Isn’t it awesome when a smartphone manufacturer comes up with a really interesting feature, only to have it crippled by your wireless provider? That’s what has happened to the Samsung Galaxy S5’s “download booster” functionality that simultaneously pairs available WiFi and LTE service for more rapid downloads. It’s an interesting feature, but one to which AT&T, Verizon and Sprint customers won’t have access, at least at launch.

The latest in the wildly popular Galaxy line of devices comes out today, but earlier this week Android Police noticed that the download boost feature was missing from display versions of the phone, and Fierce Wireless has confirmed with both Verizon and Sprint that the S5s they sell to customers will not include access to the boost functionality.

So far, none of these providers have offered a specific explanation about why they are blocking access to download booster, though AT&T did tell Fierce that “We are evaluating Samsung’s download booster feature. We thoroughly test new software, features and functionality to ensure that it meets our standards for a quality user experience.”

Thus, it seems possible that this feature could be enabled in later software updates.

T-Mobile appears to be the only of the four major carriers to allow this feature on the S5. We’ve reached out to T-Mo to confirm that it will indeed not be disabling download boost on the phones it sells; if/when we hear back, we’ll update here.

UPDATE: A T-Mobile spokesperson confirmed to Consumerist that it will indeed be including the download booster feature on the S5s it sells to customers.

[via DSLreports]

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