To give a back story on what I'm trying to accomplish, I'll explain my situation.
I work for Bell, in a retail store, the main reason I came to these forums was to find a way to re-flash phones in store to avoid having to doa what little stock we have of the phones. One of my colleagues from another location told me about the new update from Kies locking phones up at a ridiculous rate of 25%, so I'm trying to be pro-active about it.
Once I got in, I got a bit carried away with 2.2 software and what not. Now, i'm no expert, but I'm computer literate and made sense of most of the process, some extra guidance would be nice though.
Playing with the phones we have in store, I was able to flash every available software I could find on said phones, however a constant issue is found. I can not get a solid data connection. If I disable data, everything works fine, soon as I turn it back on, nothing happens.
Furthermore, I followed a thread regarding re-flashing everything back to Bell's stock settings and it didn't help me along at all.
I have done some searches, but i'm coming up dry. I know you've probably heard this hundreds of times and I'm sorry for being new to the process, some guidance towards this all would be great.
Bellkingsway said:
however a constant issue is found. I can not get a solid data connection. If I disable data, everything works fine, soon as I turn it back on, nothing happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you elaborate more on this?
what do you mean by unable to get a solid data connection?
what kind of data connection are you referring to?
USB cable between phone to PC?
or Wifi data
or APN (3G) data?
Bellkingsway said:
I work for Bell, in a retail store, the main reason I came to these forums was to find a way to re-flash phones in store to avoid having to doa what little stock we have of the phones. One of my colleagues from another location told me about the new update from Kies locking phones up at a ridiculous rate of 25%, so I'm trying to be pro-active about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure where you got that number from, but it's not that accurate
the reason for the ridiculous high amount of returned phones is due the Internal SD card problem that was found.
even under normal conditions if it gets formatted a lot or used a lot it seems to die faster than its Europe counterpart.
apparently on the Canadian version of the I9000 they use a bad batch of Flash Disk for the storage memory
there is a sticky Topic Poll about it.
it is NOT the ROM flash from Kies that are killing the units, just anything software that constantly access the internal SD can produce the same effect.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=793404
the rest of the returns you guys at Bell are seeing are due this other problem discussed here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=775017
it can be reproduced, but you need the ideal conditions to do it.
it has to do with signal quality and tower availability
AllGamer said:
Can you elaborate more on this?
what do you mean by unable to get a solid data connection?
what kind of data connection are you referring to?
USB cable between phone to PC?
or Wifi data
or APN (3G) data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm referring to 3G connection. I have set up the APN, even tried different settings, all producing the same results.
In regards to your second reply, the phones I've seen at this location for DOA's have mostly because of a failure to fully turn on, the display won't show. I've experienced similar issues when a flash doesn't work properly, a re-flash fixes it. We started seeing this issue after samsung released the update. However, I'm not going to flash a customers phone to have them lose 3G connectivity, or open up other issues.
Basically, I'm looking for two things. Primarily a way to re-flash everything to work as if it were out of box, with the latest software update. Secondly, to be able to get a stable 3G connection on 2.2, everything else seems to work fine at this point.
i'm not even going to touch the 2.2 topic as it's not even released officially.
the current stable official flash is JH2, on JH2 3G should work properly (stable), another thing you can do is to go into the service menu using the secret codes (wiki) and make sure the proper 3G bands are selected for WCDMA
1900 and 850 should both have a start next to it
next check is the *#0011* to see if the towers keeps constantly changing
that's another reason for unstable 3G if the phone keeps jumping towers every few seconds
this is also related to the 2nd link i mentioned about people getting Comatose Syndrome on the phones, which locks up the phone, and they have to reset the phone to get the phone to work again.
I'm running JH2 currently, I ran *#2263# 850 and 1900 are available. Also, ran *#0011# both are available, ran a test on youtube it worked for 5 minutes.
Any ideas?
**Edit**
I lied, on the *#0011# it only shows 1900.
