When the Nexus 4 was announced as next Android flagship, there was no mention of any 4G/LTE support. Then, when the phone came out mid-November, there was, again, no LTE support again – not very surprisingly, though, since supporting 4G would have essentially meant manufacturing multiple versions of the device to make it agreeable for all the different 4G bands around the globe – an approach that Apple had to adopt with the iPhone 5. LG, however, decided to avoid going down that road, and hence, Nexus 4 stuck to the plain old 3G bands.
All of this had been fairly true until iFixit decided to take a peek at the innards of LG/Google Nexus 4. It turns out that the smartphone actually features a baseband chip that can handle some LTE networks, but officially, the capability was not provided. Specifically, the baseband radio in Nexus 4 supports those cellular operators that broadcast LTE signal in a spectrum falling in Band 4. From a layman point of view, this shortens down the list to Telus, Rogers and Bell in Canada, while AT&T in some regions of the United States.
This whole discussion, however, seems rather pointless, considering that the phone does not support LTE in the first place, even if it comes with capable hardware. The good news, however, is that the guys over at XDA-Developers have managed to “unlock” the LTE support in Nexus 4, and should you be rocking a device on one of carriers mentioned above, it’s just a matter of punching a few numbers in the device to get LTE up and running.
Please do remember that you follow these instructions at your own discretion. We won’t be responsible for anything going wrong as a consequence.
Procedure
Step 1: Go the the dialer on your Nexus 4
Step 2: Enter this code to get to Phone info
*#*#4636#*#*
Step 3: In Set preferred network type, change the selection to “LTE/GSM/CDMA auto (PRL)”
That’s it. You will lose signal for a moment, after which it will reconnect to the 4G LTE band. Enjoy the improved speeds!
Do keep in mind that Nexus 4 was not fitted with a 4G signal amplifier, so you may experience poor network performance. Reverting back is as easy as repeating the process, and set the preferred network type to GSM only. For further information, assistance or general discussion regarding LTE performance on Nexus 4, check out the source forum thread below.
(Source XDA-Developers)
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