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Not really. There have always been smartphones that supported both GSM and CDMA. The three major carriers not only use different LTE bands, but also Verizon and

Not really. There have always been smartphones that supported both GSM and CDMA. The three major carriers not only use different LTE bands, but also Verizon and shortly AT&T (in February) have adopted a whitelist model where only select handsets can be activated on their networks. It's a much less open marketplace than it was five years ago.

petra 5y ago
How is this legal?
- basilgohar 5y ago
  Ask Ajit Pai.
- mdasen 5y ago
  This doesn't really go into how it's legal, but the situation around VoLTE has been difficult. It hasn't just been every phone working perfectly. Beyond that, it's possible to buy a phone that sort-of works. For example, let's say that you're an AT&T customer and AT&T has 700MHz, 850MHz, 1900MHz, 1700MHz, and 2300MHz spectrum. You buy some foreign phone that supports 1900MHz. Great, now you're running a device that won't have coverage everywhere that AT&T has coverage. You're running a device that won't be using the full AT&T network and your speeds will be really slow compared to devices that fully support the network. You go somewhere with friends and you're like, "AT&T never works when I leave <city-name>!" Except that AT&T isn't the problem - you're the problem. You complain that your device is always slow and how AT&T is crap - but it's your device that's the problem. Semi-compatible devices are just terrible for network operators. Let's say that AT&T wants to move that 1900MHz spectrum to 5G - but now you have a device that will stop working. Do they need to reach out to you? Do they need to offer you an upgrade? Sure, you and 90% of people would be like, "I knew what I was getting in for and it's my problem." But omg the 10% of people that will yell and scream and the meetings you'll need to have with regulators and the delays in your plans and the free devices you'll offer them as part of a settlement and all the mailings and admin. Offering tech support isn't cheap and it's more expensive when you're dealing with random crap from users. Now you have some rep on the phone who doesn't totally know what they're talking about trying to figure out why they're getting bad coverage on their kid's device while their device has good coverage. They don't want to hear, "well, you shouldn't have bought some POS off Amazon that isn't even meant for the US market." They're going to say that it's a compatible phone - compatible being a black/white issue, not something that's only partly compatible and will technically get coverage 80% of the time, but even then won't be able to use most of the network. Part of it is a cultural thing. Americans are willing to accept that companies are evil and don't allow something. You'll go online and say, "how is this legal" and then go back to your life and the company has spent no money on you. But once something is allowed, there's no concept of "we'll allow this, but you're on your own if anything goes wrong and we'll charge your account $100 if you call us for support." Once you've been accepted as a paying customer, you (and by you, I mean at least 10% of the people who will do that) will demand the same premium service for your dollar. "AT&T only allows certain phones." Ok, companies are crap, but we're all used to that. If they allow you to put a crappy device on their network, there's so much bad word of mouth, regulator crap, support complaints, etc. I'm not saying the world should be this way, but it certainly is. So many restrictions that exist are there because the company loses almost nothing from the restriction while the pain in the ass they receive from not having that restriction simply isn't worth it. Keep that in mind when thinking about why companies do things that seem to have no benefit. A bunch of people were likely a complete pain in the ass over something that was the customer's fault, but that the company ultimately had to deal with. And I think the big area is foreign phones. Phones made for the US that have the right network support for the carrier are good to have. Someone grabs a Galaxy A32 meant for non-US markets (rather than the A32 5G) and it doesn't support bands 12/13/17 which are the main coverage bands for T-Mobile/Verizon/AT&T. It does support bands 2 and 5 and AT&T and Verizon probably have ok coverage in cities with band 2, but in-building coverage will be worse and speeds will be slow. I think they have some band 5 LTE, but they weren't necessarily anticipating that being one of the bands customers would really be relying on. And now there's an angry customer, spreading their anger to their friends, tying up support resources and costing you money, using your network inefficiently, and demanding that the carrier fix the situation and the only way you can fix the situation is basically by giving them a free phone. In terms of how it's legal, spectrum licenses didn't come with open access requirements. The one exception was Verizon's 700MHz licenses. Except that Verizon kinda redefined open-access to mean that they wouldn't lock their phones - not that you could use any phone you wanted on their network. Google had pushed for the open access requirements, but a decade later Google didn't care and regulators didn't care.