Nexus 5 vs Nexus 5x
-
@jjconstr If you keep putting your IMEI in at&t, T-Mobile, and other checkers, and it says not eligible/cannot be used on this network, or something to that effect (which you indicated with at&t and Verizon) it means one of two things:
A: the device is carrier locked.
B: the device is still listed as active on someone's cellphone account. This frequently happens with at&t, but also with others.
You need to clarify for yourself if this is the case, by putting your IMEI specifically in the "is my phone eligible" checker in the bring your own device section of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, U.S. Cellular, and Sprint.
Each will say yes or no. If one says yes, and the others no, it's carrier locked to that provider but not on anyone's account. If it says yes on multiple providers, you're good to go. If it says no on every one, then do not pass go, collect $20 and give it to the paid unlocking company of your choice at the bottom of the previous article. If it says stolen, then return the device and get your money back because it will never be usable on a network again.
Or if you have active SIMs lying around, you can insert them one at a time and get the same answers.
If it is locked or on someone's account, the paid services contact the carrier and get it removed, and/or apply a software solution that gives them a unique factory unlock code they give to you for your device only. You input the code, it unlocks your phone so you can use it on any network.
-
@rocket2nfinity said in Nexus 5 vs Nexus 5x:
PagePlus, for instance, or SimpleMobile. Some MVNOs are owned by the major networks. At&t owns Cricket, T-Mobile owns Metro by T-Mobile, Sprint owned Boost until last week.
Results of online carrier IMEI compatibility searches; ATT IMEI not found, Sprint non-committal but would proceed with activation. Straightalk no IMEI search. PagePlus not compatible. US Cellular not recognized. Cricket compatible. Cingular site failed to load.
What can we know from these results?
Also, holding power and volume down buttons, brings up a list of details about this phone. One of them says, carrier info-none. Another says, Lock state -unlocked. Is this OEM Lock and is it different than carrier lock? -
@jjconstr T-Mobile?, Metro by T-Mobile? Re-try at&t. Their site is flaky. Double check your digits inputted.
-
@jjconstr Yes, OEM unlock means the bootloader is unlocked - necessary for loading after market ROMs.
Carrier lock is whether the phone is locked to an individual cell phone network. Needs to also be unlocked unless you are happy with the network it is locked to.
-
@rocket2nfinity said in Nexus 5 vs Nexus 5x:
@jjconstr T-Mobile?, Metro by T-Mobile? Re-try at&t. Their site is flaky. Double check your digits inputted.
I went to ATT store to check phone compatibility today. They said probably ok. Had them put in a sim card and activate it prepaid to test the coverage for a while. Worked pretty well. Don't have service at home, but expect to have it near home. one problem was calling a number with an out of state area code. It did not go through. Message said, Cant be completed, try again later. Using my other Verizon phone, it went through fine. The number dialed was on a Verizon account. Trying again, many time actually, it went through some times and sometimes not. Sometimes the phone screen blinked on and off about every two seconds. Straight talk and Consumer cellular are also options. I ordered Sim cards from both.
Im happy to have it working! Am looking for another for my wife.
-
@jjconstr
Great you finally managed to make it work.The problem calling out of state may come from the network coverage.
It may happen if the signal is too weak or if the bandwidth goes down... -
@jjconstr Wonderful. Check your network settings under cellular and see if any other networks pop up. If they do, then that's who you can connect to.
So from incomplete data (you did not tell me what T-mobiles and Metro's BYOD IMEI checker said), the device is network unlocked - based on the fact that Sprint also said it's compatible. You'll need to check this for your wife's N5 if you don't buy a device that specifically says OEM unlocked (bootloader unlocked) and carrier unlocked (network unlocked). A lot of used devices on eBay are locked one way or another.