Bellkingsway said:
the phones I've seen at this location for DOA's have mostly because of a failure to fully turn on, the display won't show. I've experienced similar issues when a flash doesn't work properly, a re-flash fixes it.
We started seeing this issue after samsung released the update. However, I'm not going to flash a customers phone to have them lose 3G connectivity, or open up other issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get something straight
the update samsung released was JH2, and it is not causing the problems you've seen.
the problems with the symptoms described are after they were flashed by the Alpha & Beta versions of Froyos 2.2, which many of them do end up losing the 850 band, the band issue can be fixed with much work.
there have been at least 4 different leaks of froyo, each one bringing its own volume of chaos and bugs, the most dangerous 2 are JPH and JPK, one loses the IMEI / ESN number ID, the other one kills the internal SD
Bellkingsway said:
I'm running JH2 currently, I ran *#2263# 850 and 1900 are available. Also, ran *#0011# both are available, ran a test on youtube it worked for 5 minutes.
Any ideas?
**Edit**
I lied, on the *#0011# it only shows 1900.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the I9000M and I9000 are hardware based bands, you should always have the 850 and 1900 bands for 3G
Many who have tried Froyo and back had come across the problem of losing the 850 band, mainly because the Froyo leaks were intended for the Korea test team running international I9000 devices
some times just by flashing the Firmware back to stock or Froyo betas doesn't actually activates the 850 band, even though it shows as selected in the Service Menue
if you go back to the Band Selection screen of the Service Menue, you should choose bands that are knowingly not available in canada, like say band 900 for example, and then go back again to the service menu, and band selection to only choose 850
once you can confirm 850 works, then you can select 1900 as well, and now both of the bands should be active permanently until some body else screws it up again.
using *#0011# and trying to call the voice mail are the fastest way to verify for line and for 3G on 850
you can also try the app speedtest from speedtest.net
http://www.appbrain.com/app/speedtest-net-speed-test/org.zwanoo.android.speedtest
AllGamer said:
Can you elaborate more on this?
what do you mean by unable to get a solid data connection?
what kind of data connection are you referring to?
USB cable between phone to PC?
or Wifi data
or APN (3G) data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AllGamer said:
Since the I9000M and I9000 are hardware based bands, you should always have the 850 and 1900 bands for 3G
Many who have tried Froyo and back had come across the problem of losing the 850 band, mainly because the Froyo leaks were intended for the Korea test team running international I9000 devices
some times just by flashing the Firmware back to stock or Froyo betas doesn't actually activates the 850 band, even though it shows as selected in the Service Menue
if you go back to the Band Selection screen of the Service Menue, you should choose bands that are knowingly not available in canada, like say band 900 for example, and then go back again to the service menu, and band selection to only choose 850
once you can confirm 850 works, then you can select 1900 as well, and now both of the bands should be active permanently until some body else screws it up again.
using *#0011# and trying to call the voice mail are the fastest way to verify for line and for 3G on 850
you can also try the app speedtest from speedtest.net
http://www.appbrain.com/app/speedtest-net-speed-test/org.zwanoo.android.speedtest
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet, I will try this as well.
Just a note, I have a galaxy s that is untouched, out of box and it also shows only 1900....
I'm starting to think location might be part of the issue.
there's also this sticky
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=770041
with additional info you can do on the phone to get 850 back
I have a factory unlock international SGS version. I'll be moving to Toronto Canada soon. I would just like to know if my phone will still work when i arrive there. If not, is there a way for me to make it use 850mhz? Does is help if i'm running CM7?
Thanks in advance for the help!
mike
your phone is the international version, so it will work all around the world.
i assume your not a noob when it comes to flashing as you are currently on CM7 (not the easiest rom to install)
so if you do run into any trouble - mainly signal issues (which you shouldnt) a simple modem change should work
but i use JVO modem in UK other people use this modem in India, Australia and so on, works for them, works for me... you will be fine.