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    Is it really so hard for them to spend 30 seconds explaining this to users? It's not exactly rocket science, right? They could literally send a text when they notice a new incompatible device like this appearing on a line (and maybe periodically, like once every year or something): "Hi, this is a free SMS from AT&T. We noticed you're trying to use a Galaxy A32 phone on our network. Unfortunately this phone doesn't support some of our bands (12/13/17), so you might experience poor or no coverage in some situations. We recommend you upgrade your phone, otherwise you might run into issues. If you have any questions, please call our representatives at 1-800-288-2020." You'd think they could automatically annotate these accounts with a little note for the next customer service rep so they're aware of this possible issue if the customer calls. Then users won't be confused as to why their coverage is poor, but they can still use their devices if they really want to. Why is it so hard for companies to communicate honestly and openly? Why do they prefer to let others stay in the dark and make problems 10x harder for everyone instead? Isn't it kind of unreasonable to expect customers to be "understanding" of problems when they don't put in an honest effort into helping them understand the problems?
    - jimmies 5y ago
      Perhaps because it's not easy to do so? Now you have to have a database of a million phones from Shenzhen that you need to keep track of whether it has your bands. Who's gonna pay for their QA and know what phone manufacturers are doing what with their phones?
      - dataflow 5y ago
        Not really. Nobody's swearing under penalty of perjury here, 100.000% accuracy is very much not a requirement. I think a best-effort list would go an insanely long way, and carriers already have large IMEI->model mappings for a lot of phones all over the world. And there are already gazillions of random websites with databases of model->band mappings out there too. And in the absolute worst case where they see a device they have zero clue about they could at least give a slightly different message like "we don't know if this is supported, but please be aware [...]" or whatever, and annotate their profile for the rep accordingly. Again: perfection is not required here.
- eru 5y ago
  What law do you think it would violate?
acwan93 5y ago
By select handsets, I assume any big name handset, e.g. iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy, would be allowed, but a no-name handset wouldn't be allowed? Isn't this similar to the pre-iPhone days, when if you brought an overseas GSM phone you had to go through some hoops to get it activated with Cingular/T-Mobile? I remember getting handsets from China and Europe and the reseller would have to circumvent something to get it activated on the networks.
- Causality1 5y ago
  Generally, but with a lot of exceptions and weirdness. For example, my OnePlus 6 is not supported, but if I modify my IMEI and APN those "impossible" features like VoLTE suddenly start working. Before they stopped automatic activation, I could put my SIM out of a supported phone, put it in an unsupported one, and those features would work for between fifteen minutes and a couple of hours. On the other hand, some handsets that are blatantly missing LTE bands are on the whitelist, such as the Chinese Oneplus 8T.
  - oneplane 5y ago
    Keep in mind that supported and features are not the same. Even if it technically can work doesn't mean that the provider wants to support it. Sometimes it's a simple as simply not having put the device through the testing process yet, or it simply hasn't been documented. And until it has, they don't want to risk any service costs so they simply don't whitelist it when the user base is insignificant enough.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      That argument sounds good until you remember T-Mobile, a company with less than half the annual revenue of AT&T, has absolutely no problem servicing any device with the proper frequency bands.
      - oneplane 5y ago
        Servicing does not equal support. It doesn't get more direct than that.
pasquinelli 5y ago
yeah, i was recently burned by this.
fullstop 5y ago
That's why I left AT&T. They shut off my daughter's phone, without warning, in the middle of the night because it wasn't whitelisted. Their whitelist is utterly arbitrary, and even brand new phones are not on the list if they happen to be an international version. They explicitly state that certain models of the Samsung Galaxy S20 are not whitelisted. As for my daughter, she was under the impression that she had until February of 2022 to replace her phone, but it was disconnected five months earlier than anticipated. I'm now with T-Mobile and satisfied. For my location it has better coverage than AT&T did, is significantly faster, and I have unlimited data.
hk1337 5y ago
AT&T and Verizon started with CDMA then converted to GSM later while T-Mobile started out GSM only via VoiceStream the then inherited CDMA.

