LTE on T-Mobile

[jgbstetson]

Apple's new iPhone 5S is a true universal phone and any iPhone 5S other then Sprint one is basically the same rest verizon one has CDMA radio added. I hope all other OEMs start doing the same thing which would be beneficial to us as well as OEMs. And I don't see why that would be bad for carriers either. True, people can switch and leave, but they can also switch and come.

The emerging business model is eliminating 2 yr contracts and getting you on a phone payment plan. Even though the device might have some interoperability on another network, there are always hoops to jump through and gimped features. The avg Joe sees it as a nonstarter. I see carriers becoming more entrenched in exclusives and more resistant to the FCC's unlocking policies in the future. The device is the new contract, and you'll see them promoting upgrades frequently to keep switching costs high for the consumer. Of course, I could be totally wrong, but I think we are seeing wolves in sheep's clothing right now.

 

[manicottiK]

Wait...so I can buy it and use it on ATT without a problem out the box ??

Yes, but without AT&T's LTE. In effect, buying an Icon and using it on AT&T is like buying the international version of the 1520 and using it on AT&T -- all of the features work, except you won't get LTE because AT&T uses a different of frequencies than Verizon does (or most other countries do).

That said, the loss of LTE may not be as big a problem as you might think. In some areas, AT&T has throughput limits that makes LTE no faster than HSPA+. If you have an AT&T LTE phone (and an unlimited or high limit data plan), test its speed at different places and times of day to see what you get. Except that falling back to HSPA+ will bring you down to around 6 Mbps. Of course, if you have Wi-Fi most of the time, even a significant drop in carrier throughput may not matter to you.

 

[AR2186]

There are areas where AT&T has AWS LTE, so it should work in those locations

 

[bruinsphan]

manicottiK I have an icon that I am using on at&t and while I love the phone and it works great I am still unable to figure out how to receive mms. I can send pictures but cannot receive do you have any insight??

 

[palandri]

manicottiK I have an icon that I am using on at&t and while I love the phone and it works great I am still unable to figure out how to receive mms. I can send pictures but cannot receive do you have any insight??

I saw your other thread. http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-icon/266210-lumia-icon-t-where-mmsc-apn-field.html and have a couple of question for you

Did you activate the phone on AT&T or Verizon? If it was AT&T are there any windows popping up telling you to register it with Verizon?

Did you try jlesavoy MMS solution in your thread?

Keep us updated on this. The other thing I am wondering now is if you will get updates from Verizon if the phone was never registered with Verizon.

Thanks!

 

[bruinsphan]

Palandri I'm not sure what solution from jlesavoy you are referring to but if you mean the Access Point app then yes. I mentioned that in my very first post. I used that app from the start and it was great at getting everything working except the ability to receive mms. I continue to have the same issue. I asked in that thread if he could verify that he was receiving but he never answered. I would love to hear if anyone can receive mms on at&t.

As far as your other questions, the phone was bought and activated on a friends Verizon account and was used for a few hours. When I got the phone all I did was pull out the Verizon sim and put my at&t sim into it. That is the beauty of gsm phones, no activation needed if they are unlocked. As long as you have a working sim and the correct apn settings its basically plug and play. Once again my only issue comes down to mms which seems crazy that they will send and amazingly fast at sending them too. As far as software updates are concerned, I'm not sure. I actually was wondering that myself. I obviously want to be able to upgrade to 8.1 when it is available so that would be my other concern as well.

If anyone can help I would love to here from them.

Thanks.

 

[Vmartinez39]

I'd really like confirmation on AT&T SIM working on Lumia Icon. I'm interested in getting this device because of the fantastic camera it has.

I bought a Lumia 928 used but was in mint condition. Only reason I got it is because the device comes unlocked and don't need to get a code or anything for it.

I have a prepaid T-Mobile everything works Data, SMS, MMS (SMS in 2G only) and its a well documented on the 928 forums of working fully on EDGE.

My main phone is on H2O wireless, an At&t MVNO. I have the same issue where I can't receive MMS messages and its the only reason I've not fully adopted the 928 as my main driver. I have Nexus 5 but the only reason I'm even exploring Lumia devices are because of the great camera they have.

So yeah I'm really interested in confirming if users on AT&T and possible prepaid MVNO can receive MMS.

Speaking from my 928 and testing all kind of MVNO carriers, the only one I got everything to work Data, MMS, SMS, in 3g/H/H+ was Net10 with the AT&T SIM. Just this weekend I finally was able to install the ACCESS POINT application everyone here talks about. It still wouldn't work. However, using my T-Mobile SIM, using Access Point was a breeze and at least didn't have to manually add APN like I did before getting Access Point.

So yes, I'm interested if anyone got MMS to work too, and confirmed to work with prepaid wireless services even better.

 

[gvp 1995]

So did anybody actually tested Icon with T-Mo? What are the findings?

