[HOWTO] / [GUIDE] SPH-L720 Domestic SIM Unlock T-Mobile:AT&T:metroPCS:Straighttalk

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imbmiller

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
131
97
[HOWTO] / [GUIDE] SPH-L720 Domestic SIM Unlock T-Mobile:AT&T:metroPCS:Straighttalk

Streamlined Guide for Domestic T-Mobile GSM Unlock for SPH-L720

Credit for all of this goes to @autoprime and @nicotheandroidguy

A few notes: I used Windows 7 for the odin flashes , my phone is a SPH-L720 and it is not active on the Sprint network, also the sim card from t-mobile was inactive (brand new from t-mobile store.) and it has a bad esn. I am located in the Phoenix az market so I'm able to take advantage of the 1900mhz band that tmobile has here.

I'm unsure of how this will work with mnvos or other primary carriers and frankly I don't care at the moment, this is my primary phone. Update: confirmed hspa+ for tmobile, metroPCS, straight talk and AT&T.

I HAD MY NEW UNACTIVATED TMOBILE SIM CARD IN THIS ENTIRE TIME

1) First I reverted my rom to a stock MF9 rooted touchwiz rom, instructions and one click odin here:http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2486134 I’m trying not to straight copy and paste someone else’s work so take a look at that post if you need a clean start. If you are coming from non stock you will need to boot into stock recovery and wipe data/cache before you get started. (I also later used SAC’s rom after a failed attempt at an AOKP fix and it worked as well ) you can switch to any ROM later and the unlock will stick.

2)I rebooted the phone and followed the instructions listed here in post #1 http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2415587

3) I went to the dialer and typed *#0011# which brought me to the "service mode" Menu.

IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE GETTING THE HIDDEN MENU TO OPEN DO NOT FEAR! I had a ton of trouble at first. In some builds you need to activate an option by adding a line to your build.prop or changing the no flag in efs/hiddenmenu to ON. Google it, there is a ton of help out there.

4) Press the left menu softbutton (the menu button that lights up and vibrates when you touch it) then press the either the button “select” or “Key Input” and type the number 1 or 2 into the box, if nothing happens press menu and select the “back “ button then repeat. This app is sort of like a tin can radio, you can kind of tell that it’s working, but it doesn’t work well.

Depending on if you pressed 1 or 2 in the dialogue box it will take you into either an UMTS or CDMA menu. If you are in the umts menu, press the menu button and select back, this should then proceed to the next step.

5) Select CDMA, then 1.COMMON, press next page twice until you reach page three of COMMON and select 8.PREF MODE SET and select GSM_WCDMA_ONLY

6) Press menu and back until you are at the main menu and select [1]UMTS, then select [1]DEBUG SCREEN, then select [6]PHONE CONTROL, select [2]FAKE SECURITY CONTROL and make sure it is set to ON
7)Press menu and back and select [3] NAS CONTROL. We are going to check a few different settings in this menu so remember how to get here cause I don’t want to repeat myself.
[1] CIPHERING CONTROL = OFF
[2] INTEGRITY CONTROL =ON
[3] SIM CLASS CONTROL = UMTS
[4] REVISION CONTROL = DO NOT TOUCH
[5] RRC(HSPA) CONTROL = DO NOT TOUCH
[6] DUALMODE IMPROVEMENT CONTROL= DO NOT TOUCH
[7] NAS AVOID SECURITY CONTROL= OFF, 0
[8] BIP BLOCK = 1

8) Press menu and back twice, you should be on the PHONE CONTROL menu. Select [7] NETWORK CONTROL, select [1] GFC and make sure that it is set to [1]GSM/(E)GPRS/WCDMA REL8 .

9) Press menu and back and select [2] BAND SELECTION and select WCDMA/GSM ALL for both WCDMA and GSM band preferences. I selected the ALL choice for LTE as well even though I know it isn’t supported for TMOBILE.

