It only took me about an hour to get ICS installed on my Nexus S. Although I am on the Bell network, my phone was actually originally from Rogers (They were the first to get the Nexus S in Kelowna) I *think* that all of the Nexus S from Bell/Rogers/Telus are the same (9020A). Getting ICS onto the phone was the easy part, it was getting the radio to work that took a while. I’m not sure exaclty what I did because it just started working about 2 minutes into one of the reboots. Maybe let it sit for a while after you get the radio installed..FYI, the first time ICS boots up it takes about 5 minutes to get past the startup animation. Its a bit stressful.
I roughly followed the guide below. It’s probably best to factory reset your gingerbread install before even beginning. After resetting, I unlocked the bootloader, then installed ClockworkMod. I used the Clockwork mod to flash the ICS ROm but used fastboot to install the radio. I found that after installing ICS, I was no longer abel to see the phone from fastboot so I had to actually boot the phone into ICS and turn USB Debugging on. I was then able to flash the radio.
Also if you can’t get access to the phone through fastboot/ADB, don’t even bother trying to install. It is sential that you can shell into the phone when something goes wrong.
The detailed guide:
http://dottech.org/mobile/android/25324/how-to-update-nexus-s-to-ice-cream-sandwich-android-4-x/
The ROM I used:
http://android.clients.google.com/packages/ota/google_crespo/ZD3PyN0t.zip
The radio I used:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=687157&stc=1&d=1313224429
Good Luck!
darylchymko.ca 
10 replies on “Android 4.0 on Nexus S (Bell, Telus, Rogers)”
Awesome stuff! My friend put ICS on his galaxy S and he says it’s like a whole new phone. I’ve been looking for ICS for my Desire Z but I can’t find a complete one (one that has the gps and camera actually working and little glitches).
Guess i’m stuck with Gingerbread for now…
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I did the same thing: first the stock update then flash the radio… but now I have my nexus s with ICS. I hope Google release soon an OTA in order to fix the battery issue
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Thanks for the tips, you were pretty much right on…I followed the dot-tech guide until nearly the end, and found that I too had to turn on USB debugging to flash the radio with Fastboot. However, neither the radio from the guide or the one you linked to worked with my phone, so I had to find one from this site – http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1116884
It works great now, and Ice Cream Sandwich is amazing! Everything is so much smoother than before. I’m using the Nexus S from Telus (i9020a), from stock 2.3.6.
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Brandon: Weird that you had to use a different radio. Mine was a Nexus S from Telus(i9020a) as well. Glad to hear you got it working though!
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How do I flash the radio? I have the file originally listed, but cannot flash a .zip.. do I unzip it first? When I did so there were a number of files inside it.. I also checked the thread listed by Brandon (I’m also on a Telus Nexus S) and while I could locate my model #, there are a number of different radio firmwares available.. how do I choose the correct one? Thanks!!
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So I managed to flash the radio by removing it from the zip, and although my apn settings are appearing already filled out correctly (from my SIM I suppose), I’m not getting any bars/network
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Jaymo: I had the same problem initially It looked like it wasn’t connecting to the network. After several restarts and waiting, it finally came ‘online.’ I don’t know if it just had so spend some time searching for it or what. I’d wait and see what happens. You could also try running a manual scan for the network.
Good luck!
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Before I installed a custom radio, it was working fine on the network (calls/texts) but I could not add any APNs, even when filling in all the fields and pressing save. Now I dont see the network even though the APNs are being auto filled from my SIM… I’ll do so reboots.. thanks
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To keep anyone else apprised that may me having issues getting the radio to work, the XXKD1 from the thread mentioned by Brandon works fine with Telus.. with Fido I was getting only one bar, but that was in Orleans.
I’ll test the Fido SIM again when I get back downtown
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Jaymo: Sorry, I neglected to mention the radio file I used from the site. I used the JK1/JK8 radio. Glad to hear that more than one will work. And yeah, you have to extract the .ZIP file and flash the radio.img file.
Also, I did not wait until the radio started working, I flashed a number of different radio files and the JK1/JK8 one started working immediately. It’s possible that the other ones work if you reboot a couple times or wait for a while (like Daryl did), but I didn’t try.
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