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Can LTE band be changed?

N

Nehemoth

Member
This is maybe an stupid question.

Someone knows if an smartphone can be modified in a way that can handle a different LTE band from the one the original carrier or vendor configured (or implemented).

Example explanation.
I live outside USA, my carriers has an LTE Network on the 1900mhz spectrum Band 2, CDMA/3G in the 800mhz spectrum.
In USA Sprint has the same but uses the band 25 (and others) for LTE.

Could I me (or my carrier for that matters) modify one of these smartphones and make it accept the band 2?

Regards
 
It would basically require a rewrite of the modem's firmware to activate the bands you want. And I think the firmware might be unchangeable once it's written to the first time. Basically the reason the iPhone 5 got support for AWS later in it's cycle once Apple activated it but older models couldn't get it turned even though the hardware was 100% the same.

So... I'm going to go with no.
 
Hummm interesting.

To me that information exist at hardware level, in the modem/soc, and can not be change; but yesterday at work were been having this discussion and the question arise.

Someone else?
 
your idea might work if the phone had a software RF system instead of a hardware RF system

receiving radio signals require the antenna, modem, power circuits powering those to support the frequency and each other.... unless your phone has some (unpowered) components like the Nexus 4's hidden LTE, they won't work


in the past few years, Qualcomm (and other modem manufacturers) had to create separate chips for each frequency band... (device manufacturer would have to choose which chips to use, maybe use multiple chips, go through more testing etc, make 2 devices for 2 networks etc )

but they're starting to merge into one chip (i.e. one global chip for all standards).. that's why you see devices that can support different LTE networks now
 
Last edited:
Excellent, excellent.

I don't know why there isn't more information online about it. You need to find pieces and connect the dots.
 
It depends on the hardware. Some recent devices have a lot more bands enabled in hardware than are exposed to the software, or bands that the software only allows for certain sorts of signal, etc. Tampering with the baseband software with mods like this (flashing) or this (QPST) is possible, but you'll have to do the legwork on your own particular device and band combo.

Note that all Sprint LTE devices before this spring came with an embedded fake-SIM that didn't let you use real cards.
 
s44 said:
Note that all Sprint LTE devices before this spring came with an embedded fake-SIM that didn't let you use real cards.
Click to expand...

I was aware of this and saw the HTC One without this limitation, so this is by device only or they change its policy?
 
paperwastage said:
your idea might work if the phone had a software RF system instead of a hardware RF system

receiving radio signals require the antenna, modem, power circuits powering those to support the frequency and each other.... unless your phone has some (unpowered) components like the Nexus 4's hidden LTE, they won't work


in the past few years, Qualcomm (and other modem manufacturers) had to create separate chips for each frequency band... (device manufacturer would have to choose which chips to use, maybe use multiple chips, go through more testing etc, make 2 devices for 2 networks etc )

but they're starting to merge into one chip (i.e. one global chip for all standards).. that's why you see devices that can support different LTE networks now
Click to expand...

Just throwing in my reply - which is that paperwastage has the answer.
 
Copypasta from the Play Store page in case you can't see it outside the US:
Network
2G/3G/4G LTE
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
CDMA: Band Class: 0/1/10
WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41
Click to expand...
All the Sprint CDMA bands plus every LTE band I've heard of.
 
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