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Help Nexus 5 HSPA+ Out of the box

Shotlimesalt

Shotlimesalt

Well-Known Member
I am coming from a Nexus 4 to a Nexus 5 that I received yesterday and I just wanted to share my experience just in case someone else goes through this.

I opened my Nexus 5 and directly connected to Wifi to connect to my Google account and run through the setup naturally. Once I completed that I was anxious to test the LTE connectivity. Upon disconnecting the WiFi my phone was only showing HSPA+ which imminently made me :mad:

I restarted my phone and still was only getting HSPA+ in a known high LTE area. So I decided to drive around and see if it connected anywhere just in case and to my luck it didn't. So I drove to the AT&T store down the street to see maybe it had something to do with my account. The nice AT&T employee agreed that it was weird I was not getting LTE so he checked my account and said AT&T is still recognizing that I have a non-LTE phone (Nexus 4) and with the Nexus not being sold by them he'd have to manually go in and make some changes.. so he did

I then restarted my phone after the changes and then got 0 service all together. Could only make/ receive phone calls just no data. So process of elimination we did this in this order to make it work. Whether or not you have to do this to make it work I have no idea, but none the less it worked.

1- (As stated above make sure AT&T (carrier recognizes you have an LTE enabled phone)

2- Get a new Micro-SIM card (This did not fix the lack of LTE or gain my data back.. so then we tried step 3)

3- After new SIM card is in the device factory reset the phone

Phone had been reset and LTE enabled (FIXED/ HAPPY)

So there you have it. If this happens to you out of the box.. this is my suggestion!

Enjoi :D
 
Shotlimesalt said:
I am coming from a Nexus 4 to a Nexus 5 that I received yesterday and I just wanted to share my experience just in case someone else goes through this.

I opened my Nexus 5 and directly connected to Wifi to connect to my Google account and run through the setup naturally. Once I completed that I was anxious to test the LTE connectivity. Upon disconnecting the WiFi my phone was only showing HSPA+ which imminently made me :mad:

I restarted my phone and still was only getting HSPA+ in a known high LTE area. So I decided to drive around and see if it connected anywhere just in case and to my luck it didn't. So I drove to the AT&T store down the street to see maybe it had something to do with my account. The nice AT&T employee agreed that it was weird I was not getting LTE so he checked my account and said AT&T is still recognizing that I have a non-LTE phone (Nexus 4) and with the Nexus not being sold by them he'd have to manually go in and make some changes.. so he did

I then restarted my phone after the changes and then got 0 service all together. Could only make/ receive phone calls just no data. So process of elimination we did this in this order to make it work. Whether or not you have to do this to make it work I have no idea, but none the less it worked.

1- (As stated above make sure AT&T (carrier recognizes you have an LTE enabled phone)

2- Get a new Micro-SIM card (This did not fix the lack of LTE or gain my data back.. so then we tried step 3)

3- After new SIM card is in the device factory reset the phone

Phone had been reset and LTE enabled (FIXED/ HAPPY)

So there you have it. If this happens to you out of the box.. this is my suggestion!

Enjoi :D
Click to expand...

All I can do is shake my head at how AT&T makes something so simple like activating a phone and turns it into a circus.
 
jhawkkw said:
All I can do is shake my head at how AT&T makes something so simple like activating a phone and turns it into a circus.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what it was like. First 10 mins was them looking at my phone telling me they've never seen one (this included the manager along side the other employee)

Another hour of them activating the SIM and looking through my account to figure this out and as a last resort factory resetting the phone. Then the manager suggested calling Google.

Me.. I was slamming my face on the table repeatedly..
 
Shotlimesalt said:
That's exactly what it was like. First 10 mins was them looking at my phone telling me they've never seen one (this included the manager along side the other employee)

Another hour of them activating the SIM and looking through my account to figure this out and as a last resort factory resetting the phone. Then the manager suggested calling Google.

Me.. I was slamming my face on the table repeatedly..
Click to expand...

