[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] griz.droidx:
Question about Selectel Flash. Selectel Sims etc. I apologize up front if this is the wrong section for this thread. I posted as a reply in the General Section Thread about MVNO's but I believe that thread is dead or closed. If this breaks any rules of XDA please let me know and delete this thread. If is is forbidden I apologize up front. And I know this is a TLDR post, but please if you know anything about these matters, please read this post if you might be able to help. And if you just need some info about someone's experience trying to get cheap android phone service keep reading. Maybe you'll learn something from me.

I let a local selectel "dealer" flash my phone to Selectel a while back in Jan sometime. About a month or so later he had to re-flash the phone. Because I couldn't make calls at all. He said this was because the guy working for him did the flash incorrectly and so he fixed it. After reading up on Flashing a bit but still not knowing enough about it, I decided to start using a partition backup tool from the store to backup a slew of partitions including EFS, and all the Modem* partitions. I backed up a bunch of others as well, just not data, system, or cache. He left the VZW sim in.

Now since then, I've flashed a number of roms. And sometimes I'd have an issue where my number and other info in status would be gone. At this point I restore EFS, usually just this one partition and everything would be back to normal. Selectel Number and everything else would work. Now I'm having this issue again but my info is in there. This time, I can't make or receive calls or texts in my home "roaming on a regional tower" area. This always worked fine before. Now at home it says Voice out of service / Data in service. This is at home. When I drive 20 minutes up the road to some different but still not verizon towers I believe, I can make and receive calls just fine. Also in the guys shop using his extender, I can make and receive calls fine. He gave me a T-mobile sim, for what I don't know, but this didn't fix anything. Now he's expecting to receive his selectel SIMS and says that might fix my issue. If not I'll have to do another flash. I can't afford to pay for another flash, being laid off work and unemployed I can barely afford the 15 dollar plan for selectel.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else has came across this issue, and if so do I need to reflash? Is there a way I can fix it myself? I have downloaded a bunch of tools for windows mostly (I use linux mainly, but dual boot into windows for AutoCAD and other things that just don't work well in Linux). I've seen a ton of flashing tools online as well many of which seem to do the job automagically almost. Any suggestions? I was thinking PRL.. Of course, but after reading the first few posts of this thread, i saw the don't try to OTA program information. One guy at the store actually recommended doing that but I didn't. he said *22891 to update roaming which I think is the PRL.

Any Help will be appreciated as always. If anyone here can fix it remotely cheap, let me know. Also, he's blaming my Kitkat rom. I've used this KitKat and others in the past with no Issue at all. But for ****s and giggles, I restored a TW 4.3, the latest Alliance Rom, to no avail. it does the exact same thing. I can use the phone in town or near an extender but not anywhere that I might roam.

Thanks a bunch.

griz

Update since my original post:

I've talked to both selectel and the local selectel dealer, the dealer said his selectel sims are in but won't be ready for a few more days. I'm guessing but don't know for sure, that this could fix my isssues. I doubt it.

I restored a nandroid of a stock based rom (alliance), to try to update the PRL over the air a while back while I was in an area where I knew there would be Verizon towers. It wouldn't update because I didn't have a sim inserted. The dealer took my Verizon SIM and gave me a t-mo sim which didn't help anything at all. I stopped by there Sat 05-23-15 and he gave me a verizon sim to see if it would update using his network extender. I do know he does activation over the extender because I've been there when he's done this. He activated a dumb phone in this manner. I'm very frustrated at this because I need a permanent number to use for job contacts and my home based business doing freelance IT work. I'm not 100& sure the PRL is the issue but it seems that way because I can make calls and receive texts as soon as I get near a VZW tower or extender. At home however where there's only a regional carrier called Appalachian Wireless, it just roams, and says Voice out of service / Data in Service. And as soon as I get away from a Verizon Tower the phone will say this in About Phone / Status.

All my original data should be there because everything show's up correctly in About Phone, My IMEI, MEID, MIN, and Number are correct. He did have to flash the phone to get it to have 3g, so the MEID that shows up isn't for an S3. My IMEI is the one that came with the phone. I asked him and selectel about the legality of flashing the phone and having a donar MEID number or whatever and both said that's fine. They acted like it was completely legal, I'm not so sure. But again, both Selectel and the Dealer told me it was Okay to do that.

I've found some software on here that I can use to update my PRL with a downloaded one but I didn't know what SPC to put in for Selectel I know that with VZW it's all zeros's. Selectel customer service couldn't tell me this and told me to ask the dealer, I did and he said I could use all zero's as well.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions at all, and if you think that once I get a Selectel SIM if it will work. The local dealer told me after I asked, that it would contain all my information, like those numbers I mentioned before and that it could fix it, but of course he says I've messed it up by flashing my phone. The thing is. I have lost all my info after flashing a rom in the past. However, I use a partition tool to backup EFS and other partitions and when I restore the EFS, (from when it was working and roaming), everything worked fine. Also, I know that I've used the rom he questioned in the past with success. I've tried Nameless, Slimroms, Liquid, and a few Lollipop roms with success as long as I restore the aforementioned data when necessary. Doing nvrestore (I had already done nvbackup long ago), doesn't help,. in fact it wipes everything out and I have to manually restore the EFS partition.

I understand that the PRL isn't the answer to everything but it's the only thing I can think of that would affect roaming. I have read that you shouldn't do any kind of OTA activation using *22890 *228 and so on but that I can use *22891 according to both Selectel and the dealer. The dealer wants to reflash the phone for 35 dollars which I can't afford at the moment. I can barely scrape up the 15 dollars for the cheap selectel plan.

On antoher note: I tried using an X2 with tracfone which worked great but wouldn't roam either. Kinda like what i'm experiencing right now. After calling Tracfone, I was told that none of the BYOP Android phones would roam. And one of their reps said their android phones like the Moto E wouldn't roam on non vzw towers either, because before I had my sgs3 flashed to seletel, I was going to get a Moto E Tracfone from Ebay with 2000 minutes and a year of service for 89.99 when they first came out. I didn't want to spend the money on it if it wouldn't roam. Does anyone know if this is in fact true, I can't see tracfone selling android's that won't roam. But I suppose they do. I was then told when I got a partial refund from Tracfone that only their Dumb phones would roam on non-vzw towers but again, this doesn't make good business sense nor does it make asnse at all. I've found a decent Net10 android at a dollar store (Moto E) I believe, for 79 on sale, but again, if it won't roam then it's worthless to me. Any Experience with this? I've searched and searched the internet for information on this subject to no avail. Especially the "Voice out of Service / Data in Service" message in Status.

Again, if I'm not in the correct section please let me know. Finally, I'm very sorry I'm so long winded. but those that know me know I'm long winded in every post I put up here. Sorry about that. I know I know TLDR, but I hope someone reads this and knows a thing or two about this.

Thanks once more.

griz