[Q] No LTE option in Network settings?

Hi folks,

I've got an unlocked HTC One Max which I bought SIM free from Amazon UK. I'm using Three as my network provider in the UK and they've begun rolling out 4G to Glasgow where I live. One of my colleagues is also on Three with a Samsung Galaxy S4 and he started picking up a 4G signal this morning in the office whereas I'm still only seeing 3G. We had a poke around on our respective phones and in the Mobile Network Settings under Network Mode he's got more options than I do, including one for LTE. I've only got two options: WCDMA only and GSM/WCDMA auto. Without being able to select an LTE option in here I don't see how I'm ever going to pick up a 4G signal. Does anyone know why I'm seeing no LTE option in here and how I go about sorting that?

Okay, so I did a live chat with an HTC rep who confirmed that if there's not LTE option available in the settings then I've got the 3G only variant of the handset. I've no idea why HTC would even sell a 3G variant in the UK as it makes no sense at all, but I looked on Amazon and they only sell a single variant of the phone (which is definitely the one I bought) and curiously the listing for it doesn't clarify either way which network protocols it supports. I even tried Googling the product number (99HWN005-00) but I can't find any solid information about which version of the phone that represents. I'm hoping here that it's just a mistake and I should've been sent the proper 4G variant but it's impossible to say for sure when the Amazon listing gives no info at all about what they think they're actually selling. Either way I'll still be trying to get Amazon to take some amount of responsibility here because I think I made a fair assumption that I'd be buying the 'proper' version of the phone from them; especially as there's nothing on their site to tell me otherwise. I suppose it'll be down to how seriously Amazon take customer service as to how far I get with them. God damn it!

Grrrr. So I did another live chat with HTC to try and find out more about which models they sell in the UK. The Amazon listing has a model number and I was hoping HTC would tell me that's the model number for the LTE variant so I could go back to Amazon to say they'd mis-sold me the wrong version. This time though I got a different story; the HTC rep told me my handset is definitely LTE capable and what options you see for networking are tied to what the SIM card is capable of. His assertion was that Three had given me a 3G only SIM card and getting that sorted would fix it.

However, I swapped SIM card with my colleague who's getting a 4G signal from Three and it made no difference on my handset; I still only got the same 3G network options and, of course, only got a 3G signal. It also occurs to me that I checked with another colleague this morning who's got an HTC One but only on a 3G contract with O2 and he's already got the LTE network options (although he only ever gets a 3G signal of course).

So, yeah, this second call to HTC was a load of nonsense. Excellent. Back for a third time I go...

dottat said:

Perhaps the variant you purchased does not support the lte bands that your carrier is using. That's usually the difference between the variants....radio support.

Sent from my HTC6600LVW using Tapatalk

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Even if that was the case I would still need to see the option in the settings to turn on LTE; I don't even have that option so regardless what bands my carrier is using my phone wouldn't pick up a 4G signal of any kind.

I've basically somehow ended up with a 3G only variant of the phone which frankly they shouldn't even be selling because there's no point. I might ping HTC again with a more direct question but they don't seem to be able to tell me what I've got so it's more likely I'll just go back to Amazon and see what they have to say about it.

Also I did a quick check and Three are using the 800 MHz band which the 4G version of the HTC One definitely supports.

Okay, so, I sort of got it fixed but it's a really stupid situation. There's a key code to get into a hidden setting menu on Android (*#*#4636#*#*) which bypasses the normal options and allows you to force the network mode to any of the ones Android itself supports; so it's got all sorts of weird **** like EVDO and whatever in there. I went in there and forced on 'LTE only' mode and now I can pick up 4G if I stand in certain parts of the office. I've put it to 'GSM/WCDMA/LTE auto' and it should now go up to 4G whenever it gets a strong enough signal and work as it should. Why I've had to do that hack to get it working, and why the normal user level UI doesn't expose the LTE related options, is a ****ing mystery though. With KitKat rolling out that might might sort it but I shouldn't need an OS update to expose functionality the hardware's already capable of. It's really ****ing stupid all in and not doing HTC's rep any favours with me as I'll probably have to repeat the same stupid hack every time I reboot the phone.