Verizon killed CDMA, now what?!? SCH-I545

[CNSHHT]

Has your SCH-I545 become a "smart paperweight?"

Without voice calling, those of us who really love our SCH-I545s may want to find some new, limited role for the trusty old S4, even if it just sits at home.. HOWEVER, I'm here to tell you that it's possible to get a TracFone/AT&T SIM card for $1, set up a new APN, and even though the data may not be quite as fast as 4G/LTE on Verizon, you can still make voice calls, use cell data, SMS and MMS!

My S4 happens to be rooted, and I have hidden menus enabled, etc., as described in an XDA thread titled "How To Make Verizon SCH-I545 Fully Work On AT&T" (search that, I think you can find it....) But even if your S4 isn't rooted and you don't want the pain of trying, you may be able to get it working anyway, without root and the changes described in the XDA thread. There are surely others out there who could benefit from knowing your results from that experiment.

Here's how I got things working: Bought the $1 TracFone SIM kit, went to their website and activated the SIM (I was already a Tracfone/Verizon customer, so activating the AT&T SIM deactivated my VZW one, and my minutes and data transferred automatically to the new SIM. (The texts *didn't*, but that was resolved, after a few calls... by their customer service, and hopefully that detail won't be a snag for you.) Went to Settings>More Networks>Mobile Networks>Access Point Names, and (with the non-Verizon SIM activated and in the phone) added a new APN by clicking "+". If you don't have the AT&T SIM in there, your "+" will be greyed-out and unselectable. I used settings for the new APN that are in one of the responses to the above XDA forum thread (see page 2):
NAME: TRACFONE
APN: RESELLER
AUTH_TYPE: None
MMSC: http://mmsc.mobile.att.net
MMS PROXY: proxy.mobile.att.net
MMS PORT: 80
MMS_APN_TYPE: default,mms,supl

MVNO TYPE: GID
MVNO VALUE: deff

The only snag I've had is that MMS sometimes fails, (if the attachment is too big? Maybe the phone still uses Verizon-spec compression on photos, and the results may not fit AT&T limitations? ) But most often, all phone functions are working well.
Rebooting may be needed after the new APN is selected....

Hope my results can be duplicated. Good luck!

[OP edited to be nicer to Verizon since they are probably a forum sponsor. Thread title uneditable. There are dozens of eBay vendors selling thousands of new and used parts for this phone. Have a look. There are also Youtube videos showing how to install the parts, for those who can handle it.]

 

[Mooncatt]

Verizon has no interest in providing owners of S4s the software they need to use VoLTE, despite the phone having the necessary hardware.

All of the networks are shutting down 3G and earlier networks soon. Even if the phone has capable hardware for VoLTE, it was released 7 years ago. No company or carrier it's going to provide any support and updates for a phone that old. Even though you have it working for now, don't expect it to last much longer for making calls.

You really need to look at upgrading to something newer for a long term solution.

 

[blackhawkhot]

Cool. You don't need support or upgrades but do need to connect. 6 years is nothing.
If you take care of their device and can get 10 years out of it, you should be able to.
I have a S4+ and it's a good phone... running on KitKat.

 

[CNSHHT]

You seem to agree with what you quoted. And yes, I'd agree with you that other carriers are marching to the same drummer, dropping support for older devices. AT&T will kill HSPA in 2 more years. That's 2 more years that I don't have to use the Sony Experia XZ2 Compact that I have sitting in mothballs, waiting for a way to get root. It's on Android 9, but do you think I want the update to 10? Nope. I have my own ideas about what I need and want. I like the GS4 better. I don't think I'm alone, or there wouldn't be replacement charging ports for the S4 on eBay for $5.

 

[Mooncatt]

You seem to agree with what you quoted. And yes, I'd agree with you that other carriers are marching to the same drummer, dropping support for older devices. AT&T will kill HSPA in 2 more years. That's 2 more years that I don't have to use the Sony Experia XZ2 Compact that I have sitting in mothballs, waiting for a way to get root. It's on Android 9, but do you think I want the update to 10? Nope. I have my own ideas about what I need and want. I like the GS4 better. I don't think I'm alone, or there wouldn't be replacement charging ports for the S4 on eBay for $5.

To each their own, but your initial post made it sound like this was some sort of Verizon only conspiracy. My point is that it isn't and its unreasonable to expect (or even want) them to provide support this far out, or that jumping carriers would be a good solution for most people. I doubt we even have any other S4 users here.

I also wouldn't consider an eBay listing at being indicative of demand. Someone that happened to find a random box of charging ports could list them for free, only paying a selling fee with each purchase. So it's no risk to put them up there and see what happens. They may sell one a year if they are lucky, and I highly doubt the parts are in active production.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I quit working for Verizon in 2016 and even then we were open to customers the CDMA network shuts down in 2020 and everything will be VoLTE. Forget the technical side of it, but when VoLTE launched not all 4G LTE phones were compatible due to antennas and supported frequencies, it was a hardware limitation.

Over a year ago they quit letting people activate older phones that didn't support VoLTE.

 

[CNSHHT]

Ok, I confess: I made an unsupported assertion that VZW could have updated the S4 to handle VoLTE. I wrongly assumed that a 4G/LTE phone would be capable. Looks like the S5 (supports VoLTE) has more LTE bands. I'm not a telecommuncations engineer, so I can only guess there's a hardware-dependency there. But even without hardware limitations, I understand that Verizon can and should make business decisions not to invest or maintain many (or any) resources where the return is too low. That's why I said they have no interest in it. I did not say it's an evil conspiracy. I also didn't say Verizon failed to warn that they were planning to shut down CDMA. I made the post hoping to help others who might want to keep using this particular phone, whether they just like the hardware, or can't afford to buy something newer.
The sub-forum is specifically for the SCH-I545. That's why I posted here. If your response is going to basically be "How dare you suggest that Verizon has motives in conflict with consumers, and by the way, no one cares about your stupid antique phone" then maybe instead you should use your influence as an "Ambassador" to get the sub-forum deleted. After all, anyone can shop eBay and see how wrong you are, and people interested in the sub-forum will probably also be interested in doing that.

 

[blackhawkhot]

Some S4 versions do support it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_LTE

 

[Mooncatt]

After all, anyone can shop eBay and see how wrong you are, and people interested in the sub-forum will probably also be interested in doing that.

Again, simply listing something on eBay is not indicative of consumer demand. I could create and list some random widget there, but that doesn't mean anyone is going to buy it.

As for the sub-forums issue, there are plans in the works to change up the forum software and streamline things. The specifics haven't been made available, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of these old and virtually dead sub-forums were consolidated into low listed "legacy" forums for a given manufacturer.

 

[cardboard60]

Yep


You got a dinasour phone.
And think its gonna work forever.

They are gonna kill 3G


And 5G towers are not up.

Don't think they are in a hurry, because they wanted to charge more for 5G.

And they are raking in money like no tomorrow.

It T-Mobile keeps putting up 5 g towers.

I might leave Verizon.

At&t service suxs where I live.