LG Nexus 5X + Vodafone + 4G -help please

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MichaelNZ

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#207299 18-Dec-2016 10:32

I live in a rural area but am readily able to get 3.5 and 4G on both my Samsung J5 and Samsung Tab S2.

I have just bought a LG Nexus 5X and even wandering around outside I am unable to get a 4G signal icon on the status bar and "LTE" displayed in Network Signal Info Pro https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet2

The model code is H791 and according to the online specs and on the box this supports 4G on 700.

Any advice / help please?

WFH Linux Systems and Networks Engineer in the Internet industry | Specialising in Mikrotik | APNIC member | Open to job offers

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#1691675 18-Dec-2016 10:44

What APN have you got set on the handset and what plan are you on?

For 4G access APN has to be ' vodafone ' not the older ' www.vodafone.net.nz '

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Edit: 4G 700 needs to be band 28 not the US band plan 700

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tripp

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#1691676 18-Dec-2016 10:45

If i remember correctly, the nexus 5x only covers a small part of the 700 4g range, it covers sparks 4g but not vodafones 4g

tripp

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#1691677 18-Dec-2016 10:46

Info here from NikT

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=180842&page_no=17

Only supports 1/2 the 4g 700 band which is not in the range of vodafone or 2degrees. You will still get 4g on band 3 etc when you're in the city

MichaelNZ

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#1691678 18-Dec-2016 10:49

Edit: 4G 700 needs to be band 28 not the US band plan 700

According to this-

https://www.frequencycheck.com/models/A3a6v/google-nexus-5x-lg-h791

This handset supports band 28.

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Linux

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#1691679 18-Dec-2016 10:51

Are you on Prepay or Postpay ?

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tripp

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#1691680 18-Dec-2016 10:52

MichaelNZ:

Edit: 4G 700 needs to be band 28 not the US band plan 700

According to this-

https://www.frequencycheck.com/models/A3a6v/google-nexus-5x-lg-h791

This handset supports band 28.

Yes but only 1/2 band 28.

I'll try and find more info about it but I trust @NikT as he use to work for vodafone etc and knows his stuff about phones

MichaelNZ

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#1691681 18-Dec-2016 10:57

tripp:

Yes but only 1/2 band 28.

I'll try and find more info about it but I trust @NikT as he use to work for vodafone etc and knows his stuff about phones

Thanks... But damn. What a spanner in the works.

In this case the phone is going back to Noel Leeming. It's useless to me.

Linux: Are you on Prepay or Postpay ?

Linux

On account. There is definitely no issue with 4G on the plan. It works in my other devices (Samsung J5 and Samsung Tab S2)

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tripp

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#1691683 18-Dec-2016 11:00

MichaelNZ:

tripp:

Yes but only 1/2 band 28.

I'll try and find more info about it but I trust @NikT as he use to work for vodafone etc and knows his stuff about phones

Thanks... But damn. What a spanner in the works.

In this case the phone is going back to Noel Leeming. It's useless to me.

Linux: Are you on Prepay or Postpay ?

Linux

On account. There is definitely no issue with 4G on the plan. It works in my other devices (Samsung J5 and Samsung Tab S2)

Yes I am trying to find more info on it but only things coming up is geekzone stuff.

tripp

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#1691685 18-Dec-2016 11:02

Maybe send a message to @NikT on here to confirm.

He knows more than I do about the nexus 5x.

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#1691687 18-Dec-2016 11:03

@Nikt I am sure he could add some value

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MichaelNZ

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#1691688 18-Dec-2016 11:07

tripp:

Maybe send a message to @NikT on here to confirm.

He knows more than I do about the nexus 5x.

Linux: @NikT I am sure he could add some value

Linux

He appears to have messaging disabled.

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NikT

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#1691697 18-Dec-2016 11:59

Ahh funny - and unfortunate - it actually happened in the wild.

Yep, Nexus 5x only supports Spark's half of Band 28, and it apparently wasn't documented publicly. Same deal with the Lumia 830. Only found out because I was in the Voda devices team at the time Google came knocking to pitch us last year's Nexus range, they told us 5x didn't support the Voda half of band 28 so it was immediately off the table.

I've only seen one vendor acknowledge that Band 28 even has two halves - the ZTE Axon 7 product page lists support for FDD LTE Band 28AB. Digging much further gets a bit inside baseball in telcoland and is really the domain of the respective networks' engineers + deployment management (Awesome folks with a fascinating job - they attend a lot of local council meetings and the like). It shouldn't be something folks on the street ever have to worry about, but here it is.

From memory, it's the lower duplex half of band 28 that the 5x supports/Spark holds spectrum for. There's some fun ("fun") further reading out there in documents like this Alcatel-Lucent/Nokia Networks discussion paper.

In retrospect I do wish I'd asked Google whether they planned to make mention of the limitation on the packaging to avoid headaches for Voda customers down the line.

Should not, thankfully, be a problem going forward with newer devices. Good luck with the return.

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tripp

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#1691699 18-Dec-2016 12:02

NikT:

Ahh funny - and unfortunate - it actually happened in the wild.

Yep, Nexus 5x only supports Spark's half of Band 28, and it apparently wasn't documented publicly. Same deal with the Lumia 830. Only found out because I was in the Voda devices team at the time Google came knocking to pitch us last year's Nexus range, they told us 5x didn't support the Voda half of band 28 so it was immediately off the table.

I've only seen one vendor acknowledge that Band 28 even has two halves - the ZTE Axon 7 product page lists support for FDD LTE Band 28AB. Digging much further gets a bit inside baseball in telcoland and is really the domain of the respective networks' engineers + deployment management (Awesome folks with a fascinating job - they attend a lot of local council meetings and the like). It shouldn't be something folks on the street ever have to worry about, but here it is.

From memory, it's the lower duplex half of band 28 that the 5x supports/Spark holds spectrum for. There's some fun ("fun") further reading out there in documents like this Alcatel-Lucent/Nokia Networks discussion paper.

In retrospect I do wish I'd asked Google whether they planned to make mention of the limitation on the packaging to avoid headaches for Voda customers down the line.

Should not, thankfully, be a problem going forward with newer devices. Good luck with the return.

Thanks Nik :)

MichaelNZ

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#1691949 18-Dec-2016 22:20

An update:

I took the phone to Palmerston North Noel Leeming this afternoon. They accepted the return but tried to force me to take gift vouchers, which I didn't want to accept.

I pressed the point and they eventually agreed to a refund but they clearly didn't want to do that. Furthermore, I would have to wait for the refund to be processed and the sales lady did not want to give me a receipt acknowledging they had received the phone back in good order.

I will contact my bank tomorrow to inform them of the matter but I hope it doesn't come to a chargeback.

Given how risky it apparently is buying from Noel Leeming I will try Harvey Norman in preference next time.

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allio

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#1692062 19-Dec-2016 09:45

I saw the thread title and instantly knew what the issue was going to be. First time I've seen it actually crop up for real. This was the reason I didn't get a 5X. Absolutely asinine, consumer-unfriendly behaviour - you had to dig deep into a geek forum to learn that your phone's band 28 "support" was actually nothing of the sort.

I actually had a remarkably pleasant experience last time I returned something to Noel Leeming. It was a router with a very intermittent fault - I was expecting to have a nightmare of a time getting them to accept it and had even taken a video on my phone showing the issue. However the salesperson simply accepted it with no explanation required and immediately refunded the full price on to my credit card. The experience probably depends more on the particular branch/salesperson/manager than the name on the front of the store.

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