Unlocked phone and network speed

[vladio007]

I purchased a new Samsung phone along with two other phones for my family in December 2014, all these were purchased on a 2 year contract. At the time the Samsung was only offered in black, I prefer white but, as it wasn't offered, I just went with what I could get. A couple weeks ago I was browsing ebay and found a new "factory unlocked" phone like I always wanted...in white...so I bought it. Last week it came and I took the sim out of my original ATT phone and popped it in the new phone then powered it on. It booted up and showed 4G LTE. I ran a speed check and it was running around 30bps, the same as the original phone I bought from ATT . I found one problem, when I made a call the phone would drop out of LTE and go to just 4G but would not switch back to LTE unless I rebooted or cycled through airplane mode. I took it to ATT and they said they needed to give me a new sim for the new phone which would fix the problem. It didn't! Now the new phone would not go to LTE at all. If I swapped the sim to the old ATT phone it wouldn't get LTE either. It seems to me that ATT has limited the ability of the sim with unlocked phone's IMEI to use the LTE network due to it not being their phone. Just wondering if there's every been anything about this. I did a search and didn't see anything.

 

[vladio007]

I've done some research since realizing the problem isn't in the phone but with AT&T. As it is, AT&T limits some features of unlocked phones. I'm not sure the details but it seems as this goes against the parameters set up by the FCC on opening networks to unlocked phones. My AT&T phone's imei number was registered with ATT as their phone, I get all the features of the network including LTE. The new unlocked phone is the same phone - it uses the exact same bands and frequencies as the ATT phone only it doesn't connect to LTE. Because it's imei number isn't on ATT's list of phones they're selling or have sold their network is set not to allow LTE. This is not fair! These networks are to be open so the consumer can bring in an unlocked phone and use their network the same as if someone bought ATT equipment. I'd love to see a class-action suit against ATT because of this. I pay $300/month for my family's cell phones all but one I purchased from ATT. I should be able to bring in my own phone and get the same service as the old phone.

I can't post this link due to some rediculous policy but this is where I found the info. windowscentral.com/why-no-lte-att-lumia-950-xl