950 XL no LTE on AT&T?

[phelme]

I'm also wondering what triggers the availability of the max Cellular Speed selection pop-up (2G, 3G, 4G, LTE). It was there this morning for me, now it's gone. :/

 

[JieXY]

I'm also wondering what triggers the availability of the max Cellular Speed selection pop-up (2G, 3G, 4G, LTE). It was there this morning for me, now it's gone. :/

You may need to press "Search for networks".

 

[DLong4]

 

[Fenoy]

I've been anxious to buy an unlocked 950 XL even though I'm on Verizon (with a ~2 1/2 year old L928) and will have to switch to AT&T. However, at this juncture and based on reading this forum it looks more and more like a non-starter for me as I'm simply unwilling to jump through the hoops described in various accounts above to have the phone function with LTE service. I'm certainly not going into BB or and copy an IMEI or "borrow" an IMEI and give it to an AT&T CSR. If MS can't get this issue resolved with AT&T I'll continue slogging along with Verizon with a phone that functions.

 

[Joe920]

I've been anxious to buy an unlocked 950 XL even though I'm on Verizon (with a ~2 1/2 year old L928) and will have to switch to AT&T. However, at this juncture and based on reading this forum it looks more and more like a non-starter for me as I'm simply unwilling to jump through the hoops described in various accounts above to have the phone function with LTE service. I'm certainly not going into BB or and copy an IMEI or "borrow" an IMEI and give it to an AT&T CSR. If MS can't get this issue resolved with AT&T I'll continue slogging along with Verizon with a phone that functions.

It's really not a big deal. The ATT store rep grabbed a 950 herself to copy the IMEI. Now if only the tracfone folks would pick up the phone and port my number I'd be set.

 

[snakebitten]

A nuisance, for sure. But hardly a valid reason to stay in Verizon jail.

 

[MSStackFan]

I've been anxious to buy an unlocked 950 XL even though I'm on Verizon (with a ~2 1/2 year old L928) and will have to switch to AT&T. However, at this juncture and based on reading this forum it looks more and more like a non-starter for me as I'm simply unwilling to jump through the hoops described in various accounts above to have the phone function with LTE service. I'm certainly not going into BB or and copy an IMEI or "borrow" an IMEI and give it to an AT&T CSR. If MS can't get this issue resolved with AT&T I'll continue slogging along with Verizon with a phone that functions.

I retired my Lumia 928 just today, served me very well the last 2.5 years. My 950 XL was delivered while I was out of town, having read all this, I was as hoop-fearing as you but figured I'd at least give it a shot today with my son. We went to the AT&T store, phone never having been out of the box. Sales tech was awesome, she thought the phone was cool as hell (said that she's not seen XLs in the wild but that the 950s have been selling as they are restocked). I told her that my reading said there might be issues with the IMEI and she'd need to use an existing one. She walked over to the 950 on display, took down the IMEI from that phone. Took that phone's SIM out, put in my phone to make sure we saw a working LTE first on my phone. After that, she transferred my # from Vz to AT&T, put in the brand new SIM in my phone (with the IMEI from the 950) and booted it up, LTE came up within a few secs. Only thing that will throw you (as it does me) is that when you are on WiFi, LTE will not display (unlike Vz where it was ever-present at least from my memory). Speedtest.net on WiFi here at my house 16Mbps down/2.3Mbps up, on LTE its 11.8Mbps down/8.0Mbps up. Bottom line, I was just like you, was not going to sleuth around and co-opt a code, if AT&T wasn't going to do the labor, I was going to rethink ... never came to that, great experience.

Freaking beautiful phone, and despite a day's worth (10 hours) of updates and apps added and all that noise, 58% battery remaining.

 

[VoodooScott]

Avoid going to the AT&T dealers/stores if at all possible. Call AT&T technical support.

The primary issue for the LTE is the IMEI for unlocked devices ARE NOT on the AT&T accounts and thus do not have unrestricted access to their GSM. AT&T technical support can update the accounts remotely by calling from the device that you're having the issue with. While on that call over the AT&T service, they can gather all needed data and perform the update. It's very similar to how Verizon, while the 950 and 950xl operate on their band, blocked the phones by restricting the devices IMEI. Think of it as a locked door.

The secondary issue that may occur is SIM compatibility. I don't know too much in that arena however there are plenty of links available here to sort it out. Worst case scenario is having to pick up a new SIM and setting up the phone.

I spoke with AT&T support... supposedly they submitted a ticket to get the IMEI number for the XL auth'd on their network... we'll see! They said it will take two weeks.

 

[DLong4]

 

[anon(8555314)]

Chatting was going nowhere so I killed the session and called tech support. I used the IMEI on my decommissioned 1020 to get LTE working on my 950XL. Booyah!

