Hello,
I recently purchased a note 5 duos SM-N9208 from Taiwan. I was led to believe that the device was unlocked GSM, but had EV-DO capabilities. My understanding was that this would work on Verizon's network, because it had both radio chips inside. I was told by Verizon that "there is no approved way" for them to get me up and running on their network. The tech made a point of saying there is a difference between approved, and no way. This leads me to believe that something can be done. I'm wondering if someone would be kind enough to help me out. Phone is running original Rom, unrooted, and is basically useless to me right now, as I'm desperately clinging on to my unlimited data with Verizon. Is it possible to root the device, and flash the modem with Verizon note 5 baseband info? Any help anyone can offer would be very much appreciated.
XDA Visitor said:
Hello,
I recently purchased a note 5 duos SM-N9208 from Taiwan. I was led to believe that the device was unlocked GSM, but had EV-DO capabilities. My understanding was that this would work on Verizon's network, because it had both radio chips inside. I was told by Verizon that "there is no approved way" for them to get me up and running on their network. The tech made a point of saying there is a difference between approved, and no way. This leads me to believe that something can be done. I'm wondering if someone would be kind enough to help me out. Phone is running original Rom, unrooted, and is basically useless to me right now, as I'm desperately clinging on to my unlimited data with Verizon. Is it possible to root the device, and flash the modem with Verizon note 5 baseband info? Any help anyone can offer would be very much appreciated.
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Click to collapse
Hi, and welcome to XDA!
When I looked up the specs on the Note 5 Duos, unfortunately it says nothing about CDMA. Having both "radio chips inside" can be taken two ways, in this case, this phone has the capability to handle two GSM carriers (and in this case, like most dual-sim phones, only the first SIM can do 3G/4G/LTE speeds).
Network Technology GSM / HSPA / LTE
2G bands GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2
3G bands HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100
4G bands LTE
Speed HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE
GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
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Click to collapse
It seems the only option (if you want to use this phone), is to join a GSM carrier like AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of their MVNO's (like MetroPCS).
Hope this helps.
joel.maxuel said:
Hi, and welcome to XDA!
It seems the only option (if you want to use this phone), is to join a GSM carrier like AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of their MVNO's (like MetroPCS).
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, Joel! I'm excited to learn as much as possible from tgis forum. I actually changed over to T-Mobile, and have been good for the most part. The problem i'm having now is related to finding a way to flash the radio to all of their Rf's. I rooted, and attempted to flash the modem and bootloader from N920T, but it failed. I am still having a hard timr understanding why the identical hardware will not accept firmware from different model numbers. Again, very inexperienced, so it may be something very obvious i dont know about. If could offer any assistance, or provide and thread links that may be useful, i wpuld very grateful. Ive been searching nonstop, reading, and still cant seem to find a way.
Rockstah said:
Thank you, Joel! I'm excited to learn as much as possible from tgis forum. I actually changed over to T-Mobile, and have been good for the most part. The problem i'm having now is related to finding a way to flash the radio to all of their Rf's. I rooted, and attempted to flash the modem and bootloader from N920T, but it failed. I am still having a hard timr understanding why the identical hardware will not accept firmware from different model numbers. Again, very inexperienced, so it may be something very obvious i dont know about. If could offer any assistance, or provide and thread links that may be useful, i wpuld very grateful. Ive been searching nonstop, reading, and still cant seem to find a way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the hardware (particularly the modem) is not compatible, hance the failed install. You are lucky it cancelled out as you could have had worse problems on your hands.
The way i see it, you will have to wait for other regions for the Note 5 Duos to open up before you get flashing options. I would even question the need for that, if you get a decent range of bands with T-Mo (I am assuming you can get 4G).
If you want to explore further anyway, please check out this thread:
> Samsung Galaxy Note5 > Galaxy Note5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting > [Help Thread][Galaxy Note5] Ask Any Question, Noob Friendly
Hope this helps.
joel.maxuel said:
Hope this helps.
