I bought a Samsung Galaxy S5 yesterday, locked to Videotron. I unlocked it to use it with Bell.
The only thing I cannot understand is why does it have 3G icon instead of 4G or LTE?
The speeds are certainly LTE: 20-30 mbps.
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Hey folks,
I am currently using an unlocked S4 from Wind Mobile on the Virgin Mobile network. It is technically the T-Mobile variant - SGH-M919V.
In comparison, the Virgin/Bell S4 is the SGH-I337.
My phone usually stays on LTE but it tends to revert to 3G in some areas, but never on 4G or H+. I had thought that the bands were compatible on the virgin mobile network, which brings me to my question.
Does your S4 ever revert to 4G or H+ when not on LTE? If that is the case, I am thinking of trading my Wind S4 for the Virgin/Bell S4.
Appreciate your feedback.
Thank you.
I'm pretty sure the M919 should fully support the 850 and 1900 MHz UMTS/HSPA bands, also you'd never see 3G or be able to do voice calls and texts without them.
I just got my SGH-I337M from Virgin yesterday and it definitely reverts to H+. So far it seems that it reverts from LTE to H+ after the phone has been sitting a while, and then if I start using the data it will kick up to LTE (probably doing that to save battery instead of keeping LTE on all the time?).
Who knows what could be going on with your unit. That is a Wind unit right? Maybe the software is different. One thing I know is that ROMs can show 3G/4G/H/H+ differently. Have you done a speed test while it is showing 3G? If it is true that you are falling all the way down to basic 3G/UMTS and not getting HSPA/HSPA+ then your speeds should be limited to less than 0.5 Mbps I think.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I managed to run a couple of speedtests when not on LTE. And they were around 2 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up. I don't think those are necessarily H+ speeds. But it's decent enough. Maybe then the reason I am seeing 3G is because of the way the ROM chooses to display non-LTE connections.
I double checked the supported bands, and it is true that the Wind S4 (T-Mobile variant) not only supports all the bands that the Bell/Virgin S4 does but the additional AWS band as well.
Is there a way for me to force the H+ connection on the phone, just to see that it works? Or should I possibly flash the modem/radio from the virgin/bell ROM?
Open up the Testing Menu, go into Device Info and see what it says for Network Type.
Make sure your wifi is off and hit "Run ping test" as few times and look at what it changes to.
HSPAP:15
HSPA:11
HSUPA:10
If you see these then it's fine, just icons are different.
Solved!
Okay,
I did a few things to verify that despite the phone showing 3G, it is in fact on 4G or H+ when not on LTE.
I went into ServiceMode by entering *#2263# in the Phone Dialer.
I forced non-LTE connections by changing the automatic preference to WCDMA 850 and WCDMA 1900 respectively.
These are the 2 bands that are 4G or H+ for Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada.
Then I ran speedtests to a close by server and got around 7 Mbps down and 3 Mbps, which are definitely 4G/H+ speeds.
Also, following @ChronoReverse advice, I found that the network type was in fact HSPAP: 15 and HSPA: 11 (screenshots attached).
So, in conclusion I can rest my obsessive personality and accept the fact that the phone is in fact capable & is running on 4G networks. It's a ROM thing I suppose.
Or in other words, the Galaxy S4 from Wind Mobile (or T-Mobile) is completely capable of running on Virgin Mobile Canada, Bell Canada, Rogers networks with full support of LTE and 4G/H+.
Embarrassed to say what a small little 3G icon does to a person these days!
Thanks for all the help!
I spend 50% of my time in the US and 50% of my time in Canada and have a contract with both AT&T and with Rogers.
I am going to buy the S4 soon. Should I get the SGH-I337 variant with AT&T or the SGH-I337m variant with Rogers?
In about 14 months, I will be back in Canada (on Rogers) permanently. So far, I am leaning towards the AT&T variant due to greater rom availability, but I am worried about whether the S4 will work on Rogers 3G bands and LTE network.
The reason I am worried is that I am currently using an unlocked Sprint BB Tour 9630 Quadband on Rogers with specs:
2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 2100
CDMA/EVDO Rev A 800/1900
And the Roger's EDGE network barely functions on that phone (many disconnects).
I am a little unfamiliar with network bands, but can you let me know if the phone's 3G radio and LTE radio are identical across Rogers and AT&T?
I read somewhere that Rogers S4 uses 2600 MHz LTE Band and AT&T uses 700 MHz LTE. Is this true? Or does this phone have both LTE bands built in?
Thank you!
OK, so I had an at&t s3 and had LTE getting speeds of roughly 30mbps. Now, on my nexus 4, I'm using g at&t with all of the LTE tricks and mods but all I am getting is 3g, h, and h+. The LTE APN does not give me a data icon. What do I do?
jamescable said:
OK, so I had an at&t s3 and had LTE getting speeds of roughly 30mbps. Now, on my nexus 4, I'm ng g at&t with all of the LTE tricks and mods but all I am getting is 3g, h, and h+. The LTE APN does not give me a data icon. What do I do?
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the nexus 4 doesnt support most of att lte. the n4 supports band 4 lte, att uses a different frequency. they do use band 4 in just a very few locations though, but mostly not.
I knew that TMobile's 4G was on 1700Mhz and they were expanding their network on 1900Mhz to attract unlocked ATT users. That being said, the coverage of 1900Mhz is smaller than 1700Mhz for sure.
According to the Note III spec on Tmobile, it didn't show 1700Mhz, does it mean that the Note 3 Tmobile version cannot work on 1700Mhz of TMobile but 1900Mhz only? Or, 4G LTE is only on 1900Mhz?
I bought a Sm-g928a sim unlocked, but I use t-mobile service. The tmobile and at&t use the same bands except for the 900 mhz range.
Tmobile version:
LTE Cat9 700/800/850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100/2600 (Bands 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,12,20)
At&t version:
LTE Cat9 700/800/850/1700/1800/1900/2100/2600 (Bands 1,2,3,4,5,7,12,17,20)
Every or 4g lte band is the same in att version, but I don't get full bars. Close as I get is 3 to 4 bars, and there is a major difference in coverage. I travel a lot in CA, my note 5 gets coverage everywhere even in rural parts of the state. Edge plus drops all signals in rural part of state.
I'm I missing something or does the 900mhz band, do the outer limits of service?
Does tmobile use the 900mhz band in CA?
Any suggestions on how to fix this?
bump...
same issue, sprint variant with t-mobile
I have the T-Mobile version, on T-Mobile and in I lose connectivity. It's annoying.
Sent from my SM-G928T using XDA-Developers mobile app