ATT cell phone issues after switching from Verizon

I thought I would post this because it might help somebody in the future.

We have used Verizon for about ten years and have been happy. When we moved into our current neighborhood, we discovered the coverage is very poor. If we go even a half mile in any direction, the signal strength improves significantly.

Last week, we switched to ATT because people we know with ATT have no problems in our neighborhood. We bought our daughters new phones but my wife and I moved our Samsung Galaxy S6 phones over from Verizon. The girls had no problems with their new Samsung Galaxy J7 phones but my wife and I had problems with our old phones. For example, I was able to receive pictures people texted to me on my old phone using ATT but if I tried to text a picture back, it would fail every time. I called ATT and they worked on it for 30 minutes but were unable to resolve the issue. They said they sometimes run into issues with BYOD phones that they are unable to solve. I am not entirely surprised. The Android image on my S6 was tweaked for Verizon so it is easy to understand how it may not perform exactly right on ATT. In addition to the texting pictures issue, both my wife and I experienced mediocre performance most anyplace we went.

Since our daughters were not having any issues, we went back to ATT last night and got two more Samsung Galaxy J7 phones. So far, all my problems have gone away. I think ATT should have wiped my old phone and put a ATT image of Android on it but I guess there is not much incentive for them to do so. They would rather sell me a new phone.

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Originally Posted by Pinnacle-Project

I guess there is not much incentive for them to do so. They would rather sell me a new phone.

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Bingo! AT&T customer service is to make/save as much money as possible; not necessarily to solve the customer's problems.

I can tell you my own rant against Verizon: I used to live out in the country and our company used AT&T phones for all of it's employees and it worked great; able to make/receive phone calls, texts, etc. no problem. But one our vice presidents that had to deal with AT&T's customer service got p|ssed and dropped them like a sack of potatoes. So we switch over to Verizon. And service immediately went downhill from there; sometimes able to get 2 bars but usually just searching. Can't even make/receive texts which is how I get paged for service calls; a big problem. I was able use email and access internet via my house wifi but still can't receive texts. I ended up moving about 2 months later into the big city and everything's fine. The point is that Verizon works great in MOST places but they do seem to have more "dead zones" than AT&T. There were 2 cell towers within decent distance from my house in the country but Verizon wasn't on either one of them. Hell, my kids were using T-Mobile and getting 4 bars out there.

I assume the phones are AT&T-compatible.
The issue is probably with incorrect APN settings - all you need to do is create a new APN having the proper stuff - and you can find the values online.
You can't just put the ATT image on AFAIK - or not an official one. You have a VZ phone, which is a different model#, and even if it's 100% identical otherwise the update may barf since it sees a different model than what it expects.
In addition ATT/VZ/TMo/Sprint models have different bands enabled - sometimes it's just in the modem firmware, sometimes the chips may be different.
Personally I no longer buy carrier-branded phones. I buy factory unlocked and unbranded and it's guaranteed to work with all.

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Originally Posted by CeeBee

I assume the phones are AT&T-compatible.
The issue is probably with incorrect APN settings - all you need to do is create a new APN having the proper stuff - and you can find the values online

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This. I've helped a few of my buddies fix phones they've taken to straighttalk, etc. and if these settings aren't right it will do things like you're describing (texts send but pics either don't, only go one way, etc.).

I bought a Verizon Network Extender. Plugs into router. Now I have 5 bars.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CeeBee

I assume the phones are AT&T-compatible.
The issue is probably with incorrect APN settings - all you need to do is create a new APN having the proper stuff - and you can find the values online.

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That was the first thing the guy from AT&T tried. Good guess but the problem must have extended to some of your other ideas or something else.

I still direct folks with phone questions to these guys...pretty smart people at https://forum.xda-developers.com/

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Originally Posted by Pinnacle-Project

That was the first thing the guy from AT&T tried. Good guess but the problem must have extended to some of your other ideas or something else.

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Given he had ZERO incentive to fix it and the chance of making a sale, I hardly doubt he tried too much.
You have new phones now, but just for hahas try:
mmsc: http://mmsc.mobile.att.net
mms proxy: proxy.mobile.att.net
mms port: 80
apn type: default,supl,mms,hipri <<<< no spaces, just commas

if that fails try these:
MMSC http://mmsc.cingular.com <<< yes that is correct, att bought cingular and in some areas they may still use the settings
MMS Proxy 66.209.11.32
MMS Port 80