Develop Bugs

Sprint GS3 hardware question....

Is the internal radio and SOC identical across all US carriers? (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint)
I am looking to unlock a Sprint GS3 that I can get as an employee and use it on AT&T. (Apple appears to include both CDMA and GSM support in their 4S units) and I am hoping Samsung did the same to get the device out to all the carriers.
Thanks in advance!

Unfortunately, sprint opted to make the sim internal so it can't be swapped. If you see some of the video reviews out right now, it shows the sim slot missing.

Protocols and frequencies
themyst said:
Is the internal radio and SOC identical across all US carriers? (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint)
I am looking to unlock a Sprint GS3 that I can get as an employee and use it on AT&T. (Apple appears to include both CDMA and GSM support in their 4S units) and I am hoping Samsung did the same to get the device out to all the carriers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not a professional on this but I believe that the SoC(processor, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) is identical but the radios are different.
All the carriers use unique frequencies to communicate with their towers. Many carriers use separate protocols to communicate as well(HSPA+, CDMA, GSM) Its possible for 2 carriers to use the same protocol but they will always be using different frequencies.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think its possible to re-program your phone to use a different frequency(i.e. change from 1900MHz to 800MHz)
I do not believe you can "unlock" a sprint phone. The radio simply will not work on any other carrier. Now, if said sprint phone were a "Global Phone", then it has an additional GSM radio in it as well. I don't know if this could be used to connect to another US carrier like AT&T though.

What does this mean...?

when I go through the specs for the AT&T and Tmobile variants for the note 2, I come across a difference in the following
AT&T,
GSM Quad-band: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Tmobile
Frequencies and Data Type GSM Quad-band: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz UMTS: Band I ,band II, Band IV (Dual-band1700/2100 MHz), Band V
What does the dual band mean? Is it for Tmobiles 4G network?
I thought all the Note 2's in the US had the same LTE radio
please shed some light,
thanks

1700 MHz/2100 MHz UMTS (WCDMA) AWS is currently T-Mobile's 4G network.
T-Mobile will have LTE up and running sometime within next year (2013).
Yes T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 devices do have LTE. But it is now not activated. T-Mobile will activate the LTE within T-Mobile's Galaxy Note 2 when they get their LTE service up and running within your area.
How to activate the LTE and running on another carrier is a good question. This I get bits and pieces. But not a full step-by-step process yet.

The T-Mobile Note II is pentaband; it will work on AT&T and T-Mobile 3G/4G (not LTE though as of now). I think that's what you're getting at.

Product F(RED) said:
The T-Mobile Note II is pentaband; it will work on AT&T and T-Mobile 3G/4G (not LTE though as of now). I think that's what you're getting at.
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I believe that we can get the LTE up and running with other carriers. I know that I got LTE working on my GN2 (SGH-T889). We just need to learn how to get the LTE running with other carriers. That is really the question. When we figure that out then this might be able to be applied to other GN2 devices.

Tmobile hasnt turned on lte yet. From what i understand once they do our note 2's should be able to utilize it.

winlinmac001 said:
What does the dual band mean? Is it for Tmobiles 4G network?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tmobile uses 42.2 mbps dual channel hsdpa.
Afaik, At&t uses 21.1 mbps hsdpa.
Lte(long term evolution) is a different technology not yet active for Tmobile customers.
Real World, my friend with a Galaxy nexus on Tmobile network gets about 8mbps while I get 14mbps. Galaxy nexus has the 21.1mbps capable modem.

konceptz said:
Tmobile uses 42.2 mbps dual channel hsdpa.
Afaik, At&t uses 21.1 mbps hsdpa.
Lte(long term evolution) is a different technology not yet active for Tmobile customers.
Real World, my friend with a Galaxy nexus on Tmobile network gets about 8mbps while I get 14mbps. Galaxy nexus has the 21.1mbps capable modem.
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Click to collapse
You're talking about something called DC-HSPA (Dual Channel/Carrier), which is basically what you said: Using 2 frequencies of HSPA(+) to achieve basically double the throughput.

