4g to 3g help

[Bluesb1ker]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4. I've never rooted my phone as I have some apprehension about negative consequences. I would like to be able to switch my 4g to 3g but my new phone doesn't have the option. My service provider is Verizon and all they have done is what I had already done and that is research what's out there in Google Play for 4G to 3G toggle switches. That was tech support. The reason I want to do that is because I live in a rural area and there is some indication that turning off 4g may decrease my data usage which suspiciously increased dramatically when I bought a new phone and locked into a contract that moved me from unlimited data to a 10 gig plan. My android version is 4.4. I tried one for pay app (4g switch I think) which doesn't work and the developer hasn't responded to my email. Wow! I didn't expect my initial post to be so huge... my apologies. Anyone know of an app that works for this? Thank you all. Love the forums!

 

[dezymond]

Dug up one of my older answers from a similar thread here at DF: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=42076151

Even if you switch to 3g, it shouldn't matter, data is data. The only difference is speed, so if a background app used 100mb, it doesn't matter if it was 4g or 3g. Try to find out if its a rogue app that's increasing your data usage.

 

[bbtkd]

I'd suggest downloading 3G Watchdog Pro. It monitors your wireless network usage and tells you which apps are using the bandwidth. It shows 3G and 4G (and 1x) despite the name which was selected when 3G was the hot new thing. It has a nice widget that shows your usage, it has alerts that you can set to go off at different thresholds, and many other features. You set the date which your usage resets each month so you can keep an eye on burn rate, and it estimates usage for the month based on burn rate. There is a free version you may want to try first - don't recall the differences from the standard edition.

 

[wcjeep]

You can also disable "Mobile Data". This still allows call and text.

 

[Lush.Melody]

I noticed that the others provided advice, but none answered your question about how to change the networking mode...
If you really want to turn off your 4G and test that out (which I agree with the others, it won't matter) then do the following:

Settings > "More Networks" under the "Connections" tab > Mobile Networks > Network Mode
Switch the Network mode to CDMA for plain 3G only, or keep it at LTE / CDMA for both 4G LTE and 3G speeds.

 

[dezymond]

I noticed that the others provided advice, but none answered your question about how to change the networking mode...
If you really want to turn off your 4G and test that out (which I agree with the others, it won't matter) then do the following:

Settings > "More Networks" under the "Connections" tab > Mobile Networks > Network Mode
Switch the Network mode to CDMA for plain 3G only, or keep it at LTE / CDMA for both 4G LTE and 3G speeds.

The s4 doesn't have a CDMA only option, just LTE/CDMA, Global, or GSM.

Also, OP hasn't logged in since creating this thread so hopefully his issue was resolved.

 

[Lush.Melody]

I have the S4. I just did it the way I explained while

The s4 doesn't have a CDMA only option, just LTE/CDMA, Global, or GSM.

Also, OP hasn't logged in since creating this thread so hopefully his issue was resolved.

Hopefully... But yes it does. I have an S4.

 

[jplemt]

The Verizon version only has the Lte/Cdma, Global, or GSM setting.

 

[dezymond]

I have the S4. I just did it the way I explained while


Hopefully... But yes it does. I have an S4.

Was not aware that other versions of the s4 came with the CDMA only mode. Verizon doesn't offer just CDMA unfortunately.