AT&T makes you update phones over wifi

[Tamarind]

Even if you have unlimited phone data, AT&T makes phone customers do some updates over wifi. I believe Samsung has cooperated with AT&T to disable other possibilities on some or all phones they sell through AT&T. Also, my phone connection with AT&T is often unacceptable. That may vary by your phone plan, but it is not okay.

I'd recommend people not use AT&T as a phone service provider unless they fix these things. Samsung should not help AT&T remove safer update options from their phones. Too bad, as AT&T may have nice stores and better staff than some places.

[Yamialex224]

I don't know what carriers let you use your data to update your phone
T mobile I had to use wifi
Verizon I had to use wifi
Google Fi had to use wifi
Cricket had to use wifi

[Tamarind]

When were those?

[arrstin]

Also, AT&T are very protective of their firmware. You almost cannot find it anywhere on the internet. I guess it is so people cannot change it and add malicious things to it when people want to add custom or manually re-flash their phones using "Odin". It's too bad, though. The other big brands give out their firmware and there doesn't seem to be a big deal about it.

[useriKfoZNmZ84]

If you're using an iPhone, you can still restore with iTunes, but you'll need to put the device in recovery mode first if locked to AT&T.

[ironside2012]

I'm pretty sure all the cellphone carriers make you do software updates through wifi. It's for stability purposes

[Tamarind]

That wasn't my experience until about half a year ago when I started with AT&T.

[Ghost315]

I have att and I've found that if you decline the update long enough it will update on its own over mobile data.

[useriKfoZNmZ84]

Same thing to iPhone as well, except only cellular services (including UWB) and Apple Pay will be disabled if you decline the update long enough or if it fails too many times.