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Click to collapse
It did, thank you! I get decent service (including LTE) almost everywhere. Problem is, once I get to my.house, I go completely out of service. No call.I no text. It wouldn't be a big deal, but the Taiwanese phone doesn't have a way to turn WiFi calling.
Rockstah said:
It did, thank you! I get decent service (including LTE) almost everywhere. Problem is, once I get to my.house, I go completely out of service. No call.I no text. It wouldn't be a big deal, but the Taiwanese phone doesn't have a way to turn WiFi calling.
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Click to collapse
Aha. That and no sign of the 700mHz band (which may not be part of your phone anyway, not just hidden by the current firmware).
Since the firmware would need deep support of Wifi Calling (or VoLTE), as in more than just an App, I am afraid you will have to wait until the Duos releases into an area with that support in their firmware (and hope that, that area's firmware doesn't disable a frequency you use).
Makes scraping all the lead paint[*] off the house the more manageable task, doesn't it?
[*] I really don't know if your house does indeed have lead paint. I am assuming it's coated in something metal, or concrete, which avoids typically high frequency radio waves from entering. I never had that problem with my house (which may be strange, since it was built in the 40's), but maybe creating ways to boost the existing signal may be in order instead.
Hi guys,
So... basically I want to add the LTE band 2 (1900 mhz) since my carrier here in México (Movistar) uses that band. ( I cannot change my carrier since the sim belongs to my employer )
The long story is this:
For a long time I've been trying to get the LTE signal working on my M8 testing several ROMs, but I just discovered (a couple of weeks ago) that this won't be possible since the verizon M8 doesn't have that band enabled.
Based on that, I gave up and installed the NuSenSeveN ROM to check if it was possible to use another carrier's LTE service here in México. So... with this ROM, I was able to use Telcel's LTE band (4 - 1700 mhz) just by using one of this carrier's chip. With that in mind I'm thinking on selling this device to someone who has a contract with this carrier and buy a new phone that have my carrier's LTE band enabled.
But... something in my mind wanted to do the last attempt and searching I found the post about adding disabled bands to all Qualcomm devices, and optimistic as my mind is... here I am thinking that it may be possible to keep my m8 and being able to use my carrier's LTE service!!!
I know this is no easy task and that I should do everything I can to try to test this on my own, but since I found the post for adding bands for Qualcomm devices I've read almost the whole thread.. in almost a week now, and I haven't been able to do any progress on the matter so... I really hope someone with expertise can help me.
I also know no one here helps thinking about money but I know I'm not asking for something easy, probably its not even possible, ( I also know there are no guaranties that anything will work for sure)... so I'm willing to donnate for the help. I don't know if it's is forbidden to ask for this in xda, if it is, please let me know, I'll delete this post and restrain myself from doing the same in the future.
So, I'll explain the situation,
I've reviewed the main post about this matter here in xda,
http://forum.xda-developers.com/cro...ad-progress-please-leave-im-updating-t2871269
And similar posts like these:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/verizon-htc-one-m8/general/lte-band-7-2600mhz-finally-guide-t2992523
http://forum.xda-developers.com/verizon-htc-one-m8/help/assistant-unlocking-lte-bands-t3213956
Basically from those posts I was trying to follow @regspy steps.. but I've had troubles with adb (I'm on Windows 10) and I've tried to install several drivers but all I've tried keeps giving me the "offline" result with the "adb devices" command, so I'm not able to go any further.
And here I am hoping someone can help me trough Team Viewer, if someone can help me please tell me, or if someone knows for sure this is not possible it'll also help me to quit on this task haha.
Thanks in advance.
