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T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

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Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#41

Post by metaphor »

axiolite wrote: post #35
mdasen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly about drama around Boost Mobile. T-Mobile wanted to shut down their CDMA network on January 1, 2022. Boost (now owned by Dish) doesn't want to upgrade users that have handsets that don't work with VoLTE. Upgrading users involves sending them notices, giving them options of free handsets, shipping those handsets, getting the users to actually activate them, etc. While T-Mobile gave Boost nearly double t…

> T-Mobile gave Boost nearly double the required time, Boost complained that it wasn't enough The CPUC says T-Mobile representatives lied under oath. They claimed that Dish would have until 2023 to migrate customers off of the CDMA network. T-Mobile is facing sanctions because of it: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M398/K955/... Not a long read.

The hearing was scheduled for 2021-09-20, over two months ago. Any idea what the outcome was?

I tried poking around here[1], but CPUC public discoverability is up there with the worst of enterprise...never mind that a decision/resolution/ruling/general order all sound roughly asymptotic to a non-lawyer.

[1] https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#42

Post by mdasen »

toast0 wrote: post #33
mdasen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a hard question to give a definitive answer to. In many ways, the answer is "no". However, as with most things in tech, there are always edge cases. Sprint's network (which T-Mobile bought and is integrating into the T-Mobile network) never went fully VoLTE (voice over LTE) so if you had a phone that didn't support CDMA voice and you were on the Sprint network experience and you traveled to one of the rare are…

> By the time the iPhone 15 launches in fall 2023, CDMA will be quite dead. Perhaps in the US, but CDMA is used elsewhere too. In several countries in the recent past, fixed wireless CDMA operators (intended for home phone lines) started operating mobile handsets. Those places may not be on the upgrade path to LTE anytime soon, because of expense.

This is one of those "but actually" things that always happens (and why I can't give a straight answer and why I should have hedged that statement as well). The question was about the US and Apple and I responded about the US and Apple, but I should have know I'd get a "but actually" if I didn't hedge everything.

I don't know what country/network you're talking about, but it looks like Uzbekistan might be the only country that's valid for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CDMA2000_networks

Beeline Armenia doesn't have a shutdown date, they also have GSM/UMTS/LTE service and their CDMA network is at 450MHz which the iPhone has never supported. MPT has an LTE service. That leaves Perfectum Mobile in Uzbekistan which looks like it's still heavy in CDMA. Uzmobile also seems to run CDMA at 450MHz, but again the iPhone never supported that. Going through Perfectum's website and looking at their suitable models feels like growing Verizon and Sprint's website from years past.

Yea, I should have hedged further and said "in the US and for Apple's purposes." Really though, I can only find Uzbekistan as an exception. And I could see Uzbekistan lingering on CDMA. Are there more?

I'm not even saying that old tech doesn't linger. Part of it is that CDMA wasn't popular in most of the world. GSM support will stick around longer because it was so popular. Most places that had CDMA networks have replaced them. CDMA kinda became a dead-end technology as Qualcomm's UMB evolution didn't happen - once Verizon chose LTE, there wasn't much of a point.

Honestly, it would have been cool if you'd added information about countries and networks where CDMA might stick around. I'd love interesting information - I literally went around looking for the information not included in your comment. Without that information, it just feels like "I know you were talking about Apple and the US, but actually..."

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#43

Post by eru »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #40
mdasen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly about drama around Boost Mobile. T-Mobile wanted to shut down their CDMA network on January 1, 2022. Boost (now owned by Dish) doesn't want to upgrade users that have handsets that don't work with VoLTE. Upgrading users involves sending them notices, giving them options of free handsets, shipping those handsets, getting the users to actually activate them, etc. While T-Mobile gave Boost nearly double t…

> handsets that don't work with VoLTE It's kind of amazing to watch them keep pushing out half-baked protocols with the details on what phones actually support being so hard to find. I guess the lesson they learned from rolling out LTE phones with no Voice over LTE support is that nobody really cares, which is why they repeated the same issues with 5G and there's all this stuff about "non-standalone 5G".

