No 3G roaming? For shame, Verizon!

February 9, 2012 3:39 PM

Cell phone question: Droid 3 user, on Verizon in coastal Maine. My phone only gets one bar of 1X data while roaming on US Cellular, while my girlfriend's CDMA Kindle and my brother's US Cellular phone get 3-4 bars of 3G data. The Verizon rep told me I should be able to get 3G from the US Cellular tower, but it's not happening. Does anyone know if there's any way to force my phone to roam on US Cellular's 3G? I know some people use custom PRLs, but this sort of thing is new to me and I'd like to do it properly.

Other info:
I had the same situation on my original Droid. Tried a *228 on both phones, no improvement.

posted by dunkadunc to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Settings app > Wireless and Networks (doing this from my Droid 2, should be similar) > Mobile Networks > System Select

Make sure this is on Automatic.


Settings app > Battery and Data Manager (again, Droid 2) > Data Delivery

Make sure Data Roaming is checked (because you're roaming on US Cellular's network, but they've probably got something worked out between them and VZW about sharing the tower/air)
posted by deezil at 4:01 PM on February 9, 2012

All that's been configured properly already. My Droid 1 needed international data roaming as well as data roaming enabled to get USCC data at all.

What I need is to find out how to change the PRL, or force 3G through some other means, since I know the signal's there. Most of the stuff I've found online has been unhelpful bbcode forums full of the blind leading the blind, I'm hoping there's someone around here who can walk me through this.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:38 PM on February 9, 2012

Oh, I should mention: It's running the stock Android 2.3.4, rooted.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:09 PM on February 9, 2012

So it's GSM? There might be something of use here
posted by murkywaters at 10:38 PM on February 9, 2012

err... http://forum.xda-developers.com/search.php?searchid=12906364

I don't know why that link didn't show up
posted by murkywaters at 10:38 PM on February 9, 2012

It's gsm/cdma, but the networks in question are all cdma.

I finally figured out a temporary fix:

Dial *#*#4636#*#*
select 'phone info'
select 'evdo' under network type.

Bam, i'm on 3g. It's not much of a permanent fix though because it can't fall back on 1x when there's no 3g signal. I'll check out xda again, but any more info on how to easily flash prls/which prl to use would be great.
Thanks for the answers so far!
posted by dunkadunc at 12:30 AM on February 10, 2012