PS. This is my M8's current state
This is my bootloader screen:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwRKcAC_V-OsTEw0d2ZmYml4b1E/view?usp=sharing
Also, I'm currently running the next ROM:
NuSenSeveN_Marshmallow_M8vzw_v2.0_0102216
Hi folks,
I've got the US LTE original Shield tablet, which is the replacement that NVidia sent me for my original "pyro edition" tablet. Since ATT haven't released the Nougat (Android 7, software package 5.0 or 5.1) builds for this tablet, but the ROW tablets are able to get this update, I flashed my tablet using adb/fastboot with the full ROW 5.0 package downloaded from the NVidia site. I then connected to WIFI, and let it pull down the 5.1 update. Factory reset, flash TWRP, rooted with SuperSU. Easy peasy. Then I set up the tablet with my accounts and such.
Based on good info from user @Son-j I made two build.prop edits, changing ro.build.flavor to wx_na_do-user (was wx_un_do-user) and ro.product.name to wx_na_do (was wx_un_do). This changed the reported signal type from H+ to 4G. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the thread where he suggested doing this. I think it was on the geforce web forum.
The only problem I've found so far is that I'm not getting LTE speeds. I was in Chicago for a couple days, in an area with strong LTE signal, and my other devices were reporting LTE and getting ~20Mbps down / 10+ Mbps up. My Shield was pulling maybe 8 Mbps down at best , and 1-2 Mbps up. At home in my suburban location, the difference is negligible (most devices here do 5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up, LTE or 4G).
Still, I'd like to fix this if possible. Are there further edits or flashings that will let my US device running the ROW build get LTE? I have gone in and verified that my APN settings are the recommended ones from ATT. These showed up automatically, and matched the ATT recommendations.
Thanks in advance!
Hi I'm not sure but I there was a thread here in XDA that says it's still difficult to change the LTE (RoW to US, and vice versa) bands because developers couldn't find yet which part of the code to modify... It's not also confirmed if it is indeed possible to change the LTE bands to support.
So basically, flashing RoW LTE on US LTE device will still result in US-LTE supported bands. That's what I understood.
But what you did is quite a revelation. Can anyone else confirm that modifying the build prop will work? Boy I'm excited!
Son-j said:
Hi I'm not sure but I there was a thread here in XDA that says it's still difficult to change the LTE (RoW to US, and vice versa) bands because developers couldn't find yet which part of the code to modify... It's not also confirmed if it is indeed possible to change the LTE bands to support.
So basically, flashing RoW LTE on US LTE device will still result in US-LTE supported bands. That's what I understood.
But what you did is quite a revelation. Can anyone else confirm that modifying the build prop will work? Boy I'm excited!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @Son-j -
Thanks! Do you happen to remember which thread had those two buildprop edits? I found them after seeing a post from you a few days ago, but now I can't find it at all. My google mojo has fled me.
I'd like to have a link there so others can see the original source.
It would be nice to get LTE speed, if someone knows how, but most places where I use the tablet don't have super fast LTE, so the difference for me isn't enough to make me downgrade to the marshmallow US LTE build. I'll stick with nougat for now, and hope eventually to get full speed. Who knows, maybe ATT will eventually release the 5.1 US LTE build...
For clarity here is the set of APN settings I'm using. I'm going with the column in the center at the bottom for Tablets:
https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1062162
All of this was correctly entered by default except I did need to edit two keys:
APN was listed as broadband instead of Broadband (yes, I'm picky, but wanted to match case)
APN type was listed as just default. I edited it to match the listed setting of: default,mms,supl,hipri,fota
Also I'm set to LTE for "Preferred network type"
Ok I think there's a misunderstanding. Uhm, I'm trying to look for the related posts here at the Nvidia threads but it seems to have disappeared.
Just to set something straight, LTE speed is influenced by:
1. LTE device with specific supported LTE bands
2. LTE sim
3. Location with LTE signals
I take it that for your specific device - US LTE Shield Tablet (just like mine) - you satisfy all 3.
For the record, flashing RoW LTE on our US device won't change the supported LTE bands (check baseband code in About Tablet section of settings). So if you used to have AT&T LTE speeds/signals using US LTE ROMs, it shouldn't change if you flashed RoW LTE ROM on the same device.