petra 5y ago

How is this legal?

basilgohar 5y ago
Ask Ajit Pai.
mdasen 5y ago
This doesn't really go into how it's legal, but the situation around VoLTE has been difficult. It hasn't just been every phone working perfectly. Beyond that, it's possible to buy a phone that sort-of works. For example, let's say that you're an AT&T customer and AT&T has 700MHz, 850MHz, 1900MHz, 1700MHz, and 2300MHz spectrum. You buy some foreign phone that supports 1900MHz. Great, now you're running a device that won't have coverage everywhere that AT&T has coverage. You're running a device that won't be using the full AT&T network and your speeds will be really slow compared to devices that fully support the network. You go somewhere with friends and you're like, "AT&T never works when I leave <city-name>!" Except that AT&T isn't the problem - you're the problem. You complain that your device is always slow and how AT&T is crap - but it's your device that's the problem. Semi-compatible devices are just terrible for network operators. Let's say that AT&T wants to move that 1900MHz spectrum to 5G - but now you have a device that will stop working. Do they need to reach out to you? Do they need to offer you an upgrade? Sure, you and 90% of people would be like, "I knew what I was getting in for and it's my problem." But omg the 10% of people that will yell and scream and the meetings you'll need to have with regulators and the delays in your plans and the free devices you'll offer them as part of a settlement and all the mailings and admin. Offering tech support isn't cheap and it's more expensive when you're dealing with random crap from users. Now you have some rep on the phone who doesn't totally know what they're talking about trying to figure out why they're getting bad coverage on their kid's device while their device has good coverage. They don't want to hear, "well, you shouldn't have bought some POS off Amazon that isn't even meant for the US market." They're going to say that it's a compatible phone - compatible being a black/white issue, not something that's only partly compatible and will technically get coverage 80% of the time, but even then won't be able to use most of the network. Part of it is a cultural thing. Americans are willing to accept that companies are evil and don't allow something. You'll go online and say, "how is this legal" and then go back to your life and the company has spent no money on you. But once something is allowed, there's no concept of "we'll allow this, but you're on your own if anything goes wrong and we'll charge your account $100 if you call us for support." Once you've been accepted as a paying customer, you (and by you, I mean at least 10% of the people who will do that) will demand the same premium service for your dollar. "AT&T only allows certain phones." Ok, companies are crap, but we're all used to that. If they allow you to put a crappy device on their network, there's so much bad word of mouth, regulator crap, support complaints, etc. I'm not saying the world should be this way, but it certainly is. So many restrictions that exist are there because the company loses almost nothing from the restriction while the pain in the ass they receive from not having that restriction simply isn't worth it. Keep that in mind when thinking about why companies do things that seem to have no benefit. A bunch of people were likely a complete pain in the ass over something that was the customer's fault, but that the company ultimately had to deal with. And I think the big area is foreign phones. Phones made for the US that have the right network support for the carrier are good to have. Someone grabs a Galaxy A32 meant for non-US markets (rather than the A32 5G) and it doesn't support bands 12/13/17 which are the main coverage bands for T-Mobile/Verizon/AT&T. It does support bands 2 and 5 and AT&T and Verizon probably have ok coverage in cities with band 2, but in-building coverage will be worse and speeds will be slow. I think they have some band 5 LTE, but they weren't necessarily anticipating that being one of the bands customers would really be relying on. And now there's an angry customer, spreading their anger to their friends, tying up support resources and costing you money, using your network inefficiently, and demanding that the carrier fix the situation and the only way you can fix the situation is basically by giving them a free phone. In terms of how it's legal, spectrum licenses didn't come with open access requirements. The one exception was Verizon's 700MHz licenses. Except that Verizon kinda redefined open-access to mean that they wouldn't lock their phones - not that you could use any phone you wanted on their network. Google had pushed for the open access requirements, but a decade later Google didn't care and regulators didn't care.
- dataflow 5y ago
  Is it really so hard for them to spend 30 seconds explaining this to users? It's not exactly rocket science, right? They could literally send a text when they notice a new incompatible device like this appearing on a line (and maybe periodically, like once every year or something): "Hi, this is a free SMS from AT&T. We noticed you're trying to use a Galaxy A32 phone on our network. Unfortunately this phone doesn't support some of our bands (12/13/17), so you might experience poor or no coverage in some situations. We recommend you upgrade your phone, otherwise you might run into issues. If you have any questions, please call our representatives at 1-800-288-2020." You'd think they could automatically annotate these accounts with a little note for the next customer service rep so they're aware of this possible issue if the customer calls. Then users won't be confused as to why their coverage is poor, but they can still use their devices if they really want to. Why is it so hard for companies to communicate honestly and openly? Why do they prefer to let others stay in the dark and make problems 10x harder for everyone instead? Isn't it kind of unreasonable to expect customers to be "understanding" of problems when they don't put in an honest effort into helping them understand the problems?
  - jimmies 5y ago
    Perhaps because it's not easy to do so? Now you have to have a database of a million phones from Shenzhen that you need to keep track of whether it has your bands. Who's gonna pay for their QA and know what phone manufacturers are doing what with their phones?
    - dataflow 5y ago
      Not really. Nobody's swearing under penalty of perjury here, 100.000% accuracy is very much not a requirement. I think a best-effort list would go an insanely long way, and carriers already have large IMEI->model mappings for a lot of phones all over the world. And there are already gazillions of random websites with databases of model->band mappings out there too. And in the absolute worst case where they see a device they have zero clue about they could at least give a slightly different message like "we don't know if this is supported, but please be aware [...]" or whatever, and annotate their profile for the rep accordingly. Again: perfection is not required here.
eru 5y ago
What law do you think it would violate?

