Roger Fingas
U.S. carrier Verizon has announced that it will stop activating any phone that lacks VoLTE, to help advance the company's network to 5G technologies.
The iPhone 4s and anything earlier are no longer supported for new activations, and will be permanently disconnected soon. Verizon is looking to jettison its 3G CDMA network, which will only remain functional through the end of 2019, the carrier explained to CNET.
"To facilitate a smooth transition to 4G LTE capable products and services, we are no longer allowing devices that are not 4G LTE capable with VoLTE [voice over LTE] to be activated on our network," it said.
Verizon has only ever supported two 3G-only iPhones on its network, the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. At the time 2G and 3G CDMA devices couldn't run on GSM networks like AT&T, and vice versa, which forced Apple to make CDMA-capable iPhones, Verizon being the first U.S. carrier to get one.
While the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, and iPhone 5c had support for LTE networks, Apple's iPhone 6 was the first device to support VoLTE. Verizon's original statement is explicit about the support line, and AppleInsider has now confirmed what devices can be activated through Verizon.
LTE has become a relatively universal standard, largely to the benefit of both carriers and the public. It's also scalable in terms of bandwidth, in some cases making it faster than landline internet connections.
The industry is already setting the stage for 5G cellular, often seen as essential to supporting technologies like self-driving cars and augmented or virtual reality. U.S. carriers are engaged in early 5G rollouts.
Apple has been testing 5G for some time, suggesting it wants to be quick to adopt the technology. It may choose to skip Intel 5G modems, at least at first.
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
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25 Comments
Now you know why QCOM is going after Apple, once VZ and Sprint Kill off CDMA QCOM really does not have much, they share in the LTE and 5G technologies and QCOM can not force equipment companies like us their tech since VZ required it. Once VZ drops CDMA then Apple and others will have choose in the chips and Apple could design their own Chip and license the require IP verse being force to us QCOM to support VZ.
The 5 and 5s have LTE which works for data but they don’t have VoLTE for voice.
Who uses iPhone 4 or before? This affects only a tiny percentage of buyers.
The iPhone 4s or before is crazily old now anyway!
Every other news source is saying iPhone 5 or earlier because while the iPhone 5 supports LTE it does not support VoLTE. So we need some clarification and soon.