Band and Reception Issues with Samsung Galaxy S9

[TrophyNostalgia]

I got an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S9 last November direct from the Samsung website when they were running a Black Friday sale. Overall coming from an HTC 10 the device has been adequate and I didn't notice any problems. However, once I started traveling for work, family, or vacation immediate issues have become apparent. The phone's reception is horrid.

Now I live in Chicago and never really noticed the issue until I get outside any "major" urban hub. Over time I think I've limited it down to a particular band issue. Last year I had full service from T-mobile on my HTC 10 when traveling to Grandparents farm in rural Iowa. With my Samsung, nothing until I travel almost 4 cities out. My sister and brother in law- who both have Samsung and T-mobile devices- both had "acceptable" service but I noticed their devices had automatically switched to US Cellular towers and mine had not. I've gone through data roaming setting and as far as switching my SIM card with T-mobile.

I'm at the point of just selling or replacing the phone. When I was in Phoenix, AZ walking in any building dropped my reception to almost a single bar making the phone tenuous at best. Has anyone seen issues like this and is it because I bought the phone unlocked rather than T-mobile branded or some other finicky band reception issue?

 

[Rukbat]

No, it's probably one of two issues:

1. The particular phone has an insensitive receiver, or defective antenna.

2. You have something set wrong, so it's not switching to US Cellular towers. If you find a corporate TMobile store (most of the people at the independent stores are sales people, not technical people) they may be able to see what's wrong and set it up properly. (US Cellular may still have some towers running on CDMA, and your phone may be set to use only GSM.)

The only differences between the unlocked version and the TMobile version are bloat, the label, the turn-on display and jingle. TMobile uses the US version, G960U.

 

[TrophyNostalgia]

No, it's probably one of two issues:

1. The particular phone has an insensitive receiver, or defective antenna.

2. You have something set wrong, so it's not switching to US Cellular towers. If you find a corporate TMobile store (most of the people at the independent stores are sales people, not technical people) they may be able to see what's wrong and set it up properly. (US Cellular may still have some towers running on CDMA, and your phone may be set to use only GSM.)

The only differences between the unlocked version and the TMobile version are bloat, the label, the turn-on display and jingle. TMobile uses the US version, G960U.

1. I'm more inclined to think this.
2. I always go to the corporate vs independent retailers and they were the ones who had me replace my SIM card. Glad to have the version differences confirmed so I know I didn't get the wrong phone or something. I'll double check CDMA related settings, but I think I'll just have to talk to Samsung personnel to get the assumedly defective antennae replaced. Correct me if I'm wrong though. Isn't CDMA exclusive to Verizon or a hardware related adjustment? So other than allowing Data roaming shouldn't a T-Mobile device pick up on relevant bands (ie. US Cellular) automatically?

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[methodman89]

Go to Settings, Connections and check the setting I screenshot.
Good luck