AT&T is trying to become more and more like Verizon: A locked down network. They're trying to act like they're not a GSM carrier where they have to accept any device compatible with their network, so you have to fight them. It's such a shame because T-Mobile makes things so easy. They have an entire department of CS dedicated to unlocked phones, lol.
 
jhawkkw said:
AT&T is trying to become more and more like Verizon: A locked down network. They're trying to act like they're not a GSM carrier where they have to accept any device compatible with their network, so you have to fight them. It's such a shame because T-Mobile makes things so easy. They have an entire department of CS dedicated to unlocked phones, lol.
Click to expand...

Once T-Mobile has an LTE tower in the St. Louis region I am making the jump over there. For that reason and that I am on a family plan limited to 2GB of data and since I've gotten LTE when I got my Nexus 5 yesterday I've used 500MB :S (Hello throttled unlimited plan :D )
 
AT&T has to provision your account for LTE.... don't know why that's just how they roll.
What amazes me is how many of their CSRs do not know that.

No need for a sim, or anything else... just tell them to provision your account for LTE and it will just work.

Been there at least 4 times now with them.
 
LoyalServant said:
AT&T has to provision your account for LTE.... don't know why that's just how they roll.
What amazes me is how many of their CSRs do not know that.

No need for a sim, or anything else... just tell them to provision your account for LTE and it will just work.

Been there at least 4 times now with them.
Click to expand...

See they did that and it completely took all my data away until I factory reset my phone. They had to do that to my mom's account when she picked up the Moto X coming from an HTC Inspire :S (I know, right? HTC Inspire for 3 years lol) so I told them that when I walked in and immediately he told me "possibly?...Let's take a look"
 
I'm also in STL. It's showing LTE for my Nexus 5 right now on T-Mobile, getting about 18 megs down, and 4.5 up. On my Nexus 4, the speeds were similar, maybe slightly slower, but it was just showing H letter which was HSPA. So did Google just change it so that "LTE" is any HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc.. fast network?
 
zenicanin said:
I'm also in STL. It's showing LTE for my Nexus 5 right now on T-Mobile, getting about 18 megs down, and 4.5 up. On my Nexus 4, the speeds were similar, maybe slightly slower, but it was just showing H letter which was HSPA. So did Google just change it so that "LTE" is any HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc.. fast network?
Click to expand...

I don't know. I wouldn't think so. I'll go to t mobile tomorrow and post here what I find out.

Edit. Just checked their site. It says there is LTE in stl. Don't know how I missed that! Going to T-Mobile tomorrow
 
zenicanin said:
I'm also in STL. It's showing LTE for my Nexus 5 right now on T-Mobile, getting about 18 megs down, and 4.5 up. On my Nexus 4, the speeds were similar, maybe slightly slower, but it was just showing H letter which was HSPA. So did Google just change it so that "LTE" is any HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc.. fast network?
Click to expand...

LTE means that you have LTE. It will say H when you have HSPA/HSPA+. Already went through all 3 types: E,H,LTE tonight. The Nexus 4 use to say "4G" when you had LTE.
 
SMH at this whole entire issue. I agree with at&t becoming like VZW. They're reps have become like trained robots that can't help with the simplest of issues. Don't get me wrong, every now and again you come across a very helpful rep. I still have a few hook ups at the corporate stores but many of the reps I knew have moved on to other ventures. What gets me is how easy all these issues are, and how good Tmobile is in this dept.

I have a funny story off topic but it shows the negligence of at&t and relates to them just trying very hard to become like VZW with that very cocky not helping the customer attitude.

