Freedom Mobile LTE Connectivity (Canada)

[ungraphic]

The XZ1 Compact has all the necessary bands for LTE connectivity with Freedom Mobile in Canada (Bands 4, 7, 13 and 66). However, apparently the connection is dodgy when switching back to LTE from 3G. Freedom Mobile ships the standard XZ1 which is almost exactly the same phone. Flashing the firmware works to fix the LTE connectivity... however

Does Sony have any plans to fix this without having to flash the firmware? Doing so essentially forces you to manually flash updates in the future as well (not fun). Perhaps a future update with a fix?

Is there somewhere we can leave feedback to Sony and get them to add the fix?

[Uliwooly]

@ungraphic

Could you give more info as to which android version, build number and if possible model number of the Xperia you are facing issues with

Also which firmwares work fine. 

[ungraphic]

@uliwooly

Seems like the phone DOES switch between LTE and 3G with Freedom Mobile. However, it seems to flip back and forth in my building; I'm on the 23rd floor where my signal has always been poor, I can't imagine Band 66 being any better. Is it normal for the phone to bounce back and forth between whichever band? Or does it choose whichever signal is stronger?

[Damo_]

If you have your settings set to LTE prefered then it'll stay on this whilst it can. If the signal drops off enough then sure it'll jump back to 3G (WCDMA).

Depending on your carriers deployment they may not have all bands deployed in all places and also most likely not all frequencies across all generations . For instance, even though your carrier owns LTE band 13 spectrum (700Mhz - awesome at building penetration) it may not be deployed at the cell site close to you - lets say you're picking up LTE band 66 (1700Mhz) instead. Whereas (purely as an example) maybe they do have WCDMA band 8 deployed (3G 900Mhz) - so when your LTE band 66 degrades so badly it's not useable, the phone will switch back to 3G. Maybe an external factor is also causing the LTE signal to come in and out of useability at your location - sounds silly but even a passing truck can degrade an already poor signal to the point of non usability if it hits between line of sight of you and the tower.

Also, if your carrier does not currently support VoLTE (calling over LTE), then everytime you make or receive a call, the device will fallback to 3G anyway and then should go back to LTE again after the call.

As you can see, there are a crazy amount of variables... Unless your device is switching back and forth in all locations I'd put it more down to a weaker LTE signal at your building.