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T-mobile iPhone 4 "not available in your area?"

iPhonemaster5S

iPhonemaster5S

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
356
67
Colorado
So I was just recently on T-mobile's website and after giving my zip code and looking at the iPhone's only the 5 was "available in your area". Is there even any reason for this? If you bought an unlocked iPhone and brought it to T-mobile that would work right?
 
Maybe you only have decent HSPDA+ or LTE coverage in your area? The iPhone 4 supports neither.
 
iPhonemaster5S said:
So I was just recently on T-mobile's website and after giving my zip code and looking at the iPhone's only the 5 was "available in your area". Is there even any reason for this? If you bought an unlocked iPhone and brought it to T-mobile that would work right?
Click to expand...

1900mhz refarming (4G) hasn't happened yet in your area.

If u have Iphone4, it would be stuck on 2G until the refarming is done.

T-Mobile doesn't want to sell a customer a phone that only work on 2G.
 
Use this tool, and zoom in down to the specific street level, and see what it shows.

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx/

If it's all very light green, or even yellow, then you likely would pick up very slow 2G service at best.

I know you think it's strange that they won't sell you a iP4, but if you think about it, it's rather commendable of them to not want to sell you something just for the sake of selling it to you, and then you hating the service cause it's so slow/unusable with that device.
 
There's really no point buying an iPhone 4 anyway. It's a product that's essentially at the end of its useful life. Unless you already have an unlocked one and can't afford anything better I seriously would not go near an iPhone 4.
 
Yeah Tmobile doesn't sell the 4 or 4s in markets that haven't been refarmed yet. It's to prevent angry customers who would be stuck with a 2G only iPhone.
 
iDominic said:
No 4 or 4S in my area either D:. And on the coverage map it shows I have Excellent to Very Strong Coverage.
Click to expand...

The coverage maps show AWS coverage on the 1700/2100 bands. The iPhone 4 and 4S do not support these bands, they only support 3G on the 1900 band which Tmobile has only rolled out in certain metro areas. Tmobile doesn't have public coverage maps to show the 3G coverage that is supported by the iPhone 4 and 4S.

The iPhone 5 is the only one that has all the frequencies necessary to access all of Tmobiles network and you can use the coverage maps for.
 
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