You will be ok as long as you have an 850/1900 modem
azzledazzle said:
your phone is the international version, so it will work all around the world.
i assume your not a noob when it comes to flashing as you are currently on CM7 (not the easiest rom to install)
so if you do run into any trouble - mainly signal issues (which you shouldnt) a simple modem change should work
but i use JVO modem in UK other people use this modem in India, Australia and so on, works for them, works for me... you will be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks bro. The reason i'm asking here is because i read on several forums that not all SGS international phone have the hardware to support 850 band frequency. Meaning even if i change the modem that support such frequency, it won't work as there's no hardware to support it. But then again, I don't have any idea if this are true. Would you know any truth about this?
Oh by the way, at first i thought installing CM7 is hard, but once you finished reading the install instruction everything is smooth as butter.
dlockhart said:
You will be ok as long as you have an 850/1900 modem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just want to ask, if i don't use modem that has these frequency (850/1900) for my cm7 sgs, would i still be able to use my phone? Please correct me if i'm wrong, these bands only lets me connect to 3g or hsdpa and has no effect in terms of making and receiving calls/sms?
Thanks again!
I don't think that is true at all, it's not a hardware issue, it is firmware, you just have to make sure your baseband firmware supports 850.
mikextr23 said:
Just want to ask, if i don't use modem that has these frequency (850/1900) for my cm7 sgs, would i still be able to use my phone? Please correct me if i'm wrong, these bands only lets me connect to 3g or hsdpa and has no effect in terms of making and receiving calls/sms?
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These bands are what connect your SIM card to carriers.. so yes you need these bands. Whatever carrier you are with will depend on your band.. in Canada for example. Bell and Telus use both 850/1900 mhz bands depending on location, Rogers I believe on uses 850... so if your modem, is 1900 only and you are in an 850 area, then you will have no signal and usually recieve an error like "SIM not compatable with carrier" if you try to force a connection.... the APN(access point names) are what connect you to 3g etc..
dlockhart said:
These bands are what connect your SIM card to carriers.. so yes you need these bands. Whatever carrier you are with will depend on your band.. in Canada for example. Bell and Telus use both 850/1900 mhz bands depending on location, Rogers I believe on uses 850... so if your modem, is 1900 only and you are in an 850 area, then you will have no signal and usually recieve an error like "SIM not compatable with carrier" if you try to force a connection.... the APN(access point names) are what connect you to 3g etc..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool! Thanks for clarifying this to me bro.
I bought an unlocked S21 Ultra last fall that was originally sold by T-Mobile, and I initially used it with H2o (AT&T) and it always worked fine, though it never got 5g service, though I'm not sure that 5g has been implemented yet by AT&T in the Phoenix market, at least not the C-band
On Jan 21, it automatically updated the software so that it now shows SM-G998U_OYN_ATT_12_0018 ATT/XAA,TMB/TMB as the Service provider software version, so it seemingly has both AT&T and T-Mobile software at this time. At that time, it also switched from showing the T-Mobile logo on bootup to showing the AT&T logo, and I think it added, NR B66 as an additional radio band (in addition to NR B41, B71 and the UW bands of B260 and B261). Earlier this week I switched to Visible and while it works fine on 4g LTE, I'm not getting any 5g connectivity. In researching bands, the only one that I have that Verizon uses is the NR B66, while I probably really need NR B2, B5 and in particular B77 to get the new C-band.
The question is, will the phone at some point automatically update to VZW software, and at that point enable additional bands that I need to get 5g? Or is there a way of forcing this? Or what is the best option to enable 5g on this phone? I really don't want to switch to the U1 software as that seems to require a factory reset, and I'm not keen on going through reconfiguring everything again and getting all my icons back where I want them.
Or will this phone not support these bands unless the U1 software is first installed?
Thanks!
Anyone?
Have you tried switching to a Verizon compatible firmware?
With ODIN, you can switch firmwares without losing data.
