lot of thought into how to discourage you from moving to a different carrier. To wit, they have omitted support for TMB's 3G 1700 and LTE band 8.
You'd have to find out how widely TMB uses those bands to know if that would be a large impact on data use or not.
.

dandv said:
T-Mobile uses the 1700MHz and 2100MHz frequencies for 4G LTE data, and the Galaxy S5 Active supports 1700 and 2100, according to GSMArena.
1) Why then is the phone listed everywhere as "For AT&T"?
2) If I buy an S5 Active without a contract, how will data work on T-Mobile? 3G? 4G? 4G LTE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There was a rumor posted 2 months ago on the Android Community that a T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S5 Active (model SM-G870T vs the AT&T model SM-G870A) would be out in late July. Here's a link.
http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-active-availability-leaks-out-20140529/
Obviously it's late July now and we haven't seen it but I'm wondering if AT&T got an exclusive on the Galaxy S5 Active for a few months and T-Mobile will release it after the exclusivity period expires.

fffft said:
Any given S5 model has the hardware capability to operate on all of the GSM and LTE bands. But Samsung can sell more phones, and carriers can deter you from jumping ship too readily by marketing lots of different S5 models that have various incompatibilities.
The S5 Active or SM-G870ADGEATT is a ruggedized variant, exclusive to ATT. So why is it said to be for ATT? Marketing.
As to compatibility with TMobile, assuming that you SIM unlock it, it can operate on most of the TMB bands. But again ATT has put a lot of thought into how to discourage you from moving to a different carrier. To wit, they have omitted support for TMB's 3G 1700 and LTE band 8.
You'd have to find out how widely TMB uses those bands to know if that would be a large impact on data use or not.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to dredge up an old topic, however you mentioned that the S5 active has the hardware capability to support all TMB bands, 1700 included, but then say "To wit, they have omitted support for TMB'S 3G 1700 and LTE band 8". Does this just mean the stock AT&T ROM is the only limiting factor? So, were I to flash the AT&T stock ROM and install a Tmobile ROM for example I could then utilize ALL of Tmobile ' 3G and LTE bands? (And wifi calling to boot).
Thanks

S5 Active is pretty limited on Tmobile network
"Sorry to dredge up an old topic, however you mentioned that the S5 active has the hardware capability to support all TMB bands, 1700 included, but then say "To wit, they have omitted support for TMB'S 3G 1700 and LTE band 8". Does this just mean the stock AT&T ROM is the only limiting factor? So, were I to flash the AT&T stock ROM and install a Tmobile ROM for example I could then utilize ALL of Tmobile ' 3G and LTE bands? (And wifi calling to boot).
Thanks"
I NEED to do something with my S5 Active to get it working better on Tmobile. I love the S5A... its a perfect phone for me. Not too big, but big enough. Rugged, waterproof, good camera, uSD card, etc. Without WiFi Calling and support for all of Tmo's freq & channels, its severely limiting.
I'd pay someone to help me convert my phone to Tmobiles stock S5 5.1.1 ROM and baseband radio firmware.
Help!
Jim

Also having the same problem with an unlocked S5 Active originally setup for AT&T. It uses the EDGE network only.
Has anyone successfully modified the phone to utilize the TMB 1700 band or the LTE band 8 as mentioned in this post? (either through ROM upgrade or other)?

I love the S5 Active, but using it with T-Mobile is such a hassle. I have the $30/mo. prepaid plan that includes unlimited text and data, so I'm not changing carriers anytime soon, but I have to buy new phones outright. When I bought this for myself last December, I saw it was compatible with T-Mobile so I pulled the trigger - a mistake in retrospect.
I'm from a large metro-area but T-Mobile's 4G signal is nearly impossible to get with this phone. Aside from never being able to connect to the internet when out of my apartment, sending/receiving MMS texts are a chore. I also discovered today that my android OS with this phone hasn't updated itself since I bought it - it's still running 4.4.2 and when I try to check for updates to Android through my device settings, it tells me AT&T has no new available updates at this time (there have in fact been 3 new updates AT&T released during this time).
So while I really love the phone, I'm going to have to sell it and look for a new device that's actually compatible with T-Mobile's network.

