Samsung tablet s8 Ultra

[SkykingEHS]

I've had a Samsung tablet S8+ for over a year and really wanted the bigger verision the Ultra. Here in the US the Ultra is only a Wifi tablet. Over in Europe it has a SIM card slot and is able to do cellulure and wifi. I seached some websites and felt I could purchase the European tablet and make it compatible with my AT&T cellular service. I've not been successful in doing this and the buyer (Ebay) refuses to accept a return. Can anyone help me make this ATT compatible?

As a side note when I do insert the sim card into the Ultra tablet it does recognize it as a sim card, just not compatible.

SCott

 

[ocnbrze]

there is no setting that will make this happen. nor do i think root is your solution. you will have to talk to att. other than that, you are stuck with a wifi tablet only.

 

[Hadron]

When you say "not compatible" do you mean that it rejects the SIM, in which case it may be locked to a service provider, or that it accepts the SIM but just cannot connect?

If it's a service provider lock this may be tricky, since the provider might not provide unlock codes for anyone other than the original buyer (I've never bought a tablet through a service provider, and rules are likely to depend on which country it was originally sold in: some European countries do not allow provider locks at all, but where they do the policies will vary). But if that is the problem there is at least a chance: if it doesn't support the LTE bands that ATT use then there is nothing that will change that.

 

[SkykingEHS]

When you say "not compatible" do you mean that it rejects the SIM, in which case it may be locked to a service provider, or that it accepts the SIM but just cannot connect?

If it's a service provider lock this may be tricky, since the provider might not provide unlock codes for anyone other than the original buyer (I've never bought a tablet through a service provider, and rules are likely to depend on which country it was originally sold in: some European countries do not allow provider locks at all, but where they do the policies will vary). But if that is the problem there is at least a chance: if it doesn't support the LTE bands that ATT use then there is nothing that will change that.

When I don't have the SIM card in nothing appears showing that it has this capability. When I put my SIM card in from the Samsung s8+ tablet it recognizes the card, the APN settings are different. I tried to change the settings to match and it still has not worked. Hopefully someone else has been able to do something that made it work for them. I'll keep my fingers crossed

 

[svim]

Have you tried disabling 5G connectivity in your Tab Ultra's Settings menu so only 4G/LTE is usable? Europe relies upon different frequencies for its 5G network infrastructure than AT&T. The thing is, your AT&T SIM card only retains your AT&T account info, it cannot just add cellular networking support to your mobile device. it's just used to authenticate you to use their cellular network. The actual connection is done by a cellular radio chip that's permanently embedded in the logic board inside your particular tablet model. There's a functional reason as to why some mobile devices are regional, as most cellular carriers use their own types of cellular networks. When you're trying to force a branded mobile device to use a different carrier, don't be surprised when it can't be done. Especially when it involves different continents -- 5G is likely to be a problem, you 'might' possibly get LTE-only to work out as their could be some overlap in the supported 4G/LTE bands your tablet supports with the LTE bands that AT&T provides. But I wouldn't get your hopes up.

 

[Hadron]

I don't know where in Europe your tablet came from, but European frequencies are fairly uniform so I'll assume that a UK model is representative. In which case according to Samsung it should support LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28 32 and 66, while according to an ATT forum post they use bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 14, 17, 29 and 30, with 12 and 17 being the main bands. In which case you should have LTE compatibility. Samsung also claim that it should support 5G bands n5 and n77, which are used by ATT (plus others that are not).

So if the 3 sources I used here are all accurate (and that's not certain: manufacturers have themselves been known to post inaccurate information by copy-pasting between their regional sites!) you should be able to use 4G or 5G, provided you have coverage with the right bands.

You say that the APN settings change when you insert the SIM: do those settings look correct for ATT?