I suggest trying that, US carrier optimization is known to be the worst
No, I have not tried that. Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what firmware should I use, and where do I find it? I ask because the "official" firmware seems to be from Jan 2021, and it seems to be the U1 option, not carrier specific firmware. I've done some searching, but I haven't been able to find the Verizon version so far. Thanks.
I'm on an European 21U, for the USA version, you need to check this guide
G998U and G998U1 Firmware Links and Flashing Discussion Here
For those who aren't already aware, G998U is the model number of all of the US carrier versions of the S21 Ultra. The G998U1 is the model number of the same device, but sold by Samsung SIM unlocked and with no carrier bloatware. Firmware is 100%...
forum.xda-developers.com
RedWave31 said:
I'm on an European 21U, for the USA version, you need to check this guide
G998U and G998U1 Firmware Links and Flashing Discussion Here
For those who aren't already aware, G998U is the model number of all of the US carrier versions of the S21 Ultra. The G998U1 is the model number of the same device, but sold by Samsung SIM unlocked and with no carrier bloatware. Firmware is 100%...
forum.xda-developers.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you need to go from U1 to U (VZW) to see if that solves it.
Can't help on anything else, since on Exynos (European) devices, flashing is much easier than on Snapdragon devices.
I read the link above in detail, and it says that the only difference in the 5 files is the "USERDATA", otherwise the other 4 files are identical between vendors. So USERDATA seems to be a critical file in regards to switching from T-Mobile to Verizon. My concern is that further down in the first article it says that flashing the USERDATA file will wipe the existing data.
- HOME CSC file keeps data intact; using the other CSC will wipe data. Flashing USERDATA will also wipe data.
If this is true, and the only way to manually get the VZW info that I'm looking for without flashing to U1, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to flashing this using Odin, as it'll also wipe my user data. In other words, if I go that route, I'd be better off just flashing to U1, and try that. Theoretically, this should give me everything that I need without first flashing to VZW, and if it'll work with Verizon/Visible without the VZW bloatware, then that would definitely be preferred.
My entire reason for trying all this is to try to get the additional NR radio bands, specifically N2, N5 and N77, which I don't have with the T-Mobile software.
As for backing up the phone and then restoring it, does Odin provide this capability? Or is Samsung Kies a much better option? The Kies software seems to be made for this, so if this is the case and it'll exactly restore the phone like it was before, then it wouldn't actually be a big deal to backup, flash and then restore the phone.
it's a problem with the T-Mobile S21 series, you need to flash U1 software.
Not really what I wanted to hear, but sounds like you have experience with this. I take it that the factory T-.Mobile software (or is it firmware?) essentially locks out the NR bands that they don't have, even if other software is installed on top of it. Thx
Last night I broke down and flashed it with the U1 XAA firmware, using the CSC (not Home) file. It went well, finishing the flash in <4 minutes. Then spent the next 4+ hours reconfiguring things that aren't automatically restored by using SmartSwitch to restore. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems that it doesn't actually back up the apps, rather it just backs up the name and placeholder, so when it's restored it has to redownload every single stinking app again. Plus, I had to go through and relog into every app where this is an issue, plus because it's now called SM-G998U1, I had to delete all the old G998U devices in various places, particularly Google. What a pain... Kind of wish I'd tried the Home CSC, particularly after what I see below.
What's interesting is that I know have the N2, N5, N66, plus the N77 and N78 C-bands, (as well as N260) but I lost the T-Mobile specific bands of N41 & N71, in addition, I also lost N261. I don't care about these as I'm not in an area where the Ka millimeter wave bands matter. However, I do find it interesting that the U1 firmware removed the TMB specific 5g bands. I would have thought that the Factory U1 firmware would automatically support all US carrier bands, but I guess not.