The Fix
I would go in the VPN settings and manually reset the ports and frequencies the phone reads and when it reads the T-Mobile sim card that it reads upon boot up.
Now, I'm running similar set up with Samsung Galaxy S4 & S5 (At&T variants), it seems like it works, have tried it on friend's S5 Active and it works perfectly.
The only problem is that you won't get to enjoy the freedom of wifi calling even though u have T-Mobile sim card and service, But at least u will be guaranteed to use T-Mobile 4G LTE speed and signals. Occassionally, T-Mobile will blackout or a region without T-Mobile and automatically the phone will roam with no charge and use AT&T signals for up to 15 minutes or depending to circumstances of the situation.
---------- Post added at 05:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------
ActiveS5 said:
I love the S5 Active, but using it with T-Mobile is such a hassle. I have the $30/mo. prepaid plan that includes unlimited text and data, so I'm not changing carriers anytime soon, but I have to buy new phones outright. When I bought this for myself last December, I saw it was compatible with T-Mobile so I pulled the trigger - a mistake in retrospect.
I'm from a large metro-area but T-Mobile's 4G signal is nearly impossible to get with this phone. Aside from never being able to connect to the internet when out of my apartment, sending/receiving MMS texts are a chore. I also discovered today that my android OS with this phone hasn't updated itself since I bought it - it's still running 4.4.2 and when I try to check for updates to Android through my device settings, it tells me AT&T has no new available updates at this time (there have in fact been 3 new updates AT&T released during this time).
So while I really love the phone, I'm going to have to sell it and look for a new device that's actually compatible with T-Mobile's network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To get the At&T updates, I would advise you to go to Ebay and buy a prepaid At&t sim card for the phone and use it temporarily just to update it all the up to 5.1 Android OS and your phone will be running up to date. (cost anywhere from $3.99 to $15.99)

rossionQ!va said:
I would go in the VPN settings and manually reset the ports and frequencies the phone reads and when it reads the T-Mobile sim card that it reads upon boot up.
Now, I'm running similar set up with Samsung Galaxy S4 & S5 (At&T variants), it seems like it works, have tried it on friend's S5 Active and it works perfectly.
The only problem is that you won't get to enjoy the freedom of wifi calling even though u have T-Mobile sim card and service, But at least u will be guaranteed to use T-Mobile 4G LTE speed and signals. Occassionally, T-Mobile will blackout or a region without T-Mobile and automatically the phone will roam with no charge and use AT&T signals for up to 15 minutes or depending to circumstances of the situation.
---------- Post added at 05:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------
To get the At&T updates, I would advise you to go to Ebay and buy a prepaid At&t sim card for the phone and use it temporarily just to update it all the up to 5.1 Android OS and your phone will be running up to date. (cost anywhere from $3.99 to $15.99)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got the AT&T updates by going into a Best Buy where they have a Samsung Experience center, took about 10 minutes but they updated my phone. I'll have to look into the VPN settings and see if there's anything I can do, but after purchasing the phone online I did have the folks at a T-Mobile store set the phone up for me so I would've figured they would have set it up proper.

Thinking of going to TMobile
ActiveS5 said:
I got the AT&T updates by going into a Best Buy where they have a Samsung Experience center, took about 10 minutes but they updated my phone. I'll have to look into the VPN settings and see if there's anything I can do, but after purchasing the phone online I did have the folks at a T-Mobile store set the phone up for me so I would've figured they would have set it up proper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a S5 Active and I was considering making the jump to TMo, but I really would like the functionality of the wi-fi calling and text, since I work in a hospital and can get no reception or texts. Pardon me if this is a dumb question as I have no experience in jumping carriers with rooted phones, but would I get the features if I had the TMo sim, applied the TMo APN's, flashed a TMo stock or custom rom that has the features baked in? Would I just flash the 870a kernel to make it work? Anybody that has any ideas, I would love to hear them. Thanks

I'm on T-Mobile, would it be worth getting the S5 Active? I currently have the S4 Active.

