US Cosmo & AT&T - Anyone Tried It?

[ArchiMark]

Did you try to pop sim card from your work iphone into cosmo?

Great idea!

Just tried this and voila!

Get 4 bars and VLTE 4G shown!!!!

And Mobile Data works!!!

You're a genius, vldmr!

 


Good thing I didn't ship my Cosmo to UK yet....

 


So, assume this means I received a bum SIM card from AT&T?


UPDATE

Compared the numbers on both cards....

Think the AT&T store person gave me a 3G card.....

It has a number 3026 on the card.

My work phone has a number 4026 on the card.

I'm guessing the 4 means 4G and 3 means 3G......


 

[ArchiMark]

UPDATE

Just returned from trip to local AT&T store....

Guy at this store was great and very helpful.

Turns out issue is not about the SIM card.....it's all about the IMEI number used.

Unfortunately, since PC does not have AT&T sell their phones, they don't have an IMEI number that identifies the device as a Cosmo. Therefore, the system doesn't know to provide it with 4G and mobile data.

After trying all the possible APN's available and not getting 4G, he entered an IMEI from an iPhone and Voila! the Cosmo got 4G and mobile data instantly.

So, for those of you that got your Cosmo's working without all the headaches I went through, the AT&T guy said there were two options.

One, you transferred an existing SIM card from a phone that is recognized in AT&T system / IMEI.

Or if you went to AT&T store and got new SIM, the person helping you did what my guy did and didn't tell you.


AT&T guy said that I need to see if it still shows 4G after about 36 hours from now, as he said their system does a periodic sweep of devices on system. He thought there might be a small chance that system might detect that IMEI is for iPhone while device is not an iPhone. If that happens, it would likely downgrade Cosmo back to 3G. And if that happens, he said to come back to store or call AT&T to reset it again.

So it goes......but at least I now have 4G and mobile data......

Thanks to all who helped. Really made a big difference!

 

[vldmr]

So, for those of you that got your Cosmo's working without all the headaches I went through, the AT&T guy said there were two options.

One, you transferred an existing SIM card from a phone that is recognized in AT&T system / IMEI.

That is correct - my sim card was transferred to cosmo from at&t branded phone

[ArchiMark]

So, for those of you that got your Cosmo's working without all the headaches I went through, the AT&T guy said there were two options.

One, you transferred an existing SIM card from a phone that is recognized in AT&T system / IMEI.

That is correct - my sim card was transferred to cosmo from at&t branded phone

Lucky you......

I figure between 2 visits to AT&T store, call with AT&T tech support, OESF posts, my fiddling around with Cosmo, I probably wasted about 6 - 8 hours on getting phone working right......

Oh well......

I do feel a lot better about the Cosmo now though....

Now need to spend some time learning all the features that are different from the Gemini I have.....

[jakfish]

Glad you got to the bottom of this.

Jake

[ArchiMark]

Glad you got to the bottom of this.

Jake

Thanks, Jake, yeah, me too......

Just wish it didn't take so much of my time and energy.....

Oh well, live and learn, they say....

 


Meanwhile, starting to enjoy the Cosmo....

Mark

[VAMM]

UPDATE

Just returned from trip to local AT&T store....

Guy at this store was great and very helpful.

Turns out issue is not about the SIM card.....it's all about the IMEI number used.

Unfortunately, since PC does not have AT&T sell their phones, they don't have an IMEI number that identifies the device as a Cosmo. Therefore, the system doesn't know to provide it with 4G and mobile data.

After trying all the possible APN's available and not getting 4G, he entered an IMEI from an iPhone and Voila! the Cosmo got 4G and mobile data instantly.

So, for those of you that got your Cosmo's working without all the headaches I went through, the AT&T guy said there were two options.

One, you transferred an existing SIM card from a phone that is recognized in AT&T system / IMEI.

Or if you went to AT&T store and got new SIM, the person helping you did what my guy did and didn't tell you.


AT&T guy said that I need to see if it still shows 4G after about 36 hours from now, as he said their system does a periodic sweep of devices on system. He thought there might be a small chance that system might detect that IMEI is for iPhone while device is not an iPhone. If that happens, it would likely downgrade Cosmo back to 3G. And if that happens, he said to come back to store or call AT&T to reset it again.