10) Under the NETWORK CONTROL menu we just came from select [4] AQUISITION ORDER and change it to [3]UMTS_GSM

11) Press menu and back until you are in the PHONE CONTROL menu and select [5] SIMULATION , press the [2] SW WATCHDOG button 6(six) times and then the [3] HW WATCHDOG 6(six) times. Nothing will happen at all to let you know if you have done this correcctly but as soon as you finish the sixth press on HW WATCHDOG reboot the phone manually:manually:manually IMMEDIATELY . I’m not sure what this does or why this works but @nicotheandroidguy seems to have divined that this is the vital part of the process.

YOUR PHONE STILL WILL NOT HAVE DATA OR VOICE WHEN YOU REBOOT FROM THE WATCHDOG TAPS DO NOT PANIC!!!!!!!!!!! (hopefullly you have your towel with you)

12) WIFI that sonofa up and search for apn settings shortcut and build.prop editor in the Play Store.

Go into the build.prop editor and add the following two lines:

ril.sales_code=LOL
ro.csc.sales_code=LOL

REBOOT PHONE MANUALLY now.

Now Install and create a shortcut on the home screen and select to open. Press the menu soft key and select add apn.

Use:

Name: T-Mobile
APN: epc.tmobile.com or fast.t-mobile.com (for LTE devices)
Proxy:
Port:
Username:
Password:
Server:
MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
MMS proxy:
MMS port:
MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
MCC: 310
MNC: 260
Authentication type:
APN type: default,supl,admin,dun,mms

13) Go into your android settings, select wireless networks, you should see the network mode set as wcdma only do not change this, we set this in the Service Mode Menu , Check that your roaming settings are set to for roaming data/ international data etc.also make sure that there are no roaming guards left on. (roaming guards will only allow you to uncheck GSM and GSM data under international roaming.)

14) reboot
15) profit

At this point I had full access to the TMOBILE UMTS/HSPA+ network and voice/text/mms were working.

At this point you may change roms, be careful not to update past mf9 as you may be unable to downgrade to mdc. YOU MUST DOWNGRADE TO MDC MODEM FOR THIS TO WORK.
If you use a non touchwiz rom you can still access the tellinfo menu by pressing *#*#4636#*#* and selecting WCDMA only and manually adding the apn.

GOOD LUCK! let me know what needs changed in the guide as well.

If you have questions it's useful to know your Baseband /kernel/ rom.
 
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gibrannz

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2013
70
3
Nice. Will it work with t-mobile in Los Angeles?

Sent from my SPH-L720 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
 

the.joeba

Senior Member
Nov 10, 2009
84
23
Last edited:

imbmiller

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
131
97
Nice. Will it work with t-mobile in Los Angeles?

Sent from my SPH-L720 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

According to this :https://t-mobile.jive-mobile.com/#jive-document?content=/api/core/v2/documents/5736
Yes it will. Hspa+ only though.

Thank you for this thread, I will try again with these steps.

A few notes:



This should be *#0011# I believe



I had to go 9. NEXT PAGE > twice before doing 8.

Np Man, and good catch, fixed. I'll check out that step 8/9 and fix accordingly.
 
Last edited:
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the.joeba

Senior Member
Nov 10, 2009
84
23
Thank you so very much. I believe opening up the bands made the difference, but I'm now connected to T-Mobile.

You rock so much!
 

ka26

Member
Nov 18, 2013
6
1
got working for att post paid

Thanks to everyone here.
 

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staplestaples

Member
Nov 18, 2013
6
0
My 1st newbie post:

Thanks for OP's excellent post!:good:
I have a Sprint Galaxy S4 is with stock MF9 (not unlocked).

I have spent days reading about how to get a rooted/unlocked MJA S4. But still could not find answer to the questions:

1. Will this also unlock international sim?
I guess yes, as domestic is harder to unlock. But want to hear the confirmation.