 

[alinefx]

Yeah it's lte compatible with tmobile band 4

 

[Agustin Lopez]

Where do you live? I live in Los Angeles and am not able to get LTE with a brand new Verizon Icon that I purchased. I can get LTE on my unlocked Nokia 1020 just fine but not the Icon?

 

[Andygoes]

So I thought that LTE wasn't working on my Icon - whenever I set the maximum speed to LTE, I would show no signal. After a conversation on Reddit, I decided to test it out again. Long story short, there is either a bug (or Verizon modified the firmware maliciously) that shows no signal when connected to T-Mobile's LTE (and perhaps other LTE networks abroad - haven't tested that yet). To test, install the Hardware Tests app and, on the first page, it will say what you are connected to and connection speed. You can also run a speed test in Microsoft's Network Speed Test app.

I'm still testing it out, but I have run in to some downsides - apparently, texts don't go out very reliably (get the error "Can't send this message" immediately), and I have experienced some reboots. However, that was on a phone that I exchanged yesterday for another reason (gradient on screen) and am on my 2nd Icon now and will continue to test.

Also, I'm in Michigan, which may make a difference. T-Mobile is continuing to roll out their LTE network on the 1700MHz band, so they may not have it up and running in your area yet.

 

[camaroz1985]

Got the same text problems with the 822 on T-mobile. Have to set data speed to 2g, or turn it off completely to send texts, either works.

 

[Aaron Schnieder]

So can anyone in a strong LTE area confirm that they were able to get their Verizon Icon working on T-Mobile? Did you have to do anything to get it to work other than sticking the T-Mobile SIM in?

What about developer unlocking the phone using tools from dev.windowsphone.com after signing up as a Win Phone developer? Would that ensure the Icon would work on T-Mobile?

Thanks,

Aaron

 

[Andygoes]

So can anyone in a strong LTE area confirm that they were able to get their Verizon Icon working on T-Mobile? Did you have to do anything to get it to work other than sticking the T-Mobile SIM in?

What about developer unlocking the phone using tools from dev.windowsphone.com after signing up as a Win Phone developer? Would that ensure the Icon would work on T-Mobile?

Thanks,

Aaron

I get LTE just fine. I think Verizon did something to the phone, however, to show no signal when connected to T-Mobile's LTE, in addition to occasional resets and the inability to send text messages unless forcing 2G.

 

[Aaron Schnieder]

I get LTE just fine. I think Verizon did something to the phone, however, to show no signal when connected to T-Mobile's LTE, in addition to occasional resets and the inability to send text messages unless forcing 2G.

Thanks Andy! If you turn down the data speed to 3G does that fix text messaging or do you have to go all the way down to 2G?

 

[camaroz1985]

I had to turn it down to 2G on my 822, 3G still didn't work. Maybe with WP8.1 and the quick settings you could switch back and forth easier, but with the current way it is a PITA.

 

[VenumX]

I had to turn it down to 2G on my 822, 3G still didn't work. Maybe with WP8.1 and the quick settings you could switch back and forth easier, but with the current way it is a PITA.

same with me, I have tested my Lumia Icon working on LTE in Tennessee and had full LTE speeds, showed no signal unable to call / sms / mms. Change to 3g, same issue, changed to 2g calls / sms / mms working but slow speeds ( obviously ). I believe our only hope to have this fully working is either the developer preview of 8.1 ( we should know in a few days if that fixes it ) or when Nokia / Verizon release the Cyan update to our phones. And that's if Verizon didn't find a loophole in their requirement to leave the band unlocked and take advantage of it by purposely disabling the reception bars at that level.

 

[Games Goblin]

Anyone looking at buying the icon for use on T-Mo or ATT would do well to wait for the lumia 930 to launch in the US. Its basically the icon minus the CDMA radios but with GSM lte bands.

And doesn't Verizon program the GSM part of their phones in such a way that it rejects US based sim cards but accepts only international ones?

Posted via the WPC App for Android!

 

[sraina]

Anyone looking at buying the icon for use on T-Mo or ATT would do well to wait for the lumia 930 to launch in the US. Its basically the icon minus the CDMA radios but with GSM lte bands.

And doesn't Verizon program the GSM part of their phones in such a way that it rejects US based sim cards but accepts only international ones?

Posted via the WPC App for Android!

Yes but on the Lumia 930, there will be no LTE for either T-Mobile or AT&T. Verizon accepts US SIMs and T-Mobile SIM works just fine, gets LTE data but for some strange reason the phone does not show the signal symbol on the menu bar. At times, it seems as though the phone does not have any signal

 

[sraina]

Well the 930 will not get LTE speeds on either T-Mobile or AT&T based on the specs of that device (European version). Version does not reject US SIMs. The Lumia icon works fine with T-Mobile SIM and does get LTE (Depending on coverage of course). For some reason though, the signal indicator does not show the 'LTE' symbol - quite a few users have mentioned this.