Vodafone Italy 4G will work ONLY with iOS 6.1 update

Question

Vodafone Italy 4G will work ONLY with iOS 6.1 update

Soooooo, after driving myself crazy with Vodafone italy and their 4G network, i finally have answers that i'd like to share.

1) you must "activate" 4G service, either online (through "190y" on their site) or directly from them (the store, or what i did, they have a live chat feature on their site).

2) you have to wait to receive a text msg saying it has been activated.

3) wait until iOS 6.1 is released (end of the month).

I have a factory unlocked iPhone 5 that i bought in italy and have traveled to the states with recently. as soon as i landed i had 4G service, without any modifications or updates or doing anything. i told voda all of this, and after 3 days, i got some answers. after doing some research, basically the new update with allow the 5 to use vodafones frequency.

bam. there you have it. no 4G until the update. oh, and you have to pay 10 euro a month extra for it.

thanks vodafone :-/

Posted on Jan 17, 2013 8:39 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

170,886 points

Jan 17, 2013 9:03 AM in response to omgilovescience

much of Europe use different LTE frequencies then usa

&

apple have to verify a network before the iphone will work on 4g on the network

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Answer 2

FelipeV

Level 6

10,660 points

Jan 17, 2013 6:16 PM in response to omgilovescience

Assuming you were roaming with ATT in the US:

What ATT in the US calls 4G is NOT the same 4G that Vodafone will call its LTE network when operational in Italy. So that's why you automatically "got" 4G when you landed in the US.

Besides the "4G" network that you got in the US, the US has its own LTE network which is incompatible with the European LTE network.

http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2012/10/30/vodafone-l aunches-lte-in-rome-milan-today/

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Answer 3

diesel vdub

Level 7

22,178 points

Jan 17, 2013 8:08 PM in response to omgilovescience

The only time an iPhone displays "4G" is in the US on the AT&T network. When it is displaying 4G it is actually connecting to the HSPA+ network, which is 4G.

HSPA+ is NOT LTE.

As has been stated, the A1429 GSM iPhone sold outside the US will not work on the AT&T LTE network and would be unlikely to work on any other US LTE network.

Seems you may still be crazy.

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Answer 4

Jan 18, 2013 1:30 AM in response to diesel vdub

i was merely trying to help since it was such a nightmare for me.

thanks for the additional info, i have the A1429 - am i correct to assume it is the GSM model and not the CDMA model? it looks like the LTE bands here (1,3,5) are different than the ones in the A1428 model (4,17) - is that why it will not work on the US LTE network? I dont really care "that much" because I live in Italy (for the next 3 years), and do not plan on traveling to the US that often. plus ive had 3G forever, so anything faster is an immediate improvement.

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Answer 5

FelipeV

Level 6

10,660 points

Jan 18, 2013 3:41 AM in response to omgilovescience

The answer is yes to both questions.

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