2. You mentioned you used MF9 rooted.
If I unlock it, then update to MJA, will that void the unlock?

3. Does this unlock works with MJA? If it works, do I need to unlock MJA first?


4. If I want a rooted & unlocked S4 with stock MJA, what is the simplest way and the correct order to achieve this goal?
Can I update to MJA, then root, then unlock?
Or do I need to root the MF9, then unlock, then update to MJA, then root?
If I update to MJA first, I can't go back to MF9, correct?

Thank you very much!
staplestaples
 
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imbmiller

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
131
97
My 1st newbie post:

Thanks for OP's excellent post!:good:
I have a Sprint Galaxy S4 is with stock MF9 (not unlocked).
I have spent days reading about how to update to MJA and root/unlock it.
But still could not find answer to the questions:

1. Will this also unlock international sim?
I guess yes, as domestic is harder to unlock. But want to hear the confirmation.

2. You mentioned you used MF9 rooted.
If I unlock it, then update to MJA, will that void the unlock?

3. Does this unlock works with MJA? If it works, do I need to unlock MJA first?


4. If I want a rooted & unlocked S4 with stock MJA, what is the simplest way and the correct order to achieve this goal?
Can I update to MJA, then root, then unlock
Do I need to root the MF9, then unlock, then update to MJA, then root?

Thank you very much!
staplestaples

Ok

1)i am unsure of whether mja can be unlocked internationally or domestic . If you read the first direction it actually instructs you to downgrade to mdc modem. I'm pretty sure the reason has to do with the options available to you in the hidden menu.

2)i used mf9 rooted as a starting point to downgrade to mdc to perform the international unlock. Autoprime said in the thread that upgrading to mf9 would keep the u lock however I haven't successfully upgraded to mf9 and kept the domestic unlock. I'm going to try to get it to work today but not with mja until there is a reliable downgrade option.

3)i have no idea. I wouldn't suggest trying until there is a reliable downgrade option.

4)i would really slow down and read the international unlock guide from @autoprime I think it will answer a lot of your questions. Like I said I would wait to upgrade to mja if you want a for sure domestic Sim unlockunlock.
 

staplestaples

Member
Nov 18, 2013
6
0
Thank you very much, imbmiller.
I will just wait patiently for the MJA solutions before upgrading to MJA/root/unlock.
Ok

1)i am unsure of whether mja can be unlocked internationally or domestic . If you read the first direction it actually instructs you to downgrade to mdc modem. I'm pretty sure the reason has to do with the options available to you in the hidden menu.

2)i used mf9 rooted as a starting point to downgrade to mdc to perform the international unlock. Autoprime said in the thread that upgrading to mf9 would keep the u lock however I haven't successfully upgraded to mf9 and kept the domestic unlock. I'm going to try to get it to work today but not with mja until there is a reliable downgrade option.

3)i have no idea. I wouldn't suggest trying until there is a reliable downgrade option.

4)i would really slow down and read the international unlock guide from @autoprime I think it will answer a lot of your questions. Like I said I would wait to upgrade to mja if you want a for sure domestic Sim unlockunlock.
 

wildpig1234

Senior Member
May 31, 2008
254
9
So would this also work for AT&T sim? has anyone else tried? Btw, was thinking of updating to 4.3 and MJA but i guess i will have to hold off on that if i want sim unlock international or domestic? I am on MF9 with sim international unlock right now. Would I have to go down to MDC to get this to work?

Also, if you want to go back to sprint again, how would you do it?
 
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nicotheandroidguy

Senior Member
Dec 4, 2012
512
99
Los Angeles
So would this also work for AT&T sim? has anyone else tried? Btw, was thinking of updating to 4.3 and MJA but i guess i will have to hold off on that if i want sim unlock international or domestic? I am on MF9 with sim international unlock right now. Would I have to go down to MDC to get this to work?

Also, if you want to go back to sprint again, how would you do it?