Happy computing
-
@AppLee
Thanks for the encouragement. Setting up the next one should be easier. -
@rocket2nfinity said in Nexus 5 vs Nexus 5x:
So from incomplete data (you did not tell me what T-mobiles and Metro's BYOD IMEI checker said), the device is network unlocked - based on the fact that Sprint also said it's compatible. You'll need to check this for your wife's N5 if you don't buy a device that specifically says OEM unlocked (bootloader unlocked) and carrier unlocked (network unlocked). A lot of used devices on eBay are locked one way or another.
To complete the data further, T-moble said incompatible, Cricket said compatible, pageplus not compatible, US cellular not recognised and coverage map shows data only far and wide. Ive tried all that have stores in our area or phone book. Interestingly, ATT is not in our white or yellow pages. They have a store here, but use google advertising.
Im confused. Did you mean to say, "...DO buy a device that specifically says OEM unlocked (bootloader unlocked) and carrier unlocked (network unlocked).
Unlocked is preferred? -
@jjconstr You can buy a device that is OEM and/or Carrier locked, but you will have to unlock it. It's better for a new guy, with little knowledge, to buy unlocked. But, you clearly like a challenge because you've stuck with it this long so...
Upon further evaluation, your device may be locked to AT&T. Before, you said Sprint was non-committal. Not every provider checks the IMEI to see if the device is unlocked. Some just check the specs to see if it's compatible. AT&T's BYOD site is notoriously buggy and useless. But I know T-Mobile does check. So, it may be worth your money to have one of the paid services insure your device is unlocked. Several of them will check first and tell you if it's carrier unlocked. Given the lack of services in your area, it's best to have as many options as possible for service.
Don't waste your time trying to do it with AT&T, giving you grief is a hobby of theirs. In short, they won't unlock it unless you twist their arm or provide them some cash and six months of service.
-
@rocket2nfinity
thanks for that info. I'll take your advice and have a service confirm or unlock my Nexus.
How long should we expect the N5 to be usable on any carriers given changes in their systems? -
@jjconstr l assume you're referring to the upcoming 2G conversion. Verizon is already refarming their 2 and 3G networks to 5G now. I can assume that's why they blacklisted the N5.
AT&T is in the process. Projected conversion in two years. To keep customer continuity, they have opened their VoIP (voice over internet calling also known as VoLTE) to any device on their Network.
T-Mobile was waiting for the outcome of their merger to finalize their plans. I haven't seen an official update on that. But I can assume it will match AT&T. After all, they just had a big win and will want to capitalize on their new 5G capabilities. But it will take some time, so I would expect 2 to 3 years before they convert. They have a lot of legal and technical work to do to merge their and Sprints networks.
The smaller carriers I haven't paid attention to. Some of them are likely to keep their networks as is for the foreseeable future. 5G is a big investment.
So, in short, your device will be able to make calls for two plus years, at least, depending on network. Ubuntu Touch does not currently support VoLTE that I am aware of. I am not aware of their current plans to add support. Hopefully an administrator can jump in here and enlighten us.
Even if they do, that unfortunately won't help anyone with the Nexus 5. Although it has the hardware, Google never built out software support for VoLTE on the Nexus 5. If someone does so after the fact then we'll be ok. Otherwise, the N5 will only have data and will not be able to make traditional phone calls after that point. Call capability would still be available through WhatsApp, Skype, and other services that allow dialing out through an app or web interface. But someone would need to write said app.
-
@rocket2nfinity I am sure this has nothing to do with 5G. As you can see here there are a lot of older Google phones on the supported device list, but some of them are missing: https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/google/
Regarding VoLTE: We need support from the modem for this. If a phone never had VoLTE we cannot add it. Because the whole handling of a VoLTE call happens still inside the modem. We can just try to switch it on or give a preference for it. But so far you are right, we cannot even do this.
I would not make assumptions about how long a device is being supported, it might be well much longer than 2 years, as customers hopefully are lazy with upgrading their phone hardware and carriers will find out that they simply cannot turn off 3G/4G that easily. -
@Flohack Interesting. Nexus 6, but no 5X or 6P. I wonder what their criteria is...