We are speculating though that there might be a way, software/firmware speaking. We are hoping it's not hardware-baked.
Son-j said:
Ok I think there's a misunderstanding. Uhm, I'm trying to look for the related posts here at the Nvidia threads but it seems to have disappeared.
Just to set something straight, LTE speed is influenced by:
1. LTE device with specific supported LTE bands
2. LTE sim
3. Location with LTE signals
I take it that for your specific device - US LTE Shield Tablet (just like mine) - you satisfy all 3.
For the record, flashing RoW LTE on our US device won't change the supported LTE bands (check baseband code in About Tablet section of settings). So if you used to have AT&T LTE speeds/signals using US LTE ROMs, it shouldn't change if you flashed RoW LTE ROM on the same device.
We are speculating though that there might be a way, software/firmware speaking. We are hoping it's not hardware-baked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Son-j. It kind of freaks me out that just a week ago I found the thread that recommended those two changes in buildprop, but now I can't find it, and apparently neither can you! So maybe I'm not crazy, since it's more than just me having problems finding it.
Anyway, yes, I used to get the LTE indicator on the tablet, when in an area that has decent reception of those bands. At my workplace, which is a building built like a Faraday cage, we can get only ATT service, via repeaters spread throughout the building (I switched from Verizon in part due to this). Phones almost always report ~3 bars of LTE in places I usually find myself within the building. However, speeds tend to be <10 Mbps (tested using Speedtest.net from either my phone or tablet). So, despite getting "LTE service" there (prior to my software update), the speeds were nothing so great. For this reason, I'm not TOO worked up that my US tablet running ROW software isn't reporting LTE... most places where I use the tablet don't have blazing fast LTE, and the difference between the 4G service it actually gets and the LTE it "used to get" is not that great.
I would like to fix the problem if possible, but it's not a critical thing, and I may just put it on the back burner until the US LTE 5.1 image comes out, then flash back to that. I've got lots of other fish to fry these days.
Always interesting discussion. Thanks Son-j!
Marc
If it's just a speed issue, that will be the provider's end. If it's a signal issue, that's device problem.
It's possible to get an LTE signal but with HSPA speed in some areas.
There is an app called LTE Discovery. It will tell you which band it is currently connected to. I've got it on my tablet on T-Mobile. I am having problems with it connecting to anything other than 3G. But I have read others with the Shield tablet having similar problems with T-Mobile.
Sent from the Delta Quadrant using Tapatalk
caseyatbt said:
There is an app called LTE Discovery. It will tell you which band it is currently connected to. I've got it on my tablet on T-Mobile. I am having problems with it connecting to anything other than 3G. But I have read others with the Shield tablet having similar problems with T-Mobile.
Sent from the Delta Quadrant using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Thanks @caseyatbt,
I was unaware of that app. I downloaded it on my phone (which gets LTE just fine at my house, most of the time) and it reports all kinds of fun stuff about the LTE signal it's connected to. On the US Shield tablet running ROW stock, this is what I get, which frankly makes me think the tablet is connecting via CDMA of all things, despite having chosen all the correct options in the Settings / Mobile section:
The fact that my radio seems to be connecting to WCDMA instead of GSM is kinda freaking me out, folks.
I'm tempted to try flashing the US LTE device Marshmallow recovery image, and see if that fixes it. I understand the flashes don't change the baseband, but since I flashed 5.0 and the the device did an OTA update to 5.1, that might have changed the baseband, eh?
So, if me flashing the marshmallow files doesn't fix it, I might reflash an earlier edition and let it OTA to latest edition, which presumably would install correct "latest" baseband for the model.
We'll see ... I'm still not committed to one direction or another.
Marc
OK, I just flashed the 4.4.0 version of Marshmallow. (full flash of all Nvidia recovery image files). After letting it reboot the first time, it checked for update and found none, as expected.