You can use MF9, MDL and MDC for the domestic unlock.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
 

laoh

Member
Sep 15, 2013
40
4
Hi thanks so much for putting this together all in one place!
Hi I'm on MF9, rooted, locked.

So really the two major steps are:
1. Do int'l unlock first (autoprime)
2. Then do domestic unlock

My question - after you get both unlocks working and say you have your phone working on tmobile, what do you need to do to get it working on Sprint... rather, is the phone operatable on both Sprint and Tmobile? Or do you have to do some tinkering to get it back to working on Sprint again. I'd like to have the flexibility of popping SIMs in and out and switching carriers at will, Sprint included (b/c I don't want to cancel Sprint just yet...eventually, but not immediately). Thanks!

---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 AM ----------

Another question :)

When you're tinkering with swapping out modems and APN settings, does doing a nandroid backup prior help so when you have an "oh sh!t" moment, you can just do a full restore...? Or is what's backed up in nandroid outside (excludes) these changes? Thanks.
 

nicotheandroidguy

Senior Member
Dec 4, 2012
512
99
Los Angeles
Hi thanks so much for putting this together all in one place!
Hi I'm on MF9, rooted, locked.

So really the two major steps are:
1. Do int'l unlock first (autoprime)
2. Then do domestic unlock

My question - after you get both unlocks working and say you have your phone working on tmobile, what do you need to do to get it working on Sprint... rather, is the phone operatable on both Sprint and Tmobile? Or do you have to do some tinkering to get it back to working on Sprint again. I'd like to have the flexibility of popping SIMs in and out and switching carriers at will, Sprint included (b/c I don't want to cancel Sprint just yet...eventually, but not immediately). Thanks!

---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 AM ----------

Another question :)

When you're tinkering with swapping out modems and APN settings, does doing a nandroid backup prior help so when you have an "oh sh!t" moment, you can just do a full restore...? Or is what's backed up in nandroid outside (excludes) these changes? Thanks.

OK the answer to the first question is to put your sprint sim card back in then put your phone back in to lte/cdma auto through the tell info app through Google play device info then change it in to lte/cdma auto.
Answer to the second question is that the nandroid might help you in a oh sh!t moment but the modem and settings for the unlock stay after a factory rest but a other update could kill it. A stock Odin flash and dailing ##72786# could also kill both unlocks.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
 
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imbmiller

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
131
97
Someone on this thread got it to work. I'm unsure if Att has hspa+ tho so you might be relegated to edge
 

imbmiller

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
131
97
Did you install hiapn and add the apn? What baseband are you on? What rom and kernel? I'm not super positive about mvno s but I'd probly go back to the beginning and start over.
 

TheZander

Senior Member
Aug 9, 2011
132
8
Did you install hiapn and add the apn? What baseband are you on? What rom and kernel? I'm not super positive about mvno s but I'd probly go back to the beginning and start over.

Sorry I had to edit my post. It did work. There are two different GSM SIMs the one with the dot seemed to work. I Got Edge, 3G, and H+. It is awesome. I also still have 3G with Sprint with the SIM in. I got two phones in one. Thanks.
 

the.joeba

Senior Member
Nov 10, 2009
84
23
So I've been on T-Mobile for the last 24 hours but my HSPA+ signal is weak and slow (under 1mb), while my co-worker on T-Mobile (and a T-Mobile phone) has full HSPA+ signal and speed (5-9mb).

Any thoughts on what could be the cause?

I'm running CM11 on MDC. I'll try some other combinations tonight to see if things change.
 
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    [HOWTO] / [GUIDE] SPH-L720 Domestic SIM Unlock T-Mobile:AT&T:metroPCS:Straighttalk

    Streamlined Guide for Domestic T-Mobile GSM Unlock for SPH-L720

    Credit for all of this goes to @autoprime and @nicotheandroidguy

    A few notes: I used Windows 7 for the odin flashes , my phone is a SPH-L720 and it is not active on the Sprint network, also the sim card from t-mobile was inactive (brand new from t-mobile store.) and it has a bad esn. I am located in the Phoenix az market so I'm able to take advantage of the 1900mhz band that tmobile has here.

