Nexus 4 can pick up on AT&T 4G LTE via very limited Band 4
Chalk another loss up for the “Nexus 4 will never, ever gain LTE access” folks — yet another group of people have proven that notion to be utterly false. It appears that the Nexus 4’s Band 4 LTE radios are actually compatible with a very, VERY small amount of spectrum on AT&T’s network.
It appears AT&T owns the bands in a few select markets — including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Raleigh, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and more — and uses it to fill coverage in spots where needed. The coverage area for their share of the Band 4 spectrum is so small that the amount of Nexus 4 owners that might be able to access the LTE network would likely come out to 1% or less.
It’s not the wide-spread coverage we’d want, of course, but there it is. It’s likely AT&T won’t gain much more of that spectrum in the near future as T-Mobile is said to be eyeing it for deployment of its own LTE services. If that were to happen then the Nexus 4 certainly could be up and running on a major LTE network in some official capacity by 2013’s end.
AT&T users can try their luck and see if they can pick up an LTE signal just for giggles, but as it stands the coverage is so minuscule that it won’t be a practical solution for anyone at all. Have a look around XDA to see how you can go about enabling your device’s 4G LTE radios to see if your area has a sliver of 4G coverage over Band 4.
[XDA via Android Police]