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

[iBowToAndroid]

Quite honestly, S4 (BOTH L720 & L720T), S5 (Yes the galaxy S 5!), Note 3, Note 4, Note Edge, S6 and 6 Edge from Sprint can be domestically unlocked....confirmed

You forgot about the S4 Mini and Mega

 

[F_X]

You forgot about the S4 Mini and Mega

Hahaha DAMN!! I did!! Sorry brother, but thanks for reminding me

 

[Shawn99]

Works great!

 

[dwh1983]

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://forum.xda-developers.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://forum.xda-developers.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.

Excuse me.. noob to the site, but not to the technical part of phones.. I followed every step, with the exception of the Odin one click, root no data.. I ran into several errors there, so instead rooted phone, and can't seem to get tmobile to work on my gs4 sph-l720, it has Knox on it... help???

 

[iBowToAndroid]

Excuse me.. noob to the site, but not to the technical part of phones.. I followed every step, with the exception of the Odin one click, root no data.. I ran into several errors there, so instead rooted phone, and can't seem to get tmobile to work on my gs4 sph-l720, it has Knox on it... help???

1. The OP is outdated. Ignore it. Read the thread instead.
2. Quoting the OP is unecessary and considered rude. Kindly remove it

 

[dwh1983]

My apologies. Still trying to figure the forum out. Maybe I missed something in getting my sprint sph-l720 g24 changed so that I can use my t-mobile sim card in it. How do I unlock it? Again, I apologize, I may have missed something

 

[iBowToAndroid]

My apologies. Still trying to figure the forum out. Maybe I missed something in getting my sprint sph-l720 g24 changed so that I can use my t-mobile sim card in it. How do I unlock it? Again, I apologize, I may have missed something

Re-read #1

 

[hellot1M]

I have gone back several pages and tried searching this thread but am still not sure..

this is an old method and was wondering if coming from pure stock, never been rooted device, and root, setup recovery, and then flash the GPE by Danvdh. would i even need to follow the process in this thread? in his description of the rom it shows,

"World phone unlocked, all network modes are available to choose from in Settings which means this build is unified"

i have searched through that thread as well and nobody seems to make any connections to this thread when talking about using their sprint device with other GSM providers.

i am not too familiar with samsung devices. i have always been LG and HTC which (excluding the G4) have been very straight foward when it came to domestic unlock. most the roms included the unlock built into the rom. i got this phone(s4) and the galaxy s5 for free and was going to give one to my daughter who is on AT&T. the s5 was really confusing when it came to domestic unlock. 90% of the forums say it cant be used on any domestic carrier because of something to do with the modem being locked in the recent updates. and the other 10% say it works just fine. while some say the methods are only for international. and when i ask to get a straight answer this one and only guy responds with the same generic reply (look it up) i have posted my own thread in the Q&A for that section and in replys to several threads and this **** is the only guy that responds with the same answer.... i was directed by one that said the s4 was much easier. so here i am

basically all i want to do is use this sprint s4 on AT&T running the specific rom - http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...-5-0google-play-edition-lrx219-12-24-t2982384

 

[iBowToAndroid]

I have gone back several pages and tried searching this thread but am still not sure..

this is an old method and was wondering if coming from pure stock, never been rooted device, and root, setup recovery, and then flash the GPE by Danvdh. would i even need to follow the process in this thread? in his description of the rom it shows,

"World phone unlocked, all network modes are available to choose from in Settings which means this build is unified"

i have searched through that thread as well and nobody seems to make any connections to this thread when talking about using their sprint device with other GSM providers.

i am not too familiar with samsung devices. i have always been LG and HTC which (excluding the G4) have been very straight foward when it came to domestic unlock. most the roms included the unlock built into the rom. i got this phone(s4) and the galaxy s5 for free and was going to give one to my daughter who is on AT&T. the s5 was really confusing when it came to domestic unlock. 90% of the forums say it cant be used on any domestic carrier because of something to do with the modem being locked in the recent updates. and the other 10% say it works just fine. while some say the methods are only for international. and when i ask to get a straight answer this one and only guy responds with the same generic reply (look it up) i have posted my own thread in the Q&A for that section and in replys to several threads and this **** is the only guy that responds with the same answer.... i was directed by one that said the s4 was much easier. so here i am

basically all i want to do is use this sprint s4 on AT&T running the specific rom - http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...-5-0google-play-edition-lrx219-12-24-t2982384

1. S5 can be domestically unlocked. Contact the dev, @idone

2. I doubt that the ROM has automatic unlock built in, as there are steps that have to be performed in order to enable it. But contact the dev directly to know for sure

 

[miniandroidp]

will this work with straight talk ? My s4 SPH-L720 is not active on the Sprint network .

