CDMA Device Options?

GrayBoltWolf, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

I’m not aware of any carriers in the US that still support CDMA. Verizon and Sprint were the big two, and neither supports CDMA anymore.

axtualdave, 11 months ago

US Cellular is the only one, and they’re planning a shutdown of CDMA “soon”.

I’d advise OP to seriously reconsider. GSM won that war.

Infinite_Indecision, 11 months ago

So I’m not personally locked into CDMA vs gsm, its just that the carrier appears to be. The exact quote from the device page is

“[US Version] Compatible with GSM Networks including AT&T, T-Mobile and MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) who utilize AT&T and T Mobile networks. This device is not compatible with CDMA Networks such as: Verizon, Sprint and US Cellular”

Looking at it more, it sounds like the problem is specifically the 13 band not being supported by the device.

MangoPenguin, 11 months ago

I don’t think verizon uses CDMA anymore, they’re on LTE/5G now. I would double check if you really need CDMA, or just a verizon supported phone.

Infinite_Indecision, 11 months ago

If thats the case then this just made my day! I’m not really sure how to verify that it works without buying one, but I guess I can do some reading.

GrayBoltWolf, 11 months ago

Can confirm here, am on Verizon and they 100% support fully-GSM devices assuming the LTE bands line up.

(I’ve had Oneplus 6T, 7T, and Sony Xperia 5 ii on Verizon, all of which are not CDMA compatible)

Infinite_Indecision, 11 months ago

Thank you for your response. Did you have any issues with 5g on any of these phones?

GrayBoltWolf, 11 months ago

Everything works except wifi calling which Verizon only allows whitelisted IMEIs to do. VoLTE, visual voicemail, etc all work fine.

I’ve never tried mmWave 5G (no coverage where I live), but regular 5G works fine.

InverseParallax, 11 months ago

CHECK! THE! BANDS!!!

Checking the bands is the difference from having slow, basically 3g speeds, and having full lte and 5g.

Most modern phones support the common 4g bands, a few years ago stuff like 700 and 1900 weren’t as uniform, but 5g is critical, everyone has their own bands and there’s a really good chance you might only get a minimum and highly oversubscribed band between your carrier and phone.

Infinite_Indecision, 11 months ago

From what I can find Verizon supports n77 , n260, n26, n2, n5, n66.

The listed Specs for the Zenphone 10 shows the following.

US version DC-HSPA+ (DL/UL): 42Mbps / 5.76Mbps ; LTE 7CA (DL/UL) 2.0Gbps / 211Mbps 5G NR FR1 (DL/UL): 4.92Gbps / 0.55Gbps

5G Non-Standalone (NSA): n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n38, n40, n41, n66, n71, n77, n78

5G Standalone (SA): n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n38, n40, n41, n66, n71, n77, n78

FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 30, 66, 71)

TD-LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)

WCDMA (Bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 19)

EDGE/GPRS/GSM (2, 3, 5, 8)

Does that seem like enough overlap?

GrayBoltWolf, 11 months ago

The bands are going to be region-specific. Some areas use some bands, others don’t. Just depends where you live and the nearby towers.

In the early days (2016 ish) Verizon had very limited LTE coverage, but now I haven’t had any issues traveling anymore with unsupported bands.

PrepaidCompare, 11 months ago

CDMA and GSM are both dead in the US. However MVNOs, who contracturally not allowed to mention the name of the MNO they operate on, have adopted the convetion of using CDMA to refer to Verizon and GSMT or GSMA to refer to T-Mobile or AT&T.