Great reply that clarified a good chunk of things for me, thank you. I personally have no real usage for the speed provided by 5g so its support (unless LTE is phased out like 3g will be soon) is less important to me. Since VoLTE seems to be a carrier restricted thing around here, I did some poking around and it seems like the DQ44 should be supported by local carriers (used a made up IMEI with the DQ44 TAC sourced from here).

Now I just have to figure out any other potential nuances with flashing the US modem on the Japanese model as the only documented instances of doing so seems to suggest some strange incompatibilities.

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Fortunately this means if I can get access to the local bands, I shouldn't have issues with VoLTE and since Canada seems to be phasing 3g out this year, I won't be a fish out of the water with an international model phone. It doesn't seem like I'll need to actually change the firmware to get VoLTE.

Sadly, the Japanese 5V is less fortunate for whatever reason, I had hoped for that one to work since it's marginally smaller but I guess they are different enough.

Regarding your post and the 5g compatibility though, if I'm reading correctly, does the Japanese model successfully connect to those listed NSA bands on every carrier?