CA disabled in Samsung Galaxy M42 5G

[Varun969]

As advised by Samsung support team I finally visited the Samsung authorized service center located at Samsung Opera House, Bangalore on 30 Jun 2021 (after lockdown restrictions eased off in Bangalore). Handed over my Samsung Galaxy M42 5G phone to Service technician informing the network issue, CA issue and my interaction with Customer Support.

The service center is well organized and got my turn after a wait of 2 hours. The service center engineer took about 45 to 50 minutes to flash new software. But the sad part is that there is no improvement in the phone. The network speed is almost 1/3 in comparison to a Samsung Galaxy C9 pro as well as Readme 7 pro.

To my utter surprise the service engineer himself was not familiar with Carrier Aggregatin(CA) concept and feature. The service mode number *#0011# did respond with CA-Not Config 0 0 on this Samsung M425G phone but with different status on his samsung phone.

He has confirmed that there is a software lock on this phone and as this has been reported by many users with Samsung they will release a patch to rectify the problem soon. He also promised to revert back by Monday ( i.e. by 5 Jul 21 ) on the status.

I sincerely feel I am been deceived by Samsung dispatching a locked product while many users in market as well the phones in their showroom do have CA enabled and functions with higher internet speed. May I request you to recall this defective unit and replace an fully functional unit in lieu else refund the product money to enable me to purchase an alternate product.

[Varun969]

Would it take more than a month to attend the customer redressal. I had alarmed Samsung Support Team on 10 May 21 and being following with them on tele-support as we had lockdown the entire month. Visited to the only main biggest authorized Service Centre in Bangalore but no positive luck. Hence I have written to their service head to recall this unit and replace a functional unit or to refund money.

[Chaman17]

Yeah, it might take a month. They seem to be very complacent,and we have a pandemic situation as well. But if you explain your problem appropriately, they should replace the device within a month's time. They won't refund money, though.

[Varun969]

As suggested I tried resetting network and also putting the phone on Airplane mode, restarting the unit. There is no change.
As regards to replacement I have no issues and has been talking to Samsung online support team from day 1 they are not serious of this.

[Chaman17]

Yeah, they wouldn't accept any of the problems. I would suggest you to do the following, but it's upto you whether you want to do it or not, just a recommendation.
1. Take a backup of your files and factory reset the device.
2. You might get a software update within a week' s or a month's time. You can wait for that.
3. Phone is not that old. Contact service centre and customer support immediately, explaining your problem and state that even after formatting the phone several times, the problem persists. You might argue with them, force/compel too (it's unethical, but still). Just as you showed me the ss of 4g+ in your other devices, give them a live demonstration as well.
I hope they would replace it.

[Varun969]

I did try the above steps while I visited the service center. Surprisingly I had to educate the service engineer about CA. Demonstrated the feature both on Samsung C9 pro as well as Samsung M425G. He also on the view that though they flashed new software the unit is still CA locked. Surprisingly there was an update from Samsung on this phone fixing some known bugs but did not do any changes to network or CA issue. The update was dated 1 May 21 Android Security Update patch.

[Chaman17]

Ohh man!
Pathetic. How can a service engineer not know about ca??
You literally have done all the steps.
Just replace the device, dude. There is no other option imo.

[Varun969]

Friend...The million dollar question who will bell the cat? Despite posting on Samsung Members, tagging all possible Grey heads of Samsung, writing emails as well interacting to Samsung Customer Care over phone nothing has changed. Probably the last course of action is to escalate my issue with Consumers forum and also protect other fellow members from being cheated any further.

[Chaman17]

Yeah man! It's a serious problem. If you aren't getting any suitable response from Customer Care, then you should move over to consumers forum. You can also make a # on twitter, a thread of users facing this issue; it might be helpful. Just do it within 6 months or so, otherwise after that, nobody won't/can't do anything.

[Chaman17]

Also, do another thing. I know it might be frustrating for you, but still.
Download Samsung Band Selection from Playstore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ray.samsungbandselection
Install and configure your network bands. It's a bit technical, so I would highly suggest you to look in google and youtube to make the application work.
I see from the above ss that you have a jio sim. Select LTE bands B3 and see if there is any change. Subsequently, select B5 and try.
Then B40. Individually select these bands and see if there's any change.

[Varun969]

The Netmonster app does have the band select and other features as per the link post above. I had tried all of them beforehand and found to be of no help as this phone is locked for (CA disabled ). I had to use the same features on Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro as well as Realme 7 pro ( all using Jio prepaid Sim) and found CA enabled and multiple frequencies being tracked.