I'm using Visible (Verizon MVNO), and while it worked "decently" before, it's now orders of magnitude better than it was previously as a U device. I debated installing the VZW firmware, but decided not to, and I most definitely don't want to go through setting everything up again. However, I know have a MUCH better signal at my house, a consistent 5 bars, and a signal right around a 89-90 dB, while previously it hovered around 105-109 dB, which is pretty marginal, particularly when the antenna is only about 1/3 mile away. It also now tells me that I'm on LTE+ (rather than LTE 4g like before), so apparently this particularly tower isn't 5g yet, and I haven't left the house yet to see what I get at other locations from other towers.
However, what's really astounding is the speeds that I know get. Previously, download speeds would always start off slow at around 10 - 15 Mbs, and eventually get up to around 60 - 70 on the average, with upload speeds typically maxing out around 15 Mbs. However, now, I'm getting consistent download speeds of right at 240 Mbs (Visible limits max speed to around 250 Mbs on 5g), and upload speeds of ~70 Mbs. It's an incredible difference, so my suspicion is that I may be getting some 5g speeds, even though both Network Cell Info and LTE Discovery apps tell me that I'm generally only connected to the B2 and B5 LTE bands. Or maybe it's possible to get that kinds of speeds out of LTE with the new technology (forget what it's called) that shares bands at the same time, hence the LTE+ moniker.
Also, even though I installed the CSC file, the Service Provider Software is still ATT/TMB. To be specific, it's SAOMC_SM-G998U1_OYM_ATT_12_0026 ATT/ATT,ATT/TMB, and there isn't VZW anywhere. Maybe this will eventually update I don't know. However, it did remove the ATT startup splash screen that I had previously, so that's changed.
It also automatically downloaded and installed One UI 4.1 afterwards, so that seems to be working properly. Any thoughts on any of the above?
Thanks for the help that was provided previously.
kmdigital said:
Last night I broke down and flashed it with the U1 XAA firmware, using the CSC (not Home) file. It went well, finishing the flash in <4 minutes. Then spent the next 4+ hours reconfiguring things that aren't automatically restored by using SmartSwitch to restore. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems that it doesn't actually back up the apps, rather it just backs up the name and placeholder, so when it's restored it has to redownload every single stinking app again. Plus, I had to go through and relog into every app where this is an issue, plus because it's now called SM-G998U1, I had to delete all the old G998U devices in various places, particularly Google. What a pain... Kind of wish I'd tried the Home CSC, particularly after what I see below.
What's interesting is that I know have the N2, N5, N66, plus the N77 and N78 C-bands, (as well as N260) but I lost the T-Mobile specific bands of N41 & N71, in addition, I also lost N261. I don't care about these as I'm not in an area where the Ka millimeter wave bands matter. However, I do find it interesting that the U1 firmware removed the TMB specific 5g bands. I would have thought that the Factory U1 firmware would automatically support all US carrier bands, but I guess not.
I'm using Visible (Verizon MVNO), and while it worked "decently" before, it's now orders of magnitude better than it was previously as a U device. I debated installing the VZW firmware, but decided not to, and I most definitely don't want to go through setting everything up again. However, I know have a MUCH better signal at my house, a consistent 5 bars, and a signal right around a 89-90 dB, while previously it hovered around 105-109 dB, which is pretty marginal, particularly when the antenna is only about 1/3 mile away. It also now tells me that I'm on LTE+ (rather than LTE 4g like before), so apparently this particularly tower isn't 5g yet, and I haven't left the house yet to see what I get at other locations from other towers.
However, what's really astounding is the speeds that I know get. Previously, download speeds would always start off slow at around 10 - 15 Mbs, and eventually get up to around 60 - 70 on the average, with upload speeds typically maxing out around 15 Mbs. However, now, I'm getting consistent download speeds of right at 240 Mbs (Visible limits max speed to around 250 Mbs on 5g), and upload speeds of ~70 Mbs. It's an incredible difference, so my suspicion is that I may be getting some 5g speeds, even though both Network Cell Info and LTE Discovery apps tell me that I'm generally only connected to the B2 and B5 LTE bands. Or maybe it's possible to get that kinds of speeds out of LTE with the new technology (forget what it's called) that shares bands at the same time, hence the LTE+ moniker.
