Sprint/T-mobile network calls will NEVER be activated
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Hello everyone,
As discussed in the Note 4 telegram group, do not buy SPRINT/T-MOBILE Note 4 devices with the intent to activate these devices with T-mobile with Voice services.
As some of you already know, I spent literally 15 hours of various attempts online, over the phone and in T-mo stores trying to activate my Sprint Note 4, including 6 different types of SIM cards both T-mo and Sprint branded "universal" variants.
Bottom line is this: T-mobile has intentionally nerf'ed the Note 4 (you can get data but no voice, ever, period) and voice will never work AND they don't know how to remove the device once its "activated." There are rumors that Verizon will also follow suit sometime in 2021 as 3G is dismantled.
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@clessley Just for my understanding... you're talking about the situation in the US, right?
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@clessley Sprint won't work because CDMA doesn't work with the version of ofono in UT on anything that isn't halium 9 or newer, mainline kernel based.
T-Mobile GSM should work still. I don't think T-Mobile has actually blocked 3G devices yet, though, despite that image.
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@moem Yes, USA.
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@dobey I wanted to try a T-mo phone to confirm its just the CDMA versions but after a saga of talking to a lot of less-than-savvy-individuals (to put it politely), I gave up. Sold the device to a guy using it as a smart mouse-pad. I'm now using a new Note20 Ultra vanilla with the moon-shot hope of "someday."
As far as T-mo SIM cards, I never used a T-mo branded phone, but certainly did test 3-4 T-mo SIM cards. Never worked. Data was perfect. The phone would get auto assigned a temp zombie phone number during "activation" then never finish.
Interestingly enough, my old S5 which was a T-mo phone, using a Ting T-mo branded universal sim kept on working because it was activated long before the T-mo/Sprint merger. I was never a T-mo customer, only a Sprint customer with my Note4.
For giggles I tried a few cards from Ting on the Note4 as a test in comparison. It was blacklisted upstream for Ting (as they are a MVNO for both).
I don't recommend anyone trying it with anything T-mo unless the phone is branded to support VoLTE and is new (obviously not a Note4). Never-mind Note4 technically could use VoLTE (like the T-mo likely does by permission only upstream)...but it was a complete nightmare. Sad to leave this project behind...for now.