So it goes......but at least I now have 4G and mobile data......

Thanks to all who helped. Really made a big difference!

 

The guy at my local AT&T store did the same for my Cosmo but he registered the SIM with a Samsung Note 8. It worked great until today when AT&T's system did a sweep and booted my phone off. I can't be going through this game every month. Not sure what to do now.

UPDATE:
So over lunch I walked around downtown and it seems I have VoLTE and 4G there so it may be that there is something wrong with the tower near my home. The odd thing is that it drops down to 3G near my office which it didn't do before today either. In my account, it also says "Unknown Unknown" for the device which is what it said when I had trouble getting it on AT&T's system when I first got the phone. I guess I'll see what happens tonight when I get home from work. Hopefully it is a problem with just the tower near my home and the rest is just coincidental.

[ArchiMark]

Hi VAMM,

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I not gotten booted off...

My AT&T guy, entered info as if it's an iPhone....don't know if that would make a difference.

My guy said if I did get booted off, to come back to store and he'd re-do it...he thought that would take care of it.

So, have store try it again and see what happens....

Good luck,

Mark

[Dickon Hood]

This seems monumentally stupid to me.  The whole *point* of the SIM card -- the Subscriber Identity Module, after all -- was to enable users to pick networks and handsets independently.  You're saying that you can't (reliably) do that in the US?

[VAMM]

Hi VAMM,

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I not gotten booted off...

My AT&T guy, entered info as if it's an iPhone....don't know if that would make a difference.

My guy said if I did get booted off, to come back to store and he'd re-do it...he thought that would take care of it.

So, have store try it again and see what happens....

Good luck,

Mark

Thanks for the response. I'm starting to suspect (and am hopeful) that the issue is just the tower near my house.

However, if it is more than that, I'll give the iPhone trick a try if someone at the store knows how to do it.

Cricket Cellular's system says the phone is compatible and AFAIK, ironically, Cricket is owned by AT&T. If I continue to have trouble, I may try getting a Cricket SIM to see how that goes.

[VAMM]

This seems monumentally stupid to me.  The whole *point* of the SIM card -- the Subscriber Identity Module, after all -- was to enable users to pick networks and handsets independently.  You're saying that you can't (reliably) do that in the US?

It is indeed monumentally stupid. It appears that the only way to get the phone to work right on AT&Ts network is to fool the system into thinking it is a different phone. If you just give them the Cosmo's IMEI, they will say the phone is incompatible. The first time around, the person at the store was very helpful and stuck with it until he got it working but I was there at least two hours and even he was getting frustrated with AT&T's tech support. He had warned me after he got it working that AT&T may boot the phone off (actually, they just reduce the provisioning level down to uselessness).

[ArchiMark]

Here's what AT&T guy told me.

The problem is related to fact that AT&T does not carry the Cosmo in their phone line-up.

Therefore, their system does not recognize it as a legitimate phone to be allowed on their network, ie, it's viewed as a potential security risk and thus booted off.

So, best you can do is to try and fool the system into thinking you are using an AT&T phone.

So far, it's working for me and it's been over two months now.

[Dickon Hood]

It is indeed monumentally stupid. It appears that the only way to get the phone to work right on AT&Ts network is to fool the system into thinking it is a different phone. If you just give them the Cosmo's IMEI, they will say the phone is incompatible.

That's ludicrous.

I can walk into any random mobile phone shop / order off Amazon / eBay / Alibaba / whatnot and buy a handset, then buy a SIM card from any one of the networks by walking into one of their shops / online / over the phone, plug one into the other, and get on with my life.  Which, AIUI, was what the GSMA was aiming for.

I'd complain if I were you, then change networks.  Or are they all this bad?

[Dickon Hood]

Hang on, how does roaming work?  I assume they do actually support foreign users?

[VAMM]

Hang on, how does roaming work?  I assume they do actually support foreign users?

Good question. I don't know for sure. Either you get a reduced level of service like 3G only or, if your phone happens to be a supported model, you get lucky with full service. This is just my theory though.