yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
I dont get it what does the sim have to do with the operation of the radio constantly to different bands. Seems more to me like the tower selection algorithms are flawed to me and I doubt those algos are on a sim. Maybe chosing the sim from the other phone is forcing you onto the older lte network. Are you getting on any of the new bands?
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
The sim handles lte connection. Without the sim the phone will only connect to 3g and 1x.

Yes I'm connecting to all 3 bands wherever available. Before swapping out the sim card it would drop connection to 3g and even when on 3g it would lose connection to no signal and connect back to 3g.

There would be times it would connect to b41 but if it goes idle for a few seconds the connection will drop to 3g. This has been my experience with 3 note 4s that I received from amazon. Each after replacing the sim card will fix the connection issue.

I may have gotten a bad batch of sim cards..who knows but the areas I frequent with my nexus 5 all had strong b41 signals in the NYC market. So I know it's not my area that's the problem.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Solarenemy68:
I took my N4 to a Sprint service center yesterday. The ran a speed test and it got 15 up and own. Of course we know they have a booster on site so all phones work great in the store. I showed them the speed records of nothing over 2 for the last week regardless of location and they then took the phone back to one of the techs. not realizing I was paying attention the rep handed the phone through the window to the tech but never actually let go of it. Came back about three minutes later and said yeah the tech says the phone is fine. So then he goes to a terminal and asks for my ZIP. I give it and he types it in does a few mouse clicks and a few facial expressions like he is discovering the issue. Then tells me they are converting the towers in my area from 3G to 4G and I should see my speeds come up in six months. Yep six months.

So I said ok that covers you for my area at home in North Dallas but what about where I work in Southlake? Of they are doing the same there as well.

So I got brushed of by Sprint and still have a slow phone. Asked for an old SIM and they said due to security all unused SIMS are destroyed.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
I believe there's a international chat or something that you can request a sim from...when the nexus 5 came out that was how people were able to obtain Sims from. Just need to tell them you need a sim card for a Google purchased nexus 5
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] pcmanager:
I had some hope and tried the Sim card trick. My S4 had 4G_LTE almost every location I used it in for over a year, and once on lte it never dropped to 3G... Data speed was 5 to 10 MEG. My note 4 for the last 30 days is probably 75% on 3G, 1/4 to 1 Meg download and almost nonexistent upload speed. When it sometimes does connect to 4G it will soon drop to 3G. Funny thing my daughter also has the note 4, and when she comes to my house she will be on 4G the whole time. While mine goes from 4 to mostly 3G.

I powered off both phones and put my s4 Sim into the note 4. Powered it on and the 3g icon kept spinning. Finally a self service app came on and said to call Sprint to be able to use data, (I'm assuming), there was an option to reset cell data and I clicked that. The phone then did a self activation, updated prl and profile while it rebooted a couple times.

Old s4 sim always getting strong 4G lte in my S4 was now providing strong 3G only in my new note 4.

OK, power off and switch the Sims back to there original phone. Now I am back to occasionally seeing 4 G, as before now I am usually on slow 3G.

I will now call Sprint and exchange the phone if necessary. I have unlimited data too. I can't wait to access it on this phone.

Excuse portions of this that seem to be rant... They are [emoji12]
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
Did u activate the S4 sim on your note 4 from your account at sprint.com? Because my sim was from my S4 too
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] pcmanager:
No I did not activate the S4 Sim on Sprint. Com. A message came up when the phone booted saying call sprint star 2. I selected reset cell data and the phone seemed to be doing a hands free activation, when the phone rebooted it seems like it wanted to go through the same hoops again so maybe the sim was never properly activated like you're stating. I might try that later its just getting to be a pain in the ass trying to make a phone operate the way it should out of the box.

Did you activate your S 4 sim on sprint.com?
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
Yeah. After I popped in my S4 sim to my Note4, I went to sprint.com and activated the sim. it was fast and easy. Just write down the numbers on the S4 sim before putting it in your note4.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] hammerchucker:
I called Sprint custoner service due to LTE issues and eventually (on one phone call) was directed to the local store. There, they checked the phone, put a new SIM card in, and they guy actually showed me the LTE progress of the towers where I frequented service.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] pcmanager:
Did swapping the Sim correct any or all of the lte issues you were having? Can you tell us what issues if any it did fix? Thanks
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
I got Sprint to send me a Sim card. Where on sprint.com do I go to activate the Sim card?
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] hammerchucker:
Quick answer, it didn't fix anything as my phone is apparently fine (as I suspected). I follow s4gru.com for Sprint LTE and Spark roll out for my particular location. Recently, Sprint had updated their official map to show my area with LTE as well as Spark. In a senior post on s4gru it was suggest that, with the map now showing such service, we contact Sprint and follow the process if we don't get the service the map is indicated. So, after switch from the Note 2 to the Note 4, LTE is spotty at work now when before it was consistent and at home when it used to default LTE it now likes to choose 3g and then a PRL update gets it to switch over to the LTE.