Also, even though I installed the CSC file, the Service Provider Software is still ATT/TMB. To be specific, it's SAOMC_SM-G998U1_OYM_ATT_12_0026 ATT/ATT,ATT/TMB, and there isn't VZW anywhere. Maybe this will eventually update I don't know. However, it did remove the ATT startup splash screen that I had previously, so that's changed.
It also automatically downloaded and installed One UI 4.1 afterwards, so that seems to be working properly. Any thoughts on any of the above?
Thanks for the help that was provided previously.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a UK user of Snapdragon that's very interesting that you get n78 c band. I am on
the G998w version and here is my dialler code *#2263# result. As you can see it has no n78 which is important in the UK. Could I see your result just to check all the bands?
Ptuk said:
As a UK user of Snapdragon that's very interesting that you get n78 c band. I am on
the G998w version and here is my dialler code *#2263# result. As you can see it has no n78 which is important in the UK. Could I see your result just to check all the bands?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go. As you can see I have both N77 and N78 bands. What I find interesting is that it says Sim 1 is ATT, which isn't what I'm using.
Ptuk said:
As a UK user of Snapdragon that's very interesting that you get n78 c band. I am on
the G998w version and here is my dialler code *#2263# result. As you can see it has no n78 which is important in the UK. Could I see your result just to check all the bands?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go. What's interesting is that it says Sim 1 is ATT, which isn't what I'm using.
Thank you. Yes weird the att thing. I think I will give it a crack to move to u1. Seems that the differentiation between exynos and snapdragon has fallen and that channels are no longer an impediment to using snapdragon in Europe. I also got ota update of my w phone in UK which I wasn't sure would happen.
Ptuk said:
Thank you. Yes weird the att thing. I think I will give it a crack to move to u1. Seems that the differentiation between exynos and snapdragon has fallen and that channels are no longer an impediment to using snapdragon in Europe. I also got ota update of my w phone in UK which I wasn't sure would happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I see that you don't have any C-bands, plus you have the TMB N41 and N71 bands, which is very similar to what I had prior to the U1 flash, but lost for some reason with U1, possibly because it seems to think that it's ATT for some reason. I'd be very interested in knowing what bands you have after a U1 flash.
I'll tell you as soon as I've got the nerve to do another flash!
@Ptuk and @kmdigital , will follow your conversation as I'm needing the N78 5g band. I flashed G998W last night but no luck. Weird is that I was from U then U1 but did not have get to see the N78 band appear.
@kmdigital , can you point me out on which firmware you have installed so I can try and how you actually flashed it. Thanks. Badly needing n78.
mapl.ph said:
@Ptuk and @kmdigital , will follow your conversation as I'm needing the N78 5g band. I flashed G998W last night but no luck. Weird is that I was from U then U1 but did not have get to see the N78 band appear.
@kmdigital , can you point me out on which firmware you have installed so I can try and how you actually flashed it. Thanks. Badly needing n78.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to clarify....you flashed from G998w to u then u1? If so can you tell me which u1 you used...I'm wondering whether kmdigitals success is Verizon related or not
Ptuk said:
Sorry to clarify....you flashed from G998w to u then u1? If so can you tell me which u1 you used...I'm wondering whether kmdigitals success is Verizon related or not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was originally on G998U then flashed to G998U1 and nothing was changed. Hoping using an universal U1 firmware I would get the N78 band but no luck.
Then, last night I flashed to G998W and lost 260 and 261. Same result no n78 band. I would like to know how @kmdigital was able to get the N78 which I badly need. On download mode my s21 ultra shows ATT at the upper part.
