Today I returned my iPhone 6 for which the lease had just run out. For the past several months I had planned on activating my iPhone 4 to use while I decided what to do about a new one. Not real impressed with the 7 but I'm still thinking it over. Anyway, I returned the 6 and asked the Sprint associate to activate my 4. He was able to get it activated seemingly without a problem but upon further investigation only calls and SMS text messages seemed to work. Trying to get web data or iMessaging returned a "you are not subscribed to a cellular data network" or words to that effect.
A network reset was performed along with re-activating the phone and a trip to an Apple store produced the same result. Finally, someone at a second Sprint store (which I had to go to anyway) told me that my plan was for 4G LTE only and even though my phone displays the 3G network icon, Sprint will not allow new access to it. I replied that I know several people still using 4's on the sprint network and she said that soon Sprint will force them off as they shut down 2G/3G services. 2G I can understand but I hadn't heard anything with regard to 3G.
I'm not saying I don't believe what I was told but just curious if anyone has any knowledge of this issue. Am I really out of luck? It just sucks to be paying for a data plan that I won't be able to use. And the fact that my phone seemingly is connected to 3G is puzzling. Also odd is the fact that only one person from Sprint seemed to know about this.
As a sideline, a few years ago I had to have this same phone re-activated after I bought and returned a 5s after a few days. Data would absolutely not work until the phone was completely restored to new.
A network reset was performed along with re-activating the phone and a trip to an Apple store produced the same result. Finally, someone at a second Sprint store (which I had to go to anyway) told me that my plan was for 4G LTE only and even though my phone displays the 3G network icon, Sprint will not allow new access to it. I replied that I know several people still using 4's on the sprint network and she said that soon Sprint will force them off as they shut down 2G/3G services. 2G I can understand but I hadn't heard anything with regard to 3G.
I'm not saying I don't believe what I was told but just curious if anyone has any knowledge of this issue. Am I really out of luck? It just sucks to be paying for a data plan that I won't be able to use. And the fact that my phone seemingly is connected to 3G is puzzling. Also odd is the fact that only one person from Sprint seemed to know about this.
As a sideline, a few years ago I had to have this same phone re-activated after I bought and returned a 5s after a few days. Data would absolutely not work until the phone was completely restored to new.