Who is 'they'?

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#44

Post by eru »

petra wrote: post #20
Causality1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is this legal?

What law do you think it would violate?

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#45

Post by toast0 »

mdasen wrote: post #42
toast0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the time the iPhone 15 launches in fall 2023, CDMA will be quite dead. Perhaps in the US, but CDMA is used elsewhere too. In several countries in the recent past, fixed wireless CDMA operators (intended for home phone lines) started operating mobile handsets. Those places may not be on the upgrade path to LTE anytime soon, because of expense.

This is one of those "but actually" things that always happens (and why I can't give a straight answer and why I should have hedged that statement as well). The question was about the US and Apple and I responded about the US and Apple, but I should have know I'd get a "but actually" if I didn't hedge everything. I don't know what country/network you're talking about, but it looks like Uzbekistan might be the only co…

I'm having trouble finding things with searching tonight. But I think I know where to look to get the pointers I need... I'll see if I can dig up some examples tomorrow. Although, maybe I'll find that everyone has moved to LTE.

I was dealing with phone numbers for several years and there had been several networks which were CDMA for home phones only in otherwise GSM nations that started doing mobile phones. I suspect I can find some of the ones I managed to get added to libphonenumber when I was contributing to it. But, I don't know the frequencies, maybe they were at 450 and not iPhone accessible.

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#46

Post by jimmies »

dataflow wrote: post #38
mdasen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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 su…

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?

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#47

Post by dataflow »

jimmies wrote: post #46
dataflow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

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?

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.

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#48

Post by eyelidlessness »

mdasen wrote: post #30
petra wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this legal?

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 w…

> customer's fault

I literally have no idea if I’ve ever been this customer and have no way of finding out from anyone who’s ever sold me a phone. They didn’t tell me information like this when I bought a random handset from Cingular at their store, or when I bought an iPhone directly from Apple.

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#49

Post by Laforet »

jimmies wrote: post #46
dataflow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

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?

Indeed, this has been an issue since the 3G era. I live in New Zealand. 10 years ago one of the largest local carriers switched from CDMA to WCDMA-only using the exotic North American 850MHz band whereas all other carriers use the more common 900MHz. They also both have 2100MHz base stations in busier urban areas.

This caused endless headaches for users and tech support alike because the market was flooded with phones that might have 850MHz support. There is no way to tell from the model or serial number - even Samsung and Nokia often failed to properly indicate that in their specs. And because both networks were also on 2100MHz, a phone may appear to work fine for months, but you will find out the hard way when reception completely disappears in a slightly remote area. There was also no GSM to fall back to since they built it from the ground up with no 2G layer.

Legend has it that one intrepid phone reseller would routinely take his stock on a boat to a spot 15km away from the nearest shore where no 2100MHz signal could reach, and only there could one be sure that the reception you are getting is on the 850MHz band.

Re: T-Mobile CDMA network shutting down soon

#50

Post by fomine3 »

mdasen wrote: post #42
toast0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the time the iPhone 15 launches in fall 2023, CDMA will be quite dead. Perhaps in the US, but CDMA is used elsewhere too. In several countries in the recent past, fixed wireless CDMA operators (intended for home phone lines) started operating mobile handsets. Those places may not be on the upgrade path to LTE anytime soon, because of expense.

This is one of those "but actually" things that always happens (and why I can't give a straight answer and why I should have hedged that statement as well). The question was about the US and Apple and I responded about the US and Apple, but I should have know I'd get a "but actually" if I didn't hedge everything. I don't know what country/network you're talking about, but it looks like Uzbekistan might be the only co…

CDMA2000 network (Au KDDI) is going to close but still operating in Japan, but iPhone 8 and successor for Japan model dropped support. iPhone works for LTE only on Au.
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