Help me get LTE on my Nexus 4 running OS 4.2.2

[rupam95]

I want to get lte on my nexus 4 device through t-mobile but i hear that 4.2.2 has disabled the feature.

Can someone provide my what i have to do in a succinct manner, thank you.

* I know that i have to "flash" the current .48 radio with .33 but how do i do that?
*I have neither unlocked the bootloader nor rooted my nexus 4.

 

[digitalslacker]

Normally I wouldn't discourage someone from hacking up their phone if they want to...even for something small. That's what Nexus devices are for IMO.

However, before i get into the basic steps to do what you want to do let me just say that I have done this and the results are actually worse than with HSPA+.

Yes, technically it is possible to get TMO LTE on the device but from everything I have read the device lacks an amplifier and another piece of hardware to give you an optimal signal. They literally just used the same antenna as the optimus g because it was cheaper than building one that didn't have LTE but the excluded some of the supporting hardware. This hasn't been verified but my experience with the signal quality tends to back it up.

When you get it working, you'll have to re-enable it after every single reboot. It reverts back to the default settings

You'll have to jump through extra hoops if you want audio to work in calls. I haven't done that yet and probably won't

Yes, you need the .33 or .28 radios but the .44 radios have really good updates that improve much about the HSPA+ side of things, you'll give those up.

Even when you get this ALL working, there's very little coverage around. I'm in an official TMO LTE market (Baltimore, MD) and when I can get a good LTE signals my average speeds were only marginally better (18/3 HSPA+ vs 21/6 LTE) on LTE. granted the ping times were vastly improved.

Even if LTE gets enabled as some far fetching rumors suggest, as of right now no work has been done to optimize the LTE on the device.

And on top of that...technically operating a device on a frequency it's no approved for isn't legal but shhhhh.

So, if you still want to here are the general steps but you still have some homework to do. It's not simple

unlock the device (you technically don't need to root but you might as well if you are going to do other stuff later)
flash a custom recovery
make a backup <---that's important
download BOTH radios to your phone (.33 and the latest so you can go back)
flash the old radio
update your apn to fast.tmobile.com
Go to the dialpad/phone.
Dial in the this number: *#*#4636#*#* (This will bring up "Phone info").
Tap WCDMA from under "Set preferred network type".
Select "LTE/GSM/CDMA auto (PRL)".
The 4G LTE network should now be activated.
Fix the in call audio

you'll need these, in this order

http://forums.androidcentral.com/nexus-4-rooting-roms-hacks/224861-guide-nexus-4-unlock-root.html
How to Enable the Hidden 4G LTE Feature on Your Google Nexus 4 ? Smartphones
Fix for no in-call audio/T-Mobile US/4.2.2/.33 radio or lower - xda-developers

best of luck!

 

[Ice Phrozen]

1. Unlock bootloader & Root
2. Flash older radio (most people are using .27 or .33)
*Note: If you are using stock 4.2.2 and flashing an older radio, you will have absolutely NO audio during calls, you will need to fix this manually
3. Add TMobile LTE APN in Settings

APN: fast.t-mobile.com
MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
MCC: 310
MNC: 260
APN Protocol: IPv4/IPv6

4. Once this is set and selected, you'll be able to enable LTE thru the well-known *#*#4636#*#* method (LTE/GSM). As expected... once you reboot your phone, you're phone will revert back to HSPA only.
5. To fix the audio issues after flashing the old radios on 4.2.2: READ ME
6. To make these settings "stick": READ ME

Good luck and enjoy. It's well worth it.

 

[dsneedmd]

XDA has a 90 PAGE thread about LTE on T-Mobile. Go to their N4 forum. Above instructions are a summery of their advice.

 

[digitalslacker]

So I wanted to add to my previous post above. After writing it I got a bit curious if my experience was just because I did most of my testing in the early stages of the rollout and before the hacker scene really got a good working LTE solution.

So over the weekend I installed the latest CM 10.1 nightly because it's got native LTE and the fixes associated with it, assuming you are on baseband .33 and yeah it's way better now than it was. I was seeing 21/12 at home all weekend. The coverage is still spotty but that's obviously depends on your location.

So if you want to give it a shot CM seems to be the easiest way you can try it out quickly and then just do a restore if you don't have any LTE in your area.

I'm not a huge CM fan so I will probably eventually go back to stock and follow some of the steps above to get it working but for now it's pretty nice.

Good luck!

 

[Mellimel22]

So I wanted to add to my previous post above. After writing it I got a bit curious if my experience was just because I did most of my testing in the early stages of the rollout and before the hacker scene really got a good working LTE solution.

So over the weekend I installed the latest CM 10.1 nightly because it's got native LTE and the fixes associated with it, assuming you are on baseband .33 and yeah it's way better now than it was. I was seeing 21/12 at home all weekend. The coverage is still spotty but that's obviously depends on your location.

So if you want to give it a shot CM seems to be the easiest way you can try it out quickly and then just do a restore if you don't have any LTE in your area.

I'm not a huge CM fan so I will probably eventually go back to stock and follow some of the steps above to get it working but for now it's pretty nice.

Good luck!

I was just bout to tell you that cm10 has native lte settings lol.

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