acwan93 5y ago

By select handsets, I assume any big name handset, e.g. iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy, would be allowed, but a no-name handset wouldn't be allowed? Isn't this similar to the pre-iPhone days, when if you brought an overseas GSM phone you had to go through some hoops to get it activated with Cingular/T-Mobile? I remember getting handsets from China and Europe and the reseller would have to circumvent something to get it activated on the networks.

Causality1 5y ago
Generally, but with a lot of exceptions and weirdness. For example, my OnePlus 6 is not supported, but if I modify my IMEI and APN those "impossible" features like VoLTE suddenly start working. Before they stopped automatic activation, I could put my SIM out of a supported phone, put it in an unsupported one, and those features would work for between fifteen minutes and a couple of hours. On the other hand, some handsets that are blatantly missing LTE bands are on the whitelist, such as the Chinese Oneplus 8T.
- oneplane 5y ago
  Keep in mind that supported and features are not the same. Even if it technically can work doesn't mean that the provider wants to support it. Sometimes it's a simple as simply not having put the device through the testing process yet, or it simply hasn't been documented. And until it has, they don't want to risk any service costs so they simply don't whitelist it when the user base is insignificant enough.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    That argument sounds good until you remember T-Mobile, a company with less than half the annual revenue of AT&T, has absolutely no problem servicing any device with the proper frequency bands.
    - oneplane 5y ago
      Servicing does not equal support. It doesn't get more direct than that.

pasquinelli 5y ago

yeah, i was recently burned by this.

fullstop 5y ago

That's why I left AT&T. They shut off my daughter's phone, without warning, in the middle of the night because it wasn't whitelisted. Their whitelist is utterly arbitrary, and even brand new phones are not on the list if they happen to be an international version. They explicitly state that certain models of the Samsung Galaxy S20 are not whitelisted. As for my daughter, she was under the impression that she had until February of 2022 to replace her phone, but it was disconnected five months earlier than anticipated. I'm now with T-Mobile and satisfied. For my location it has better coverage than AT&T did, is significantly faster, and I have unlimited data.

hk1337 5y ago

AT&T and Verizon started with CDMA then converted to GSM later while T-Mobile started out GSM only via VoiceStream the then inherited CDMA.