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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2804 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 20, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Never mind 2G. The Nokia 2720 Flip that I bought a while back advertises 4G and Wi-Fi, but when I tried a T-Mobile SIM in it recently, I got a message saying that "this phone is only partially compatible with our advanced network"; and I wasn't able to make a call or send a message when I tried.

Band compatibility issue. It looks like they only made an EU version and a MENA/Asia version, and the band support on both models has close to zero overlap with the frequencies used in the US. This is a little surprising, because these days (afaik) it's pretty cheap and easy from a hardware standpoint to include as many bands as you want on a phone (at least for 4G/LTE; 5G is a bit of a different story). I guess they didn't anticipate any US sales.

Bands 5 and 41, the latter only present on the MENA/Asia model, are the only supported ones used in the US. T-Mobile US does not have any band 5 licenses as far as I know. You could get away with using it on AT&T or Verizon, but you'd have to determine which one of them owns the band 5 licenses in your area (confusingly this can be both AT&T and Verizon, one of the two, or neither of them) and it would not work nationwide. T-Mobile does have band 41 licenses (almost) nationwide, but they're in the process of repurposing that spectrum for 5G (and it was never meant to be used for full-coverage voice even when originally deployed as LTE).

If your only concern is voice and text, the bands you want for USA 4G/LTE compatibility are 2, 4, 5, 12, 13 (Verizon-only), and 71 (T-Mobile-only).

Appreciate the research. I could try to find out who supports it and sign up with them, but I don't like the phone very much to begin with, so it might be better to write it off.

I briefly got excited, thinking that if it's just a regional issue, my Cingular Flip/TeleEpoch M3620 might still be usable. Unfortunately, it seems to be dead; it just shows a blank white screen when turned on. Guess I'll have to try shopping.

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