[AC Question]

I just bought a pair of Android based cellphones (JIAYU S3). They are primarily for emergency use at home and when traveling. Our house is in a rotten service area for pretty much any cell phone and our home phone is VOIP. I would like to load some software that maps signal strengths of all available services so I can choose a carrier. I have never owned a cellphone of any kind, nor used an Android interface. I do meet the suggestion that the site is for engineers, but when I was in the business we used signal fires and flags. And the fires were started with by quickly rubbing two boy scouts together.

I never want to go through an extended period of time again explaining to Comcast drones (on a neighbors phone) that my internet is out, I use the internet for VOIP, I have no alternative phine, and they will not make a service appointment without me giving them a phone number where I can be reached. I don't know if they simply place reams of paper and bags of peanuts and bananas in a jungle clearing and get their policies and practices eventually, or if they have some other equally effective process.

When I initially charged the phones and turned them on, I got what I assume is the mostly Android interface (I have been unable to find ANY documentation on this phone). The next time I powered them on, all I can access is a screen that says no sim no service (kind of like trying to go into a McDonald's without a shirt and shoes). I can turn on a flashlight option from a hardware switch - but nothing else. I have no idea what is happening, or how to get back to accessing the user interface. The interface is, i believe, a lightly modded Android. Currently 2 generations old, but supposedly getting 5 soon. There are betas. SO:

I want to be able to use a phone without a sim to map local coverage.

I need to know how to get the phones back to presenting a user interface.

Thoughts on why the phone behavior changed after the first turn on could be useful.

Software installation must be from a PC.

Help on any of these subjects appreciated.

The only thing I can imagine is that for some reason the phones talked to a Comcast WiFi server and somehow changed things. I do not have local WiFi enabled on my router or computer, but Comcast's Xfinity system (which sorta sucks in human interface terms) appears to have created a WiFi server in one of my set top cable boxes. I have no control over it. In what I believe is a coincidence, I also received an emailed invoice for Century Link service I have never ordered. From the content (and not opening the attachment) it has some real bogus details. And as an engineer I have serious doubts about "coincidences". I am wondering if something happened with the Comcast hot spot. Anyway - HELP, please