    I'm unsure of how this will work with mnvos or other primary carriers and frankly I don't care at the moment, this is my primary phone. Update: confirmed hspa+ for tmobile, metroPCS, straight talk and AT&T.

    I HAD MY NEW UNACTIVATED TMOBILE SIM CARD IN THIS ENTIRE TIME

    1) First I reverted my rom to a stock MF9 rooted touchwiz rom, instructions and one click odin here:http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2486134 I’m trying not to straight copy and paste someone else’s work so take a look at that post if you need a clean start. If you are coming from non stock you will need to boot into stock recovery and wipe data/cache before you get started. (I also later used SAC’s rom after a failed attempt at an AOKP fix and it worked as well ) you can switch to any ROM later and the unlock will stick.

    2)I rebooted the phone and followed the instructions listed here in post #1 http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2415587

    3) I went to the dialer and typed *#0011# which brought me to the "service mode" Menu.

    IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE GETTING THE HIDDEN MENU TO OPEN DO NOT FEAR! I had a ton of trouble at first. In some builds you need to activate an option by adding a line to your build.prop or changing the no flag in efs/hiddenmenu to ON. Google it, there is a ton of help out there.

    4) Press the left menu softbutton (the menu button that lights up and vibrates when you touch it) then press the either the button “select” or “Key Input” and type the number 1 or 2 into the box, if nothing happens press menu and select the “back “ button then repeat. This app is sort of like a tin can radio, you can kind of tell that it’s working, but it doesn’t work well.

    Depending on if you pressed 1 or 2 in the dialogue box it will take you into either an UMTS or CDMA menu. If you are in the umts menu, press the menu button and select back, this should then proceed to the next step.

    5) Select CDMA, then 1.COMMON, press next page twice until you reach page three of COMMON and select 8.PREF MODE SET and select GSM_WCDMA_ONLY

    6) Press menu and back until you are at the main menu and select [1]UMTS, then select [1]DEBUG SCREEN, then select [6]PHONE CONTROL, select [2]FAKE SECURITY CONTROL and make sure it is set to ON
    7)Press menu and back and select [3] NAS CONTROL. We are going to check a few different settings in this menu so remember how to get here cause I don’t want to repeat myself.
    [1] CIPHERING CONTROL = OFF
    [2] INTEGRITY CONTROL =ON
    [3] SIM CLASS CONTROL = UMTS
    [4] REVISION CONTROL = DO NOT TOUCH
    [5] RRC(HSPA) CONTROL = DO NOT TOUCH
    [6] DUALMODE IMPROVEMENT CONTROL= DO NOT TOUCH
    [7] NAS AVOID SECURITY CONTROL= OFF, 0
    [8] BIP BLOCK = 1

    8) Press menu and back twice, you should be on the PHONE CONTROL menu. Select [7] NETWORK CONTROL, select [1] GFC and make sure that it is set to [1]GSM/(E)GPRS/WCDMA REL8 .

    9) Press menu and back and select [2] BAND SELECTION and select WCDMA/GSM ALL for both WCDMA and GSM band preferences. I selected the ALL choice for LTE as well even though I know it isn’t supported for TMOBILE.

    10) Under the NETWORK CONTROL menu we just came from select [4] AQUISITION ORDER and change it to [3]UMTS_GSM

    11) Press menu and back until you are in the PHONE CONTROL menu and select [5] SIMULATION , press the [2] SW WATCHDOG button 6(six) times and then the [3] HW WATCHDOG 6(six) times. Nothing will happen at all to let you know if you have done this correcctly but as soon as you finish the sixth press on HW WATCHDOG reboot the phone manually:manually:manually IMMEDIATELY . I’m not sure what this does or why this works but @nicotheandroidguy seems to have divined that this is the vital part of the process.