 

[AndroidKing]

yes it will

 

[iBowToAndroid]

will this work with straight talk ? My s4 SPH-L720 is not active on the Sprint network .

The GSM side of Straight Talk, yes

 

[dwh1983]

help once more.

Ok, at the risk of sounding like an idiot again, I still can't unlock the Sim card so I can use my t-mobile card. I've downgraded to mdc, have Philz touch recovery, and have tried everything I can, but have had to reinstall stock rom, re-root, so I at least have a working phone. I have a sprint L720, hardware L720.08, Knox 2.3. Maybe I used the wrong rom? Ibe searched the thread and followed any and all directions to make my sprint phone to tmobile, with no luck at all. HELP!!!!!:crying:

 

[Wanabedev83]

Hi everyone, probably on wrong thread but i cat seem to resolve my issue and hopefully someone can help. I went threw all the steps and procedures for the international unlock witch seemed to work but could never stick to a network. I would get a movistar indication from the sim but would then dissapeared and not work, since i was unable to find an NG2 modem i went ahead and flashed the whole firmware. It seemed to have worked, the sim card and signal stuck with and does not go away but now i have the following issues. I keep getting an "ItsOn force closing and a ZACT Mobile" prompt to update and is somehow in the way. But my main issue right now is that the phone is useless communication wise, meaning i can't make / receive calls or send receive messages. When calling it rings as busy but the device will ring and when i try to answer it will just drop, making calls is impossible, as soon as i hit the green it just closes and drops the call but the service is there i just cant use it. Any help is appreciated and thanks in advance. I'm stock NG2 Rooted with twrp.

 

[iBowToAndroid]

Hi everyone, probably on wrong thread but i cat seem to resolve my issue and hopefully someone can help. I went threw all the steps and procedures for the international unlock witch seemed to work but could never stick to a network. I would get a movistar indication from the sim but would then dissapeared and not work, since i was unable to find an NG2 modem i went ahead and flashed the whole firmware. It seemed to have worked, the sim card and signal stuck with and does not go away but now i have the following issues. I keep getting an "ItsOn force closing and a ZACT Mobile" prompt to update and is somehow in the way. But my main issue right now is that the phone is useless communication wise, meaning i can't make / receive calls or send receive messages. When calling it rings as busy but the device will ring and when i try to answer it will just drop, making calls is impossible, as soon as i hit the green it just closes and drops the call but the service is there i just cant use it. Any help is appreciated and thanks in advance. I'm stock NG2 Rooted with twrp.

Reflash stock tar

 

[Okijaamaka]

Yeah i would always stick to just Odin and the tar file(s). Glad it's working!

i know you have helped me often

please give me summary how to add GSM or 3G to my S4 Mini Model SPH-L520

please

 

[klh22]

After *#0011#

I tried using "1" and "2" when I went into key input. It did not work, what so ever. I did find a code that worked for my phone though, I don't know why it was so different. You need to dial *#0011# after that menu, back, just like you stated, "key input" and instead of "1" put in a capital "Q" , select OK, menu again, "back," "key input" once again and the second time enter "0000", then "OK", "Menu", "Back", then if you wait about 10 seconds, the other menu will come up!

Thanks so much!!!!

 

[MiamiMike]

This works!
Just wanted to share some additional info.
After running through the proceedure you can stay on the kitkat version and have everything work perfectly.

In addition you can put a new rom, in my tests Google Play version 5.0.1 which can be found on xda here which also worked perfect.
Lastly I took a stock Sprint SPH-L720 5.0.1 Lollipop rom, put that on the phone, then put the modem provided in this post and it also worked perfectly.
For me I liked the Samsung touchwiz and went to that version.
You may have to input the APN info which can be found from T-Mobile here or find the other GSM providers info and you will get your LTE as well.

Thanks to all the people who posted this and the other referenced info!!!

 

[abbyzou]

Also working w/ T-Mobile

This works!

I was wondering how's your signal with T-Mobile? I had previously read someone getting low signal, which I'm experiencing, but I want to make sure it's just T-Mobile sucking in my area.

Also- anyone having issues, a few pages back (page 154 for me) is an awesome little guide by Markon101 on using Lollipop to do this. It definitely saved me. If you get a process error spam after changing roms, just factory reset and proceed as normal.

 

[MiamiMike]

It does work LTE, if you install the m919 rom as the instructions state it does work perfectly.
If you burn another ROM I'm not sure the additional steps required, but it may be here somewhere.

---------- Post added at 03:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------

Did you downgrade OS?
You have to start of in kitkat.
The insrtuctions are very clear, I did this 3 times and it's well documented here.