I really wonder if the Sprint Note 4 doesn't need an update, for the reasons above and, it strange that the Band 41 towers usually show only 1 bar but 30 M/bit+ speed and with the Note 4 the slower LTE (I think band 21) doesn't seem to default on the tower's it used to on the Note 2.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Cloaker:
Band 41 is 2500 mhz.

Band 25 is 1900.

Band 26 is 800.

Band 41 will almost always be faster because they are running larger channels, plus a higher frequency.

Band 25 is the middle child.

Band 26 will give you slower speeds and longer ranges, with better building penetration.

Signal Check is a good app that most of s4gru uses to see signal strength and band.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
Log into your sprint account and to the right of your number you will see a drop down box. Click on it and u will see activate new sim.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] jhill110:
Or talk to the international department through regular sprint cs... They are the experts at all things sim..
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Real_JESRadio:
Personally i think it is Android 4.4.4 and the towers. My Note 3 was horrible on last update NH7 which is 4.4.4. I rolled it back via Odin to 4.4.2 and a lot of my problems vanished. Of course our Note 4 comes with 4.4.4 so we will have to wait and see what 5.0 brings. Hopefully a fix.

---------- Post added at 08:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 PM ----------

And i dont think its Android but Sprint's update thats messed up.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] 2kmy477:
Does a non-spark sim will work on our Note 4 or I have to find a Spark compatible sim?
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
The sim card doesn't dictate if the device will be spark enabled. You can use a sim from a non spark device on a spark device.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] 2kmy477:
Thank you.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
OK so I finally got my new sim card from Sprint.

With the new card I can actually get lte in my house where as before it would just stick to 3g.

I want to do some lore testing to see if this really is the fix. I will post back in a few days.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] thearch1tect:
That's promising, looking forward to your results

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Sent from Sprint Note 4
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] kwazytazz:
See! I told ya!!
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
Well results are not looking so good. When I first activated and used the sim card I was on 4g... Then the device did an automatic profile and prl update. I'm not sure if it's due to the profile and prl update (no prl was changed) but my device now sticks to 3g at home. While my Note 3 is in 4g band 25.

I use the LTE discovery app to do the cycle radio once on both devices and the Note 3 will connect to lte band 25 and the Note 4 on 3g.

Also both devices are on prl 55021 so I don't think it's the prl. At this point it has to be the device or device and network combo.

I'll wait a little longer and see.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] thearch1tect:
Have you tried changing the band priority to see if that helps it from dropping to 3g?

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Sent from Sprint Note 4
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
I have. I've got band 25 as priority 1. I'll try different combos.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] billman99999:
I'm pretty sure there will be a radio fix coming shortly.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] thearch1tect:
Try changing it to 41-26-25

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Sent from Sprint Note 4
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Cloaker:
It should be 41, 25, 26.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
I've got it set to 41 26 25 now. Still the same. Switches from 4g to 3g.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 PM ----------

I really hope so. I wonder if the other carriers note 4 have the same issue.

---------- Post added at 01:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 PM ----------

I tried that too.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] RayTrue04:
We're having the same issue with the Edge. It wouldn't even activate at the sprint store when I first bought it till he did it through WiFi. I kept removing Sim card and doing the hands free activation. It later stopped dropping signal on its own like if the radio or sim settled in. Others had a similar experience too where there's stopped glitching on its own but others are still having the issue.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] jreuschl:
It is irritating too that while they try to be helpful, customer service on Sprint's forums will make generic answers and not realize there could be an issue and pass it along so Samsung knows about it.

Technically other N4s have had 2 updates so far so I hope one is coming for us soon.

---------- Post added at 07:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 PM ----------

I would hope so. I haven't had as many issues as others but there are definitely weird things going on sometimes.

Plus if I am on WiFi and turn it off, signal strength shows 0 for the Sprint network until I reboot.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] jhill110:
Ok... Here's my story.

A little background... I live just north of Santa Barbara where we only have 3g...very poor 3g.

For the last 2 years I've been *****ing about my unlimited data plan. I was paying over $80 a month. Well my airave started screwing up. I call cs and complain about my inability to text while my airave is on. Complained about my crappy service and it's cost. Well, they adjusted my plan to $40 a month for 600 megs and unlimited talk & text with no new contract. I was happy as I don't use data outside of my house.

