What you have tried will not work,
Why?
Well because the problem is both the 3uk sim and the phone's fireware.
In my opinion this is the situation - Three uk (3 uk) checks out the firmware on most new phones as they come out for several reasons, one of them and probably the most important reason is to see how they can brand the phones to their advantage i.e. so they can control what users can do on the phones even when the phone are non 3uk branded, so in the case of simfree or unbranded phones, there is very likely code on the sim that looks for Three (3) branding code on the phone's firmware and when the two match or do not match depending on the logic of the code comparison, LTE is then turned off automatically.
I posted this (see below) on ono of the 3uk blogs and it was immediately taken down by 3uk mods because it the truth with regards to 3's attitude to it's customers and how they are treated and they do not want the 'truth' on their blogs, and as with most company and or businesses these day, the bottom line is money/profits, everything is done or not done to maximize profits for them alone and customer can moan as much as they want as that attitude is not going to change anytime soon. The bigger a company or business becomes the less they care because to them, if a few customer leave many more will come because they are that big.
In the meantime, we wait and from what i see, sony will have to come to the rescue of simfree/unbranded customers as they are the ones who we indirectly bought our phones from.
This is what i posted on the 3uk blog that was taked down by its mods --->>
"I have been watching this thread for sometime now without commenting and i have come up with these conclusions:-
(1). If you didnt buy your phone from Three or your phone is not locked to Three even though you are a Three contract customer, you will not be receiving 4G anytime soon, why? - well it's obvious -Three doesnt care about you because you never paid them for your phone.
(2). Three could have made their implementation of 4G simpler and easier like some other networks, but they chose to go the 'cheaper' route, for example with EE, you can get 4G if your phone is 4G enabled/ready without having to update your phone or wait for any software update.
(3). Three could have and can still decide to distribute their update to 4G onto their sim cards, but as it will cost them money to send new simcards out to alot of their customers, that's not a route they are willing to take.
(4). Most recent and 4G ready/enabled phones can receive 4G from other networks on their phones but not on Three, a simply way to test this is to -
- take your Three sim out of your phone and on boot without a sim card like most newish smart phone will let you do, you will see and be able to select the LTE option in your Mobile Data setting, but if you then put in your Three sim, and reboot, the LTE option disappears, so this shows that the 3G sim card you currently have is the problem.
- simply take out your Three sim and put in a EE sim and 4G will be available.
(5). When it comes to Three, its always the case, they try to control everything on your phone/device with their branding or have restrictions built into their sim cards.
(6). If you have a 4G ready/enabled phone that was never sold by Three, because it was never tested effectively by Three to allow it to work properly with their branding or are using one of those phones bought sim-free or factory unlocked from Amazon or the like, you will have a extra long long wait to get 4G on your phone, meanwhile Three is hoping that if you really want 4G, you will simply go ahead and maybe buy a 4G ready phone from them, so even though they say 4G is free to their customers, what they are not telling you and the public is - the provision of 3uk 4G will be free...but you will pay for it by either the frustration of waiting for ages for it because you bought your phone free from their branding or you will just have to go buy one of their branded 4G phones.
(7). The less Three (3uk) customers using their 4G network, the happier Three is, so they can then take their time to slowly fully upgrade their infrastructure to 4G without that much demand on their systems, whilst still claiming in all their ads that they too provide 4G for their customers, so they dont look like they are behind the 4G curve."
