Let's start with the precondition of my current adventure :
I have following devices at hand :
- Samsung Galaxy S5 running stock Android Lollipop (5.0) Baseband G900FXXU1BOD3 ;
- Samsung Galaxy S2 running stock Android ICS 4.0.4 ;
- Samsung Galaxy TAB 8.9 (GT-P7300) running stock Android ICS 4.0.4 (Baseband P7300XXLQ6) ;
- Alcatel Onetouch x215s USB-dongle 3G (TIM branded, but not locked) ;
I happen to be in the possession of following SIM-cards :
- Data SIM Vodafone Italy - Giga Maxi (10GB traffic on APN : web.omnitel.it) ;
- Voice SIM TIM Italy - SuperGiga (20GB traffic on APN : ibox.tim.it) ;
- Voice SIM Proximus Belgium - 5GB Data and 300MB Roaming on APN: internet.proximus.be ;
I'm currently on vacation in Italy and I have a fairly good coverage with TIM and VODAFONE where I currently reside. TIM seems to lack capacity : HSPA and HSPA+ almost never exceeds 500kbit (up/down). LTE is not available in my area. Vodafone seems to have a better base-station position and I have HSPA and 4G (LTE) with a surprising good speed (for the area I'm in) : during day 6Mb down/2Mb up, in calm period upto 12Mb down/ 8Mb up. This is ... when I manage to register on the network.
Here comes the catch.
When I put my Belgian SIM in any of my devices it just works. The APN is automatically selected and everything works just fine.
s2 + Proximus SIM : Connection is 3G (HSPA,HSPA+) on Vodafone network : speed > 2Mb up/down;
s5 + Proximus SIM : Connection is 4G (LTE) on Vodafone network : speed > 5Mb up/down ;
Tab 8.9 + Proximus SIM : Connection is 3G on Vodafone network : speed similar to S2 ;
This of course is unsustainable because of my ridiculous small roaming allowance (300MB).
So I try to put my TIM Italy SIM in my devices. The APN is automatically selected and everything works just fine. On the Galaxy TAB I need to delete the wap.tim.it APN.
On all the devices data voice and data works OK, limited by the available bandwidth on the base-station in my area. With some luck 500kb, once in a while almost 1Mb but most of the time rather 200kb. A lot of switching between HSPA,HSPA+,UMTS (you see constant switching between H,H+,3G).
My initial plan was to stick with the TIM Data plan and use a hotspot to share the 20GB with my family. Well, you imagine already ... with the constant switching between the different modes and the low bandwidth, the Wifi Hotspot isn't capable of delivering a useful bandwidth to the different clients around (2 Mobile Phones and a laptop). Even with 1 device connected, it isn't going anywhere.
Because the Proximus SIM is roaming on Vodafone, and it has a really decent bandwidth in 3G and 4G, I got myself a Data SIM with a data plan of 10GB. In the shop they assured me that it would work on my SGS5. I only need to assign the right APN (web.omnitel.it).
That's the theory. In practice, during my first try (4hours after activation of the SIM) nothing useful happened. My SIM registered on the network, but it didn't get any data-connection on web.omnitel.it.
The Vodafone Data SIM is delivered with 3 APN preconfigured :
- mobile.vodafone.it : for regular browsing ;
- web.omnitel.it : for tethered browsing - needed for Giga Maxi data plan ;
- mms : of course for MMS use ;
Whenever I activated the web.omnitel.it APN, it would revert a couple of seconds later (while still in the APN menu) to mobile.vodafone.it. It got me suspicious because I was told, it would eat into my prepaid credit on my account.
After a couple of hours messing around with the Vodafone SIM, rebooting, etc etc I got the connection working and I could test my setup for a while ... until the next morning ... it wouldn't connect anymore.
When I install the Vodafone Data SIM in my other devices, none of them work. The data symbol (G,E,3G,H,H+ or 4G) never lights up. Regardless of what I do (order of events, APN settings, reverting back to standard, etc etc).
Only exception is my SGS5 where I need to perform following trick to make it work.
Insert Proximus SIM into SGS5 and let the SIM register on the Vodafone network. Data is ON.
Deactivate Data, shutdown phone and swap SIM with Vodafone SIM.
Switch on SGS5 and let it register on the Vodafone network.
Activate Hotspot. Let it create hotspot and make sure it is up. Connect a client to the hotspot (other phone or laptop).
Now activate data and make sure the right APN is active (web.omnitel.it).
Now reconnect a wifi client to the hotspot. You should get internet access.
If not, then disable and enable hotspot on SGS5. Reconnect the wifi client.
If this sequence is not respected, symptoms are :
- No data-connection at all on SGS5 : no matter what you do, no way to get data connection up ;
- Data-connection is working for SGS5 but the hotspot wifi clients have no internet access after a few seconds ;
In both cases, you have to swap SIM's and apply the above procedure carefully.
Whenever the Wifi Hotspot is deactivated (after timeout specified in Android or manual) the data connection may again be lost. Only way is to proceed with the SIM-swap procedure.
Trying without SIM-swap doesn't work. There needs to be a new combination provider/SIM/mobile phone before retrying a registration of the data SIM. Don't ask me why (I'm just guessing).
I tried to speak to customer service, but they don't seem to grasp the problem. And because I'm using my own workaround, they don't seem to bother much. Because I don't have a voice-plan with Vodafone, I can't really call them, so I tried Twitter but it's slow and the 130 char limitation is not helping either.
One could argue that I'm pushing the limits by using a Data SIM on my SGS5, instead of using a Mifi device, a 4G-USB dongle or just the tablet as advertised on their website.
But even on my Galaxy Tab 8.9, it doesn't seem to work out of the box.I tried to extend the connection type by adding 'internet' to the pre-exisiting 'dun' type to no avail.
I'm going to the shop tomorrow with my gear and will show them what is going on with my SGS5. If they could just fix my SGS5, I would be very happy.
And next year, I'll get myself a Mifi or a cheap 4G-dongle on my NS-1500 Openwrt box. Any suggestions are welcome.
[UPDATE]
Went to the store, and they were in total disbelieve. They saw my actual data traffic I used in the last couple of days and they thought my SIM was fine. Until I asked the storemanager to install the data SIM in his device : he couldn't even send text-messages with my SIM.
Conclusion : they performed a RESET of the SIM because there was a configuration issue with the SIM. The reset procedure takes between 15 and 30' and when I switched-on my phone after this 'reset'-period, everything was working just fine without any workaround. Pfew !