NO LTE. Downloded the LTE Discovery app, and it still only sees WCDMA signals. Uggh.
Now I'm going to install the 4.3, and let it OTA to 4.4, and hope that refreshes the modem/radio. If anybody is following this, wish me luck!
EDIT: OK, I'm in idiot mode. I downloaded what I thought was the 4.3 US LTE image and it was actually the 4.3 ROW image. I didn't notice this until after flashing, and seeing the H+ icon, and noticing lack of ATT usage tracking app. Oops.
I don't see the 4.3 US LTE image on the site; I'm now downloading the 4.1 image, and will do OTA updates from there, checking as I go how which signal my radio is getting.
No Joy.
I flashed US LTE 4.1 image. AFter the flash, LTE Discovery still reports just HSPA+ signal from WCDMA towers. I then let it take the OTA for 4.4... the latest available for the US LTE tablet, and after it ran through its update process, I'm still on WCDMA.
Uggh. I doubt there's any WCDMA signal where I work so I may have killed my tablet, at least as far as using it at work is concerned.
I'm sure there IS a path back, I just can't imagine what it might be, at the moment. I'll start a new thread to be more specific to this current problem.
Sigh.
Frankenscript said:
Thanks Son-j. It kind of freaks me out that just a week ago I found the thread that recommended those two changes in buildprop, but now I can't find it, and apparently neither can you! So maybe I'm not crazy, since it's more than just me having problems finding it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eventually found that thread with the buildprop changes, see here if interested or if you ever need to find it.
I just checked my Shield on T-Mobile. In the same area on LTE Discovery that yours says W-CDMA mine says the same thing (under Neighbor Cells). When you scroll to the bottom, what does it say for carrier?
Carrier: AT&T (310410)
caseyatbt said:
I just checked my Shield on T-Mobile. In the same area on LTE Discovery that yours says W-CDMA mine says the same thing (under Neighbor Cells). When you scroll to the bottom, what does it say for carrier?
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Click to collapse
Here are screen shots of my sim status (personal details redacted) and the LTE discovery window:
I am thinking that it is possible that W-CDMA doesn't mean what we think it means. It shows you connected to AT&T so you are not on someone elses network.
caseyatbt said:
I am thinking that it is possible that W-CDMA doesn't mean what we think it means. It shows you connected to AT&T so you are not on someone elses network.
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Click to collapse
I talked to ATT. It's sort of their backup network, not available everywhere. My other devices definitely show LTE. Will post a screen so from my phone a bit later which shows that.
Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk
caseyatbt said:
I am thinking that it is possible that W-CDMA doesn't mean what we think it means. It shows you connected to AT&T so you are not on someone elses network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here are some pictures taken from my phone, which is working properly. In settings, you can see the LTE network type and in the LTE Discovery app screen capture, all the LTE towers.
ATT maintains a "vestigial" WCDMA to allow some level of connectivity by devices that don't have GSM/LTE, but it's not everywhere and it's pretty slow.
The Shield used to show LTE in the Settings Cellular network type, as well as giving the LTE icon, when appropriate. Now it's just HSPA. Sigh.
Frankenscript said:
Here are some pictures taken from my phone, which is working properly. In settings, you can see the LTE network type and in the LTE Discovery app screen capture, all the LTE towers.
ATT maintains a "vestigial" WCDMA to allow some level of connectivity by devices that don't have GSM/LTE, but it's not everywhere and it's pretty slow.
The Shield used to show LTE in the Settings Cellular network type, as well as giving the LTE icon, when appropriate. Now it's just HSPA. Sigh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My T-Mobile phone shows similar to your phone with LTE. T-Mobile must have a similar vestigial WCDMA that is showing up on my tablet. I still haven't found anyone that was able to get T-Mobile LTE working after it was only giving them 3G and HSPA. I have heard it either worked or it didn't.