[Q] So confused with all the variants

Hi, I've been a S4 user and a very intrigued reader on this website. XDA has taught me many great things about my Sprint S4. I'm now ready to make the leap to the Note 4 and I'm so confused with all of the different models available.
Here's what I want the phone to do:
- I live in the US, and I would like to set up the phone on the Straight Talk or AT&T network and I obviously want to take advantage of the fastest speeds Straight Talk/AT&T offers.
- I am traveling to England in the Summer for a month and I would like the phone to work on one of their networks. (I would like to have 4G, but if 3G is the only compatible band than that's fine, as long as I'm getting some sort of data).
- I travel to Canada on a monthly basis and I would like my Note 4 to be able to run on the Rogers Network and utilize the fast speeds Rogers offers.
Basically, which Note 4 model will satisfy my needs? I just want to take advantage of the fastest bands available in these places. I've been leaning towards the N910H because my understanding is that it is compatible with all of my above requirements. Is this true? If not, which model should I be look at?
Thank you!

stevenrp said:
Hi, I've been a S4 user and a very intrigued reader on this website. XDA has taught me many great things about my Sprint S4. I'm now ready to make the leap to the Note 4 and I'm so confused with all of the different models available.
Here's what I want the phone to do:
- I live in the US, and I would like to set up the phone on the Straight Talk or AT&T network and I obviously want to take advantage of the fastest speeds Straight Talk/AT&T offers.
- I am traveling to England in the Summer for a month and I would like the phone to work on one of their networks. (I would like to have 4G, but if 3G is the only compatible band than that's fine, as long as I'm getting some sort of data).
- I travel to Canada on a monthly basis and I would like my Note 4 to be able to run on the Rogers Network and utilize the fast speeds Rogers offers.
Basically, which Note 4 model will satisfy my needs? I just want to take advantage of the fastest bands available in these places. I've been leaning towards the N910H because my understanding is that it is compatible with all of my above requirements. Is this true? If not, which model should I be look at?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't say for certain about Rogers Canada, but the US T-mobile variant- SM-910T- is what I have, and you should look into it. Maybe someone with Rogers can chime in about that.
It's 100% compatible with AT&T's fastest LTE bands and most 4G GSM bands used in Europe. It has an unlocked bootloader for easy rooting/ROM-flashing. There is an awesome XDA section devoted to it with some great ROMs and other tweaks. Of course, the major benefit is that if you stroll into a T-mobile store any buy one, it will have a warranty and service options if something were to possibly be wrong with it. Now, you'll need to get the phone SIM-unlocked either through T-mobile directly or an online sim-unlocking service (~ $20-30)
If you wanna spend less in the States, the 910T sells on craigslist, swappa, ebay, etc in pretty large numbers and it's very easy to obtain one in mint condition for a lot less than retail. Obviously, make sure that the device has a good IMEI through swappa.com before buying it used.
I find that lots of people buy the Note 4 and decide to sell it after a while- either they prefer something smaller, or an iPhone, or any number of other reasons like wanting extra cash, but there's tons of em on craigslist here in Chicago.
I bought a Sprint Note 4 in perfect condition from a guy for $350 the other week. Not saying you will necessarily have that type of luck, but just something to ponder.

i use 910U on rogers and AT&T gophone. also used it in the UK, most of europe and asia. this is an exynos taiwan variant with LTE. may not give you the fastest speeds everywhere but its awesome.

In the UK we get the Snapdragon 910F, but the 910H looks good according to the bands I've seen online (I don't know if they're correct mind!)
In the UK different networks use different bands (900, 1800, 2100, etc) for 3G; with some of the bands being shared amongst companies these days. Ideally you want a device that supports 900Mhz UTMS, and the 910H supports the band. The 900Mhz band has better indoor coverage than the higher frequencies as well.
Again 4G is on different bands depending on your provider, but the networks share most of the spectrum at the moment to reduce costs. I believe 4G is on 800, 1800, and 2600Mhz
i use 910U on rogers and AT&T gophone. also used it in the UK, most of europe and asia. this is an exynos taiwan variant with LTE. may not give you the fastest speeds everywhere but its awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IDK about LTE, but phones for China/HK will work on our 3G networks. I've tried a few 3G iphone knockoffs and had no issues.