I just got an iphone 5s about 2 weeks ago and spent a good penny on it, anyway after using it a few days I noticed the data was a little slow and the call quality was downright bad when compared to my iphone 5 or any of my Android devices working of the network. So I made some calls to at&t and told them my issues and of course they don't want to admit anything, I'm doing something wrong and I don't know how to use the phone, etc, etc. Anyway I end up changing the SIM card and doing a hard reset, and presto... The problems are still there. So I visit an at&t corporate store and explain the problem and again I'm treated like a moron who doesn't know what he's doing and that I should go visit Apple. I demand to speak to a mgr who comes out with a cocky, arogent attitude from jump street and basically tells me to live with the phone because they are hard to come by and that I should be happy I got a silver 5s. So I ask if it would be ok to just exchange the device and call it a day since I'm within 14 days. Can you believe this clown gave me a hard time and tried telling me they have no 60GB silver iphone 5s's in stock when a half hr before I went there I called and spoke to someone who said they have a ton because everybody wants the 16 and 32GB and they just recieved a delivery the day before.

Anyway long story short I took the drive to the store where I know someone who had gotten them in the next day and he took the time to test the store demo unit, his own personal phone, and a brand new out of the box iphone 5s and came away saying you are 100% right that there is a definite problem with the phone I had and he had no issues giving a brand new one and said he'd tear through a few to check to make sure I leave happy with a proper working phone.

Moral of the story is that these companies don't want to take the time to train they're emplyees the right way to handle customer related issues like the one here in this thread with an unlocked LTE capable nexus 5 phone working on they're network or even a phone that they themselves sell in the store. I'm going back to a beeper...lmaoooo!
 
zenicanin said:
I'm also in STL. It's showing LTE for my Nexus 5 right now on T-Mobile, getting about 18 megs down, and 4.5 up. On my Nexus 4, the speeds were similar, maybe slightly slower, but it was just showing H letter which was HSPA. So did Google just change it so that "LTE" is any HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, etc.. fast network?
Click to expand...

So I just now when to T-Mobile this morning and found out some shocking news that made me 0_0 at the rep working there! Please if this is correct then I missed something!!

So I live approx. 10 mins from STL but on the IL side across the river. I am currently on AT&T network getting LTE from their tower. Rep went on to tell me LTE with T-Mobile is spotty where I am but mostly 4G only. She went on to tell me about each plan which I already read up on but I let her continue anyway while she starred at the ceiling trying to remember everything. She then went on to tell me about putting down payments on phones.. no contracts etc.

I then told her I'd be coming from AT&T and she interrupted me and told me I could bring an AT&T phone over to T-Mobile but it wouldn't run at full speeds on their network..I said..

Me-"ok...but I didn't buy it from AT&T and my phone is unlocked and can work on any carrier except vzw which doesn't matter."

Rep- "Any phone you bring to T-Mobile unlocked or not will not run at full speeds."

Me- "Ok.. (Walked out of the store)

Anyway.. I will be moving into the city by next summer and that's around the time my I will be able to leave AT&T for something else.

If anyone in the STL region has a suggestion for me plz let me know. I am a data hog 5GB of LTE would do me right, but I am left in "AW" with that T-Mobile rep..

If I am wrong in thinking an unlocked phone (Nexus 5) should work perfectly fine on any carrier minus VZW please feel free to take my Nexus fanboy card away!!
 
It should and will. It's just a corporate catch all because not all unlocked phones work on all frequencies. They also say that to lure you into buying one of their sim locked carrier phones. But considering T-Mobile is actually going to sell this phone, it shouldn't pose any issue whatsoever.
 
jhawkkw said:
It should and will. It's just a corporate catch all because not all unlocked phones work on all frequencies. They also say that to lure you into buying one of their sim locked carrier phones. But considering T-Mobile is actually going to sell this phone, it shouldn't pose any issue whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Ya I saw right thru the reps selling tactics trying to get me to buy one of their phones. I swear 90% of reps just don't care lol or just don't know jack-sh!t
 
It use to be an issue in the past because many unlocked phones didn't have band 4 hspa/umts support. Many people would unlock AT&T phones or import international phones and only have EDGE. But with them moving hspa to band 2, and most phones having band 4 lte support, it's becoming less of an issue.
 
Maybe you should visit another T-Mo location. That one sounds terrible. But then again I did everything online, so I wouldn't know which ones were good anyways. haha
 
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