From G998U1UES5BVC1 to G998WVLS5BVAB. I cant recall which G998U I had prior to U1
mapl.ph said:
@Ptuk and @kmdigital , will follow your conversation as I'm needing the N78 5g band. I flashed G998W last night but no luck. Weird is that I was from U then U1 but did not have get to see the N78 band appear.
@kmdigital , can you point me out on which firmware you have installed so I can try and how you actually flashed it. Thanks. Badly needing n78.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I downloaded it from SamFw.com, file name Samfw.com_SM-G998U1_XAA_G998U1UES5BVC1_fac
kmdigital said:
Last night I broke down and flashed it with the U1 XAA firmware, using the CSC (not Home) file. It went well, finishing the flash in <4 minutes. Then spent the next 4+ hours reconfiguring things that aren't automatically restored by using SmartSwitch to restore. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems that it doesn't actually back up the apps, rather it just backs up the name and placeholder, so when it's restored it has to redownload every single stinking app again. Plus, I had to go through and relog into every app where this is an issue, plus because it's now called SM-G998U1, I had to delete all the old G998U devices in various places, particularly Google. What a pain... Kind of wish I'd tried the Home CSC, particularly after what I see below.
What's interesting is that I know have the N2, N5, N66, plus the N77 and N78 C-bands, (as well as N260) but I lost the T-Mobile specific bands of N41 & N71, in addition, I also lost N261. I don't care about these as I'm not in an area where the Ka millimeter wave bands matter. However, I do find it interesting that the U1 firmware removed the TMB specific 5g bands. I would have thought that the Factory U1 firmware would automatically support all US carrier bands, but I guess not.
I'm using Visible (Verizon MVNO), and while it worked "decently" before, it's now orders of magnitude better than it was previously as a U device. I debated installing the VZW firmware, but decided not to, and I most definitely don't want to go through setting everything up again. However, I know have a MUCH better signal at my house, a consistent 5 bars, and a signal right around a 89-90 dB, while previously it hovered around 105-109 dB, which is pretty marginal, particularly when the antenna is only about 1/3 mile away. It also now tells me that I'm on LTE+ (rather than LTE 4g like before), so apparently this particularly tower isn't 5g yet, and I haven't left the house yet to see what I get at other locations from other towers.
However, what's really astounding is the speeds that I know get. Previously, download speeds would always start off slow at around 10 - 15 Mbs, and eventually get up to around 60 - 70 on the average, with upload speeds typically maxing out around 15 Mbs. However, now, I'm getting consistent download speeds of right at 240 Mbs (Visible limits max speed to around 250 Mbs on 5g), and upload speeds of ~70 Mbs. It's an incredible difference, so my suspicion is that I may be getting some 5g speeds, even though both Network Cell Info and LTE Discovery apps tell me that I'm generally only connected to the B2 and B5 LTE bands. Or maybe it's possible to get that kinds of speeds out of LTE with the new technology (forget what it's called) that shares bands at the same time, hence the LTE+ moniker.
Also, even though I installed the CSC file, the Service Provider Software is still ATT/TMB. To be specific, it's SAOMC_SM-G998U1_OYM_ATT_12_0026 ATT/ATT,ATT/TMB, and there isn't VZW anywhere. Maybe this will eventually update I don't know. However, it did remove the ATT startup splash screen that I had previously, so that's changed.
It also automatically downloaded and installed One UI 4.1 afterwards, so that seems to be working properly. Any thoughts on any of the above?
Thanks for the help that was provided previously.
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When on U1 firmware, the device will restart upon a SIM card being inserted and load the bands needed for that provider. However, I have seen with certain MVNO's it doesn't act the same as a major Carrier when on U1, meaning that it will not register properly (why it still shows ATT for csc and not VZW). It seems that the csc is ATT because it doesn't register your SIM as VZW. Try to find a VZW SIM (doesn't need service) and allow the restart, then put back in your Visible SIM. My guess is the phone will not ask for a restart and will have the Verizon bands loaded from the restart when you inserted the VZW SIM.