How to make a GSM Radio for Thunderbolt

charris said:

Hello

It sucks being an european and to have a 4g/cdma phone because in my country (Romania) you dont have a cdma network

So as we all know the Thunderbolt has the same chipset as the Rezound so in theory it should be able to transform into a Global Phone.

My question is why didn't anyone do that and how i can make one myself if a dev dosent bother.

I feel it in my guts that this will work but i need some guidelines, or someone with actual knowledge to help me.

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Thunderbolt doesn't have the hardware. Not possible.

Thunderbolt has a CDMA radio and an LTE radio. Global phones need a separate GSM radio to work in Europe. If it has an unlocked SIM, the Thunderbolt should work on any 700mhz band LTE network, but is incompatible with GSM on all levels.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

MDM 9600

Actually, the Thunderbolt has an MDM 9600 baseband chipset that supports Hspa and Hspa+ which is a technology that At&t and T-mobile uses for their data connections. So, I believe that if the LTE radio is backwards compatible with those frequencies of At&t or T-mobile that it might work. The thunderbolt has two antennas: one for strictly CDMA and the other for lte and backwards compatibility to gsm/hspa(+) from what I understand. From what I have read Verizon has just opted to not install the drivers to support the GSM/HSPA(+) side of things. That, and the MSM 8650 processor or other hardware in the Thunderbolt may not support it. Just because the modem supports GSM/HSPA(+) doesn't mean the phone will, but I do think that if someone really wanted to they could modify the thunderbolt to work on GSM. The may need more hardware, but I do not know.

I would post the link about the chipset I have, but sadly as a noob it will not let me.

P.S. Verizon allows you to log-in to your account and view the unlock code for the thunderbolts SIM yourself. You do not have to call them. I have not used another Carriers SIM in my Thunderbolt, but HAVE read about people who have in other threads. Verizon from what I understand and have read on other forums does not allow you to use USA SIM cards other than VERIZON'S own SIM. From what I have read, it only unlocks the phone to use foreign country SIMs only. From what I had read, once you use VERIZON'S SIM unlock procedures a NEW menu pops up in your network settings giving you the option to select to use GSM only. The same thread was speaking about the iphone 4s and the Thunderbolt and said that Verizon allows for both to be unlocked and used as World Phones. I will not know for sure until I see proof, but I do know that Verizon allows you to unlock the Thunderbolt's SIM to use on Foreign Networks.

The MDM9600 baseband definitely supports quad-band GSM. However, the RF transceiver in the Thunderbolt may or may not, and the power amplifiers definitely do not. You need all three in order for a mode & band to actually work on a device.

Not possible from a hardware point of view.