Buying advice- consumer cellular version

I have seen a lot of oder threads and posts about the Consumer Cellular version of the Ham2 but have not found exactly what I'm looking for... A little advice on this version.
First of all the price is right for me out his phone because I can pay the 5 in installments. The problem I'm having is :
1. I know I've seen that it is possible to upgrade the firmware and update to Lollipop but have seen varying degrees of success. This is a must for me since I'm running cm11 on my end of life Samsung and really don't want to run jellybean. Is this fairly full proof to upgrade now?
2. Is it really worth it to have this phone now that it is nearly 2 years old? I like the bigger screen in theory compared to my smaller one now. Any experiences with that aspect? Should I keep looking?
Thanks for any advice you have.

U.S. Cellular LG G3 can't send text messages or call but can use mobile data?

My LG G3 has suddenly stopped being able to send messages and call, but I can sometimes use mobile data. Every once in a while I will get a Phone Activation popup when I power on my phone but I never wait to see if it will actually do anything. When I looked at my phone info it said I didn't have a mobile number. Is this SIM card related or software? I am on 5.0.1 stock unrooted.

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Poor Cellular Reception After COI5 Firmware Update

I flashed the firmware for COI5 manually via odin and ever since then I cannot connect to LTE. Furthermore, I can barely connect to any signal. The bars show up, but it often takes a while for the 4G icon to show up. When it does, I am still not able to place a call, with Wi-Fi calling being the only hope I have to do so, but calls placed to me that way go straight to voicemail, so I have to call out from my phone.

Note: Knox is tripped, as I was rooted. I am also in an area where I alway get full bars of LTE, so location is not the issue.

Troubleshooting steps I have tried:

1. Reflashing COI5 firmware via odin.


2. Adding the LTE APN for T-Mobile.


3. Using Smart Switch to do emergency recovery.


4. Flashing BOH6 firmware (did not work as I don't believe you can downgrade firmware, was worth a shot anyways).


5. Flashing different custom ROMs (all repeated the same problem, which is how I narrowed it down to having to do with the firmware).

I am currently running completely stock at the moment. If anybody has any suggestions on what I should try next or how I can fix this, I would greatly appreciate it.