 

[ShadowMario3]

I retired my Lumia 928 just today, served me very well the last 2.5 years. My 950 XL was delivered while I was out of town, having read all this, I was as hoop-fearing as you but figured I'd at least give it a shot today with my son. We went to the AT&T store, phone never having been out of the box. Sales tech was awesome, she thought the phone was cool as hell (said that she's not seen XLs in the wild but that the 950s have been selling as they are restocked). I told her that my reading said there might be issues with the IMEI and she'd need to use an existing one. She walked over to the 950 on display, took down the IMEI from that phone. Took that phone's SIM out, put in my phone to make sure we saw a working LTE first on my phone. After that, she transferred my # from Vz to AT&T, put in the brand new SIM in my phone (with the IMEI from the 950) and booted it up, LTE came up within a few secs. Only thing that will throw you (as it does me) is that when you are on WiFi, LTE will not display (unlike Vz where it was ever-present at least from my memory). Speedtest.net on WiFi here at my house 16Mbps down/2.3Mbps up, on LTE its 11.8Mbps down/8.0Mbps up. Bottom line, I was just like you, was not going to sleuth around and co-opt a code, if AT&T wasn't going to do the labor, I was going to rethink ... never came to that, great experience.

Freaking beautiful phone, and despite a day's worth (10 hours) of updates and apps added and all that noise, 58% battery remaining.

This seems to be a Lumia 950 XL/Windows 10 thing. Nonetheless, it is pretty easy to see whether you are still on LTE or not while connected to Wi-Fi by dragging the Action Center down.

Unfortunate to see that a lot of people are having trouble with AT&T correctly provisioning the phones and had to resort to taking an IMEI from a different/older device. Makes me wonder if the AT&T advance tech associate who helped me through chat (after two normal associates through chat failed to provision my phone correctly) truly did provision the Sim card correctly or if he pulled an IMEI (even though he asked me for mine) from a different device. Also, is no VVM really an AT&T problem, or is it a dual-sim problem?

 

[snakebitten]

I spoke with AT&T support... supposedly they submitted a ticket to get the IMEI number for the XL auth'd on their network... we'll see! They said it will take two weeks.

While I agree that AT&T would love to have sold a new branded 950 to all the folks that are deploying 950XL's on their network, I do not believe AT&T will take an adversarial approach with us. So I fully expect this early adopter issue to be short lived. After all, AT&T probably loves the fact that they are getting the lions share of all these new activations.

 

[PhineasTD]

Sounds like that representative may be pulling your chain...

Try calling again. Most likely than not, you'll get a different rep and different results (hopefully!)

 

[Fenoy]

MSStackFan - I think after reading your post I've decided to go ahead buy the 950XL and I've copied your post into OneNote to take to my local AT&T branch in case any issues arise. Thanks for posting.

 

[MSStackFan]

Absolutely, best of luck Fenoy.

 

[DLong4]

I called AT&T again this AM after swapping SIM cards with my retired L1520 (no network). The tech support rep indicated that entering an IMEI number of, say, a Lumia 950 from the store's demo units might work for a while, but that the carrier has periodic regional sweeps which are able to determine whether there's a model mismatch with the IMEI numbers, and that can cause problems down the road. Anyone have any understanding of this scenario?

He said that the "RM1116" (model 950XL) is not provisioned for LTE data services on their network.

 

[Akira X]

I've been anxious to buy an unlocked 950 XL even though I'm on Verizon (with a ~2 1/2 year old L928) and will have to switch to AT&T. However, at this juncture and based on reading this forum it looks more and more like a non-starter for me as I'm simply unwilling to jump through the hoops described in various accounts above to have the phone function with LTE service. I'm certainly not going into BB or and copy an IMEI or "borrow" an IMEI and give it to an AT&T CSR. If MS can't get this issue resolved with AT&T I'll continue slogging along with Verizon with a phone that functions.

Then go to crickett wireless to avoid dealing with imei issue and get LTE from the start.

 

[dgantz]

I called AT&T again this AM after swapping SIM cards with my retired L1520 (no network). The tech support rep indicated that entering an IMEI number of, say, a Lumia 950 from the store's demo units might work for a while, but that the carrier has periodic regional sweeps which are able to determine whether there's a model mismatch with the IMEI numbers, and that can cause problems down the road. Anyone have any understanding of this scenario?

He said that the "RM1116" (model 950XL) is not provisioned for LTE data services on their network.

This is what one of the advanced technical support managers just told me as well. I'll be interested to see if any of the posters above who are tricking the system with a nano SIM originally provisioned for a different LTE phone that have moved the SIM to their 950XL get caught up in one of these sweeps and get kicked down to 4G. Seems to me that the technical capabilities of the unlocked device should determine which capabilities on the network can be used, and not some IMEI database lookup...

 

[Akira X]

Also, with wifi on, I see the LTE wording if you pull the notification menu down just a hair, its under the signal bar indicator. My says "cricket LTE"

 

[AntnyGoomba]

I don't know why I'm not having any of the problems that is being reported here.

I took my SIM card out of my L1520 and inserted it into the SIM 1 slot BEFORE I even turned my new 950XL on. I then turned the phone on and went through the whole setup process. I chose not to use any of my backups.

I then went to the AT&T store to get a new SIM card for the SIM 2 slot, as my other line was a L1020 and that was a different size SIM card. The representative just put the card in and scanned my IMEI off of my 950XL, he didn't use any dummy IMEI or borrow it from another device.

I've had no problems with data, I've even tested switching wich SIM to use for data, as you can only use 1. I think the second one is actually faster.