Do Android ROM/kernels restrict what LTE Bands are used by your phone?

[Dargenfire]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 i9507 (LTE-A Australia/Hong Kong variant), and for a while I've been running it on CM12/13. The only thing is that there is no specific ROM for the i9507, and when I run the phone on the jfltexx ROM (International, Qualcomm variants) In settings it claims my phone is an i9505.

 

The main difference between the i9505 and i9507 is the LTE Bands. The i9507 was released later and has a wider range of bands, But since CM believes I have an i9505, my question is this:

 

Am I getting all the bands of the i9507, or does the ROM or kernel dictate what bands the phone uses.

[Naeaes]

Were all 13 years old here. So we basically know everything about the inner workings of CyanogenMod.  You should see if a some app can tell you which bands the phone is utilizing. Maybe this one?

[papapoi]

i remember in the older phones, the roms could actually block certain bands, but after unlocking it would open it up but that was a few years back though, the kernel on the other hand has been known to mess with the overall reception, one rom i had i had really bad reception and it turned out to be the kernel it was bundled with, most roms are made for all variants but the kernel can be replaced with a more compatible one. 

have you checked on xda-developers, i know sometimes reading through most of the bs gets tiring but im sure someone has the same problem.

[kiririn]

Yes. It could be the case.

 

In my experience with my Xperia V LT25i (International Variant), I tried flashing a Custom ROM (Includes the Kernel) intended for the LT25c (Chinese Variant) which lacks LTE. In effect, I wasn't able to use LTE at all but the phone worked fine.

 

Also, recently, I've been trying out Sony's Marshmallow Concept ROM (meant for Xperia Z3 Compact D5803 FDD-LTE) on my D5833 FDD-LTE + TDD-LTE. In this case, I was able to use the FDD-LTE bands of my D5833 but I couldn't use the TDD-LTE bands since the modem firmware that was included in the Concept ROM was meant for D5803, not D5833.

 

In Sony's stock ROM, there is a dedicated menu to find out which GSM/UMTS/LTE bands are available for your device.

 

Dialer -- *#*#7378423#*#* (*#*#SERVICE#*#*) -- Service Info -- Configuration

 

You'll see the section:

Quote

 

Working band/s:

GSM_850, GSM_900, GSM_1800, GSM_1900, UMTS_BC1, UMTS_BC2, UMTS_BC5, UMTS_BC8, LTE_BC1, LTE_BC3, LTE_BC5, LTE_BC7, LTE_BC8, LTE_BC28, LTE_BC40

 

 

I don't know if Cyanogenmod has this Service Menu, though.

 

However, if your carrier's LTE Bands are supported by the i9505 ROM, that shouldn't be much of a problem.

[NickTheMajin]

In order phones, certain roms could lock you out of 3G or LTE. Switched from Android to iPhone years ago though so I'm not sure if its any different now.