    YOUR PHONE STILL WILL NOT HAVE DATA OR VOICE WHEN YOU REBOOT FROM THE WATCHDOG TAPS DO NOT PANIC!!!!!!!!!!! (hopefullly you have your towel with you)

    12) WIFI that sonofa up and search for apn settings shortcut and build.prop editor in the Play Store.

    Go into the build.prop editor and add the following two lines:

    ril.sales_code=LOL
    ro.csc.sales_code=LOL

    REBOOT PHONE MANUALLY now.

    Now Install and create a shortcut on the home screen and select to open. Press the menu soft key and select add apn.

    Use:

    Name: T-Mobile
    APN: epc.tmobile.com or fast.t-mobile.com (for LTE devices)
    Proxy:
    Port:
    Username:
    Password:
    Server:
    MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
    MMS proxy:
    MMS port:
    MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
    MCC: 310
    MNC: 260
    Authentication type:
    APN type: default,supl,admin,dun,mms

    13) Go into your android settings, select wireless networks, you should see the network mode set as wcdma only do not change this, we set this in the Service Mode Menu , Check that your roaming settings are set to for roaming data/ international data etc.also make sure that there are no roaming guards left on. (roaming guards will only allow you to uncheck GSM and GSM data under international roaming.)

    14) reboot
    15) profit

    At this point I had full access to the TMOBILE UMTS/HSPA+ network and voice/text/mms were working.

    At this point you may change roms, be careful not to update past mf9 as you may be unable to downgrade to mdc. YOU MUST DOWNGRADE TO MDC MODEM FOR THIS TO WORK.
    If you use a non touchwiz rom you can still access the tellinfo menu by pressing *#*#4636#*#* and selecting WCDMA only and manually adding the apn.

    GOOD LUCK! let me know what needs changed in the guide as well.

    If you have questions it's useful to know your Baseband /kernel/ rom.
    8
    Potential BREAKTHROUGH!

    It seems (I am in the process of working this out right now) that the FULL service menu CAN be accessed on ANY modem (including NAE)
    I found this information while looking to domestic sim unlock the Galaxy S4 Mini Model SPH-L520.
    E:V:A has cracked the service menu for the S4 Mini which ALSO works for the SPH-L720 model!
    Follow his tutorial here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=52255287#post52255287

    But the steps are as follows. Dial *#0011# and then hit:

    ==> [MENU] + [Back]
    ==> [MENU] + [Key Input] + "Q"
    ==> [MENU] + [Key Input] + "0000"
    ==> <wait ~5-10 seconds>

    I have tested and it WORKS on the S4 NAE modem!! All props to E:V:A. I'm sure he wasn't aware that his method also WORKS on S4 for Sprint, since he is using the S4 international European version. Looks like possible one won't need to downgrade the modem anymore to make this work :)

    Hit thanks if this helped you out, and give E:V:A some love
    4
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2928250

    DONT FORGET TO DONATE if you can. He's spent a lot of time and research on this.

    Sent from my LGLS990 using XDA Free mobile app
    3
    Thank you for this thread, I will try again with these steps.

    A few notes:

    3) i went to the dialer and typed *##0011# which brought me to the "service mode" menu.

    This should be *#0011# I believe

    5) Select CDMA, then 1.COMMON, press next page until page three of COMMON and select 8.PREF MODE SET and selet GSM_WCDMA_ONLY

    I had to go 9. NEXT PAGE > twice before doing 8.
    3
    FYI, I was on a T-Mobile ROM with a Sprint kernel, wiped everything, and then flashed a T-Mobile 4.3 AOSP ROM. Worked perfect right out of the gate. Even using the T-Mobile kernel that came with it. Everything works right away. Even wifi/bluetooth and such. Just throwing it out there, because it went a LOT easier than I thought it would.