I posted a while ago my issues with regarding getting Tracfone to work with Brax3. Others have got it to work and mentioned that you need a Tracfone SIM card for T-mobile. Tracfone can do Verizon (the default), or T-mobile. It also has been mentioned that a dual sim kit is the one you want. When I went to Tracfone’s website they only had one option for “Bring Your Own Phone” SIM kits. I bought one and I was surprised to find it only had one sim in it for Verizon, but I didn’t realize it was for Verizon at the time of ordering.
When I tried to activate it, the site said my phone was not compatible and offered to sell me another SIM. So I did (but why didn’t they do this in the first place or give you an OPTION). But the order laged and took them two weeks to actually send it. The first card was here in two days. When I got the card it was T-Mobile, activated it without issue this time. However, when inserted into my Brax3 (powered off, inserted then powered on) it said no service. Tried rebooting and several other tricks but no go. Called Tracfone and got bounced around for a while. At one point they said my coverage was not good here. BUT I have a hotspot on T-mobile (using USMobile) so I KNOW it works here.
Eventually they said there must be a problem with the SIM and opened a ticket to send me another (it took almost two hours and three people to get to this point). Well this was on Nov 26th. Three weeks later still no SIM. I contacted and they checked the ticket saying it would be here that Thrus or Fri. Well Thrus and Fri came and went. Nothing. Came and went again. Nothing.
At this point I pulled the SIM from my hotspot, stuck it in my Brax3 and it worked fine proving the phone itself didn’t have a issue.
Rather than calling Tracfone again I went on Amazon and found a 3-in-one SIM kit for $7. It mentioned 3 networks (although as far as I know they only do two). So I took a chance and ordered it.
Well it came, I activated SIM B (odd the cards don’t say what network they are for unlike the other single SIM kits which also don’t say they are single or for what network until you OPEN them), and installed it in my Brax3. But I had the same issue. No network etc. I rebooted the phone several times (and installed the SIM with the phone off) to no avail. I played with a bunch of settings and eventually I:
Turned the SIM off and back on via the big switch at the top in:
Settings\network\sims\home
(at least it is called HOME by default on my Brax3 and you can change that).
And it lit up with a network, got the phone number, and texts came in welcoming me to Tracfone!
BUT it wouldn’t access internet via Mobile data.
I played with the APN settings in:
Settings\network\sims\home\apn
and this worked:
AUTH_TYPE None
MMSC http://TF.mmsmvno.com/mms/wapenc
MMS_APN_TYPE default,mms,supl
NAME TRACFONE
APN wap.tracfone
NOTE For the MMS APN type, by default it has several other types in there, make sure you get rid of the extra or I doubt it will work.
I also set it to LTE prefered network type
While Tracfone has a site to find out the APN and insert your phone number or SIM number ( APN Settings & Programming Instructions - Tracfone ), while it is suppose to configure your phone for you. It doesn’t. Or at least nothing happened for me. They do have Text APN to 611611 to set the APN, it also fails to actually DO it.
Also when I tried to enter the above manually I kept getting a error that it was a duplicate APN entry. Eventually I deleted the two APN settings that were there via the 3 dots top right and added my own via the + on the top right. That worked.
In summary, make sure you get the dual or 3-in-one SIM kits, use SIM B card, and if you have problems turn the SIM card OFF and ON in the settings. Also delete all APN settings before you enter the ones above and it should work.
Sad that Tracfone customer service is so lousy these days (in years past they were always on it and fixed anything fast when I had a issue). The actual talking to the people went fine (no waiting etc at least but I did get bounced to a couple of reps with more access), but getting the card was a royal pain. In short don’t go to their website, go somewhere else for the cards. Also don’t bother calling them if it doesn’t work, just get another card. Although now I wonder if the other T-mobile card would work now if I turned the SIM off and on. But I am not willing to pay for another activation and try it when this FINALLY works.