A Way to Get Band 4 LTE back After 4.2.2 OTA

[googol]

There is a simple way (or not, depending on your previous experience with flashing images) to get back band 4 LTE functionality after accepting the 4.2.2 OTA update on the Nexus 4.

After the phone has finished updating, put the Nexus 4 in fastboot mode and flash the radio image from 4.2.1. This gives you the option back to enable LTE and I haven't encountered any problems yet.
Thanks to the guys at XDA ([REF] Nexus 4 Stock OTA URLs - xda-developers) the Nexus4 4.2.1 images are at Nexus 4 Firmware – occam | Random Phantasmagoria.

Once the N4 is in fastboot mode, only a couple of commands need to be run from terminal:

$ fastboot flash radio radio-----.img
$ fastboot reboot

 

[Ice Phrozen]

Any idea how this affects the battery life flashing the old radio back? A majority of people seem to have significantly improved battery life (including me).

 

[Nabeel R]

Hi googol, I am new to this. Would you consider telling me what is required to restore LTE after updating to 4.2.2? Is it both bootloader and rooting, and if so, what programs did you use? I currently have a stock n4 and with this LTE block it's time for me to finally do whatever mods are necessary to my device to restore LTE function. Thanks,
N

 

[anon(847090)]

Hi googol, I am new to this. Would you consider telling me what is required to restore LTE after updating to 4.2.2? Is it both bootloader and rooting, and if so, what programs did you use? I currently have a stock n4 and with this LTE block it's time for me to finally do whatever mods are necessary to my device to restore LTE function. Thanks,
N

you have to have a unlocked bootloader. then you have to have to get the radio file of 4.2.1 from factory image.
flash it using sdk. thats it done.

 

[Newwt]

Flash the 4.2.1 baseband or maybe one of the Roms might have it unlocked

 

[Nabeel R]

Hi, Thanks for the help. I downloaded the factory image for 4.2.1 (occam) but I am unable to find the radio image specifically. Is there a program that is required to find this?

 

[anon(847090)]

Hi, Thanks for the help. I downloaded the factory image for 4.2.1 (occam) but I am unable to find the radio image specifically. Is there a program that is required to find this?

extract the file using winrar or zip. one file would be [blah blah blah]radio[blah blah blah].img

 

[SSJChar]

i used the wug tool kit to root my phone, so i'm not sure how to go abouts flashing the old radio file. is it something i could do with the wugs tool kit?

 

[anon(847090)]

i used the wug tool kit to root my phone, so i'm not sure how to go abouts flashing the old radio file. is it something i could do with the wugs tool kit?

I don think so but if you have installed drivers from wug toolkit its just a few steps to flash the 4.2.1 radio.

 

[purloinedcow]

I also have a stock 4.2.2 and i'm new to manipulating things with my phone. So in order to do this, I need the boot loader unlocked. Does it have to be rooted? What tools are recommended to proceed?

 

[googol]

I also have a stock 4.2.2 and i'm new to manipulating things with my phone. So in order to do this, I need the boot loader unlocked. Does it have to be rooted? What tools are recommended to proceed?

The bootloader needs to be unlocked, but the device does not need to be rooted. The tools you require depends on which OS you are running because you may need to install some drivers.

 

[Joe V1]

can you give me a step by step. I couldn't get the command line to work to type in the fastboot flash cmd. without it I couldn't unlock the OEM

 

[cruzz563]

Hello, the stock link has a radio image of 1.32mb and the occam link has a radio image of 55mb, which one do I flash? Also, do I put the file in the emulated SD root folder? Not sure where the files goes exactly to flash it. Thanks

 

[gigabitex2]

Just a note here to let you all know that some ROMs won't work with the older radios (.27/.33) and I think there will be more to come. Paranoid is using the 4.2.2 radio and states that builds after march 2/13 won't work with older radios. Also, with this fix when your phone reboots you have to go into phone menu(*#*#4636#*#*) and reset LTE every time. There is a more "permanent" fix but it involves a factory reset (all data lost) and changing some lines in build prop.
I am hopefull that the developers of custom ROMs don't leave the LTE users out in the cold, only time will tell.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[ConTejas]

Or just flash one of these zips in your custom recovery of choice. No issues with .27 or .33 on the nightly aokp pub builds.

[REF] [RADIO] Mako modem collection - xda-developers

 

[andr0idralphie]

For those wondering about how to get into fastboot mode, Advisor/User 2defmouze has created a really good walkthrough about unlocking and rooting your Nexus 4 with specific notes on Windows/Mac/Linux implementation. For example the original commands posted;

$ fastboot flash radio radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.33.img
$ fastboot reboot

become

./fastboot flash radio radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.33.img
./fastboot reboot

on Mac and

sudo fastboot flash radio radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.33.img
sudo fastboot reboot

on Linux

By the way the flash worked flawlessly, but I only did it a few minutes ago. I wish there was a LTE/WCDMA option but I chose the next best thing; LTE/CDMA Auto. God willing T-Mobile flips on the magic LTE switch in NYC soon.

 

[andr0idralphie]

Update; data is fine, got a crash with the process com.android.phone after attempting a call and now calling with the phone appears dead. Headed to work, update tonight.

 

[digitalslacker]

Has anyone got LTE working on tmo. I'm in the dc Baltimore area and tried earlier but no luck. Not sure if I just don't have coverage here or it simply won't work with tmo LTE. I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect coverage even if it did

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[andr0idralphie]

Okay, flashed radio with radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.48.img from 4.2.2 (I believe that's the 4.2.2 Nexus 4 image, no?) occam-jdq39-factory-345dc199.tgz instead of radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.33.img I originally tried from occam-jop40d-factory-ca7602f0.tgz 4.2.1 image. I have stock 4.2.2

I tried calling my wife?no crash, call went through. Oddly enough the *#*#4636#*#* menu still allows me to select LTE options.

 

[digitalslacker]

Or just flash one of these zips in your custom recovery of choice. No issues with .27 or .33 on the nightly aokp pub builds.

[REF] [RADIO] Mako modem collection - xda-developers

Worked for me, sorta

Here are the steps I took to install.

1) Flash .27 or .33 (I did .33) in a custom recovery from ConTejas's link above. And be sure to grab the .48 one too in case you want to roll back (up?) to the latest one.
2) Settings > More > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names > T-Mobile US > APN > fast.t-mobile.com > Menu > Save
3) Go to the dialer > *#*#4636#*#* > Phone Information > Set Preferred Network Type > LTE/GSM auto (PRL) > hit the back button until you are back the home screen
(Don't select LTE only or you won't be able to make calls or get text messages)
4) If you have TMO 4G in your area you'll see your signal drop and pick back up with a 4G indicator. Turn off Wifi if you can't see the indicator.

When you reboot, you gotta set the preferred network back up, the APN setting will stick though. I heard some place that you can make the network type stick with a build.prop tweak but I haven't looked into that yet.

Now on to the "sorta" part.
My signal is horrible. I normally get full HSPA+ signal at home but I'm only getting a very weak LTE signal. I'm not sure if that's down to a less the complete roll out or if it's a product of the fact that the N4 isn't an LTE device.
Ping times are really good compared to HSPA+ and even better than VZW LTE with as low as 20ms. The speeds are really bad though. I got about 1.6/1.0Mbps when I usually do 18/4Mbps on HSPA+. That is probably due to the bad signal.

To be clear, I'm not complaining. This device wasn't made for LTE and from day one people have been saying that. I'm not sure how my experience compares to others though. For me this was a fun exercise but I'll be going back to the old radio in a few days.