I'm also curious as to what is stopping UT from supporting VoLTE. That, Redshift, and Swype are the only things I miss from Android.
-
@rocket2nfinity VoLTE is stopped by being a vendor extension that is not documented and unique for each vendor it seems. Honestly, we have no clue what needs to be done, as I said already elsewhere, it might be the case that VoLTE works already for some devices, we just dont know it
-
@Flohack Ok, I've been doing some research on what happened to VoLTE on specifically the Nexus 6P. I had it on Android. Lost it when I switched it to UT. According to the official ofono documentation, it is available. Under ofono.radiosettings it is set to technology preference=lte which means it is VoLTE capable. According to the documentation it would say umts or GSM if it was only capable of LTE data only.
It is not on because under ofono.radio.settings it is set to: Bearer=cs-prefered. If I'm reading this correctly that is. I'm quite a bit rusty regarding ofono and AT commands, so I'm not quite sure how to switch it.
Maybe a setting under cellular could be added to trigger the ofono command to switch from cs-preferred to ps-preferred?I also noticed ofono.callvolume -
MicrophoneVolume=0
SpeakerVolume=0
Muted=1So, since this is Android cobbled to Linux, not sure whether it can be unmuted via amixer or somewhere on the Android side because pulseaudio says module 11 ofono volume 100%
-
@Flohack Would you happen to know where I can find the radio settings info that used to be in the dialer menu that popped up after dialing ##4636## in Android? I'm specifically looking for the info on what radio bands are available and in use. It would be really handy to have that info available under cellular settings in UT. Is that possible? It would be handy to have all the info in that menu available somewhere if possible.
Edit: it's star pound star pound 4636 pound star pound star. For some reason the forum is deleting the star...
-
I've also put way too much effort into figuring out why Version does not support the N5, 5X, and 6P. It has to do with changes to the cell bands, specifically 12,13,17. Only the Nexus 6 still meets the physical requirements for the bands and radio software for VoLTE. But the 6P can be added back with some software modification. So it can still do VoLTE as can the N6 and the Pixels.
However, that would make the N6 or 6P prime replacement candidates for the N5 - if there's ever a breakthrough with the N6 halium port.
-
So, if I've got this right, for a device to have VoLTE, it appears a few things have to happen:
1 - It must have a sip capable modem. The N5 and later do.
2 - It must have radio software to activate that sip service and software in the OS to turn it on (Enhanced LTE setting in Android for instance). The N5 never got the proper radio software. The N6 and N6P does. UT doesn't have a setting to enable Enhanced LTE i.e. VoLTE (which appears to be the ps-preferred setting under radio settings in ofono in place of cs-preferred which is the old circuit switching 2g phone network).
3 - It must have band 12 or 17 for VoLTE on AT&T, band 12 for T-Mobile, band 13 for Verizon. N6 and later do. And it must be capable of transmitting and receiving full duplex on both the 3G and LTE bands at the same time. The N5 does not have a diversity antenna and cannot do this. VoLTE was activated in China on the N5 despite this because they were not as concerned with a smooth handoff, but American carriers require it.
4 - The network provider must white list the device on their Network. Verizon will only white list the N6 and the Pixels. AT&T has recently white listed any device that has service on their Network. T-Mobile allowed the N6P to access VoLTE until 2018. At which point, Verizon forced Google to update the radio software to disable VoLTE. However, on XDA-Developers there is a fix to get it back by flashing an older Android 6 radio and then upgrading back to 7.12 or later. Many posts on XDA and Reddit state that T-Mobile will let the 6P back on VoLTE after that. The radio we are using is from the time period where VoLTE was active - 7.12. So it might just be necessary to turn on packet switching preferred (LTE/UMTS auto PRL preferred network type) in this case.
Now the next question is how to add that and wifi calling to Ubuntu Touch. I miss wifi calling and VoLTE.
-
@rocket2nfinity Sorry I dont think thats possible at the moment with UT...
