I bought a FP5 recently. I live in the southern US, so I bought it from Clove and had it shipped here. I know some people have had issues with cell signal over here, so I did some research beforehand. I checked the bands of the local cell towers, and was prepared to switch to T-Mobile.
When the phone arrived, it had all sorts of weird call/mobile data behavior, similar to what a lot of people here have reported.
When using an old Verizon SIM, I had no service. No calls, no texts, no internet.
The following happened with a new prepaid SIM from a T-Mobile MVNO, and a new proper T-Mobile SIM:
- I couldnāt get any 5G or 4G service. I did get 2G (GPRS and EDGE, can confirm both work).
- It seems to take a while for the SIM to ātakeā. I can make and recieve texts immediately, I can make calls after like 10 minutes, and I can take calls after a couple hours. (like https://old.reddit.com/r/fairphone/comments/190wwt2/does_fairphone_5_work_in_the_us_yet/kgrerm1/)
- After inserting a new SIM card and making a call, I can hear the person on the other end of the line, but they canāt hear me. If I then turn on and off the speakerphone, they can suddenly hear me.
I know all 3 SIMs work, because popping them into an old Pixel works perfectly, within seconds.
Iām using the stock Android that came on the phone, Android 14. I know everyoneās recommendation here is to use Lineage, but I was under the impression that it isnāt necessary for T-Mobile, and is less necessary for FP5.
I went through all the diagnostic steps in the Fairphone support page, messed with all of the SIM card settings, turned on & off wifi calling, lots of restarts. Manual APN settings, default APN settings. Iāve done the ##2886## thing, and it says that the hardware is working correctly.
I havenāt gone through this entire megathread, but Iāve seen a number of people report similar things. In all of those cases, something was different, like it was a FP4, or a different OS, or VoLTE, or something. Iām adding to the list that this happens on a stock FP5 with multiple cell carriers.
I ended up solving it with the help of people in this thread. Someone suggested (for a different problem) to dial *#*#2886#*#*. I saw that the āSet Preferred Network Typeā was set to āNR/LTE/GSM/WCDMAā. I changed it to āNR/LTEā to try to force to choose something other than EDGE, and it worked!
Previously in the Network & internet > SIMs > [my sim] > Preferred network type was set to 5G/4G/3G/2G, and there were no options to prevent it from choosing 2G. But now, it reports NR/LTE, just like in the secret menu.
Hope this helps someone!