CS sends me to airave tek support. While he is setting me up for a new unit he tells me they are upgrading the towers here for both 3g & 4G and should be finished in 3 months (ya right) . It's why I need a new airave (ya right) . Well, Turkey morning I'm looking at my phone and it sez LTE... WHUT??? just for a few seconds... Went into more networks and it was set 2 lte/cdma. I changed it, forgot about it. Late turkey night it happened again. This time it sez lte and has a funny little star spinning??? Holy blank... It can't be. I run down to the corner and sure enough it stuck. I run a speed test and it's over 5 megs. SOB! a few weeks after I dump my unlimited plan, buy a GN4 I've all of a sudden got SPARK! blank me... I guess in the weeks to come the speeds will increase as sprint gets its act together and it doesn't do a blank thing for me... A 10 year sprint veteran.

So, for the next 2 years I have a cheap but crappy plan (now 1 gig UL t&t at $45) that's useless in a spark area.

I am truly dropping to 3g... I think I'm turning Japanese... :rolleyes:
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Barkleyfan:
Imo switch to an unlimited plan. I went through almost 8 gig last month. No movies. Play music was a huge chunk of it.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
This is disappointing. Two family members got the Galaxy S5. Both S5 can connect to lte in my house without issue... My Note 4 can't or it connects and disconnects.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] bjl95mustang:
I didn't believe it. But I swapped the Sim from my old phone and lte works a lot better now
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Solarenemy68:
No offense but since you mentioned it I am just bringing it up. This SIM swap is good, but what about a customer like me who came from AT&T to Sprint with no old SIM card? What am I supposed to do? My local store won't give me an old card they claim they destroy them. They want to charge me for a new one. Hell I have been back and fourth with them for nearly 4 days trying to get them to swap the N4 for an HTC One M8. They want me to go through Insurance. Insurance tells me they don't cover technical issues and then Sprint tells me I can just pay the phone off and then swap. No duh! that's the way the plan works, However I am not going to pay a phone off that their Tech and IT service have both confirmed has to have a problem because if it was network then there should be some ares I could get data speeds and there are none from the west side to the east side of greater DFW.

So I will be back on the phone again tomorrow for an hour again.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] thearch1tect:
What kind of data speeds are you getting? I live grand prairie and drive around for work to south east Dallas and down into Kaufman. In the Dfw area I usually get 4-7mb .. Some parts of south Dallas I do get b41 and get 40-50mbs. I think north Dallas has stronger LTE but I don't frequent there often enough to get a good idea on that.

Also I know ppl have had success getting a Sim card from the online international chat during the nexus 5 release.

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Sent from Sprint Note 4
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] photoshopgeek:
Try the fix I found toward the end of this thread. It has been keeping me on lte for the most part. I live in Fort Worth and have been having the same problems. Might try it and see if it works for you.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2920918
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Solarenemy68:
I live in Dallas near the Frankford Kelly area and I am lucky if I can break 1Mbs. Sometimes my upload is .01 so yeah there is an issue with the phone.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] DarkManX4lf:
My Note 4 has connected to the LTE network more often than before but as of today it just stopped. It is raining here in nyc... But I don't think that is the issue.

I've tried profile and prl updates. None of that worked. I'm stuck on evdo Rev a instead of ehrpd.... And no lte.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] llawen:
Ive had connection issues with my note 4 also. Ive been round and round with sprint. Ive heard every response possible including "sucks to be you". Finally got a representative to order me a new sim card. Popped it in, no go. Called cs again, after 2 hours I was told the sim is not compatible. Said to order one from sprint world wide. Here is the kicker of this whole note 4 mess. I LIVE 3 BLOCKS FROM A 4G TOWER. 3 BLOCKS. In 5he living room I have 1 tiny bar, when I go to the bedroom I get 4 bars and better speeds.

I will keep everyone posted if new sim helps.

Sprint worldwide 888-226-7212
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] tx_dbs_tx:
Yup. this one bar crap is for the birds! I also can only get a decent data connection in only one room in my house. Samsung devices tend to struggle to pull in a decent signal compared to motorala, HTC and other devices. This is what I've noticed over the past couple of years. This was one of the issues I felt would also be present on the Note 4 coming from the Note 2 (which had trouble pulling a good signal but still was better than this note 4) and I was right. I'm hopeful Samsung can tweak the modem/settings and fix this in an OTA soon because it's ridiculous getting just one teeny tiny little spec of a bar in most places where's there's known good coverage. Otherwise it seems to work ok for the most part even with the one bar.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] llawen:
My son got note 4 on verizon. I set both phones on table side by side, opened speed test. Start both at same time. His smoked mine. But, on the bright side, I have unlimited. Ive already used 28 gigs and still 10 days till billing cycle ends.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] masterzoul:
Same issue here. I got my note 4 since 1 month ago. But I had made very close comparison btween my SG S5 and my new note 4. The s5 could reach -85dbm while my Note 4 still fluctuated around -100dbm!! Several times my N4 signal (bar) kept declining until 0, even sometims I failed to make a call.