Is it a hardware limitation (as in slightly modified Qualcomm LTE Chipset) in the AT&T Note 2 that 42mbps is not supported compared to T-Mobiles version? Or it is software / firmware-controlled?

winlinmac001 said:
Is it a hardware limitation (as in slightly modified Qualcomm LTE Chipset) in the AT&T Note 2 that 42mbps is not supported compared to T-Mobiles version? Or it is software / firmware-controlled?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could be software (on the modem level, which is low-level stuff and separate from the ROM); T-Mobile's Galaxy S II was basically AT&T's Skyrocket with LTE disabled. You could actually flash a T-Mobile S2's modem onto a Skyrocket to get it to work on T-Mobile frequencies (but you can't get LTE enabled on the T-Mobile S II as far as I know).

would you say the note 2 from verizon is any better since it also includes a CDMA radio? Also, though LTE only works in the upper 700 frequency, any change a modem update or firmware change will allow the verizon version to work on T-mobile or AT&T network?

winlinmac001 said:
would you say the note 2 from verizon is any better since it also includes a CDMA radio? Also, though LTE only works in the upper 700 frequency, any change a modem update or firmware change will allow the verizon version to work on T-mobile or AT&T network?
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Click to collapse
No; CDMA is useless unless you're going to be using it on the carrier it came from. I'd say the T-Mobile version is the best (in terms of working with the most networks), then the AT&T version (because it has LTE), then the International version (because it's the AT&T version without LTE), and after that the Verizon one because Sprint are jerks because they use "embedded SIMs".

AWS

With all this talk on Verizon adding AWS, do our phones have this capability?

If I remember correctly, only the T-Mobile variant of the One has AWS capabilities.

See, here's the thing that threw me off. The S4 variant for Verizon is going to support AWS. Currently online, the S4 and One are both listed as supporting the same frequencies. Is there no chance we could see AWS turned on like the S4 with a future update?
No biggy to me either way, but I figure similar phones with similar chipsets and currently similar cell frequency support, could be possible.

[Q] Differences in Carrier Units?

I noticed that Amazon has the AT&T variant of the LG G3 up and I was curious if anyone knew the differences between them. I assume there will be bloatware for each specific carrier, but, excluding Verizon, would the AT&T variant be harder to root? Would one specific carrier variant get custom roms while the others are left behind?
Sorry for the noob questions, I'm just not 100% familiar with Android devices sold by a specific carrier.

also, is it safe to assume that I could put a t-mobile sim card in the AT&T variant and it will connect to the t-mobile network? since they're all 851 variants

Enddo said:
also, is it safe to assume that I could put a t-mobile sim card in the AT&T variant and it will connect to the t-mobile network? since they're all 851 variants
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Surprisingly yes, there's a minimum of difference in supported bands according to the FCC. AT&T's website indicates their model (D850) supports 2100 Mhz HSPA rather than AWS, but they probably meant AWS. Basically they have the same 2G, 3G, and HSPA+ frequency support
T-Mobile's (D851) is missing Band 5 LTE, which AT&T has deployed here and there, but that appears to be the only difference in frequency support. Both devices have LTE Bands 2, 4 and 17 (AWS, PCS, and 700 MHz blocks B and C respectively), so the main US LTE bands are covered.
You would have to unlock the device first, of course.

Special Variant for Verizon Compatibility?

Some of the phones on eBay only show GSM compatibility. Is there a particular variant that is Verizon compatible?

enginuity2 said:
Some of the phones on eBay only show GSM compatibility. Is there a particular variant that is Verizon compatible?
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Click to collapse
No. All Mi Mix 2 phones have the requisite LTE frequencies and CDMA frequencies to connect to Verizon. But, Verizon won't see the Mi Mix 2 as a "compatible" or "approved" device, so you may run into issues during SIM activation unless you already have an active SIM. Also, one MVNO I used (Boom Mobile) threatened to suspend my account for using a Mi Mix 2...so I got rid of them. No other MVNOs nor Verizon themselves [seem to] have an issue with this though.
Verizon requires LTE 2, 4, 5 and 13...and CDMA BC0 and BC1.