Hi, I’ve been following this behind the scenes but thought my experience might be helpful… Not sure if I should just start my own thread to list these findings, but feel free to pin this here if its useful.
In downtown Denver (now has an extensive 5G buildout), I’ve been on a 4G LTE then 5G Unlimited plan through an AT&T MVNO (reseller) for the past 5 years. Swapping the SIM from a simple hotspot to Netgear M1 (4G LTE) then the M5 and M6 Pro (5G) I always received the expected 4/5G service.
I bought the Spitz 5G, verified its the latest firmware, swapped over my SIM, but cannot access any 5G towers with it.
I’ve exhaustively tested every possible combination of the following IMEI’s and APNs, with TTL’s 64 & 65, and band locking to either only LTE or 5G bands, both with factory Spitz 5G antennas and a Parsec 5G Husky antenna. I restarted the device between each change.
IMEI’s from my:
- Spitz 5G (initial IMEI)
- Netgear M5 & M6
- iPad Pro Gen 5 (cellular)
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+
- randomly online generated IMEI for an unlocked latest iPad (cellular model)
APN’s:
- “broadband”, “BROADBAND”
- “nrbroadband”, “NRBROADBAND”
- “phone”, “PHONE”
- “enhancedphone”, “ENHANCEDPHONE”
- “nxtgenphone”, “NTXGENPHONE”, "nxtgenphone ", "NTXGENPHONE "
(with trailing space as recommended by my MVNO tech)
In my findings the IMEI, the TTL and antenna’s don’t make a difference in access.
“broadband” is the only APN that works at all, but won’t access 5G bands.
The other APN’s left me with the “connecting” banner, and with any of them if I prevented LTE band access, they had the banner “SIM card unregistered.”
I assumed my $120/mo MVNO plan was the “tablet plan”, but to be sure I signed up directly for the $20 “AT&T Unlimited Tablet” plan with my iPad IMEI, and tried that SIM card in the Spitz 5G with the extensive combinations listed above. Same findings, but I learned I can save $100/mo for the 4G LTE I’m getting…
Both my MVNO and the AT&T phone reps and in store reps assured me that all of these plans included 5G service, if the SIM was in a device that had a 5G modem. They also all seemed to verify that the IMEI doesn’t matter, and confirmed my plans were still fully active - not blacklisted - and 5G ready after trying all of those IMEI combinations.
- Additionally, against common expectation, a TTL of 64 doesn’t mean traffic is considered “hotspot” usage. TTL 64 or 65 both work directly against my standard “unlimited” data, no the 10gb capped hotspot data I have for the tablet plan.
I swapped both SIMs through my other devices and confirmed continued 5G band access on those, using just the “broadband” APN on my M5/6.
My last ditch effort will be to buy another Spitz 5G on Amazon, to see if my new device is just faulty, and use the Amazon return policy if it acts the same.
It seems like maybe some people above were able to, but can someone directly again confirm any 5G band access to AT&T towers with the Spitz 5G? If so, what plan name, APN and IMEI are you using?
Following that, has anyone gotten 5G band access with the AT&T “tablet” plans?
I wonder if there just aren’t AT&T devices that use the RM520 x62 chip, or at least no “tablets” that do, so they weed out that plan usage some other way…