FYI, i have brought my N4 to samsung service centre, they changed the mother board n rework kit. But the problem remained the same. I just emailled the CS and asked for money back or compensation or whatever it is..
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] billman99999:
After receiving the firmware update last week that sprint claims was only for the VR headset I now have constant LTE/spark everywhere. I reset cellular data via the activate phone setting afterwards. FYI I live in San Antonio, Texas which is a major location for Sprints Spark LTE
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
NP2 update hasn't help me in Dallas, TX at all. My phone still constantly switches between all 3 bands and drops to 3G all the time while the phone sits stationary on my desk at work. I have multiple towers within 500 meters of where I sit. I actually think it doesn't know what to do with all the tower choices so it just keeps on switching. Sad thing is I've got an LTE Band 41 tower really close and I get great performance on it 25 - 30 mbps down but I just can stay connected to it. Really sucks because I can see the tower. I use LTE Discovery and just reset my LTE everytime it drops to 3G to get me reconnected.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] pbedard:
I. Removed my sim rebooted and put it back no issues since
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Solarenemy68:
I have been back and fourth with Sprint and was eventually transferred to their IT department where I got some interesting information. Unfortunatly the discussion was not logged into my account so they are ignoring it now.

But the IT rep told me the at least for my phone it is not always reporting it's self as an LTE/Spark device to the servers according to the server logs. Because of this the servers are not sending the correct connection data out to it and the towers. She said in this case the system will always default the phone and the tower to 3G. So there is some issue with my phone where it is not identifying it's capability to the the network correctly and I can watch after a fresh boot and it gets the updated PRL. it will start with Spark for about a minute. Then drop to LTE only for a minute. The to 3G where it stays and is horribly slow with less that 1Mbps most of the time. In fact the refurb they sent me has actually had no service of any kind on two occasions. good thing I did not need to call 911.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
Maybe you should try contacting IT again and continue to followup with them maybe you can get a real resolution out of them at some point. I contend we are all dealing with the same thing. Mine does exactly what you are talking about. Or did until I applied a suggestion that was made by photoshopgeek. Now I have pretty good connections, but I think this is a work around to what ever the real solution is.

Here's the suggestion that has worked for me thus far:

Use Root Explorer and go to data/property folder. I didn't see this file in the folder to edit, so I created it. (I had to create it to)

Create or edit a file called persist.radio.lteon

Edit the file and enter "true". No quotes.

Reboot
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] Solarenemy68:
I would like to this, but you have to root to do so. I am a bit bothered by rooting because at this point I am trying to get them to swap me over to a Note 3 or HTC One.

I called them today and spoke with a tech. Told the the story IT told me and asked if I could speak with IT again so I could get them to notate to my account what they found. I was told by the tech that in her 5 years of working there she has never heard of an IT department nor had any ideal where they might be. After getting disconnected three times while on hold for 45 minutes of and one I gave up for today. Maybe try again tomorrow or Monday. Maybe I can get a tech that actually knows what they are doing again.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
Sometimes you have to call multiple times and when you detect that you've gotten a idiot for a tech support rep you hangup and try again. Then once you've gotten a good one don't hangup until youve gotten the type of response you're looking for. How long have you had your phone? If you're within grace period take it back to a sprint store. Im keeping mine cant beat this hardware. If sprint cant get stock functioning properly eventually a ROM developer will. I am stocked rooted right now and with a few tweaks Im working fairly good. I will say though that tmobile att and verizons versions of note 4 function better than ours. Theres other developers in my department at work that have one and all of their phones function better than mine in a number of categories.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] jimmbomb:
so.. should the file read... "persist.radio.lteon.true" ... with a .dot between lteon and true??

Can you show us what the file should look like when complete??

And what will this accomplish??

thanks..
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
File name is persist.radio.lteon most likely you will need to create the file. The file will have 4 characters in it, those 4 characters are true with no quotes. I believe the intent of this property is to persist any lte connect thats made. It seems to so that for me anyway. I dont experience the drops to 3G nearly at all anymore. I wont say its perfect but its night and day better than what I was experiencing before.
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] jimmbomb:
ok.. I can create a file called persist.radio.lteon ...

but I dont understand this part....----->>The file will have 4 characters in it, those 4 characters are true with no quotes.<<-----------

ps.. I created persist.radio.lteon and it went right in..

then re-booted and then all I had was 3G.. hahahh

another re-boot...

No more LTE...

So I deleted the new persist file and my LTE icon came bacl albiet a weak 1 bar, but still.. no 3G this time
[Sprint  Galaxy Note 4 General] dmisselh:
Put the word true in the file and then save it. After you're done reboot the phone.