The phone I want is only available as GSM/Global and says it specifically won’t work with Verizon. Is that information up to date? I thought CDMA was abandoned a while ago.
This phone works on LTE and shares some 4g and 5g bands with Verizon. Can I use it?
TL;DR: If it’s listed as Verizon-incompatible, treat it as such.
It should work, technically, but there’s no guarantee. While Verizon shut down their CDMA network in 2023 and everything uses 4G/VoLTE now, it may have other limitations that prevent it from working as expected.
You’d need to make sure the LTE bands it supports are used by Verizon in your area. If it doesn’t support the bulk of Verizon’s bands, you may find yourself (artificially) without coverage.
Verizon may also refuse to allow it if it’s not on their compatibility list (though you can possibly SIM-swap into it from an already activated device). It’s been a while since I dealt with them, but from memory, they’re pretty strict about what devices they allow on the network.
Dang. Thanks for the response.
Yeah, I found that out when I was using my old phone with T-Mobile. It was listed as supported, and it mostly worked, but there was at least one LTE band it didn’t support.
T-Mobile uses multiple bands in the same area: one higher frequency, higher bandwidth, lower range one for fast data and a lower frequency, lower bandwidth higher range one to fill in the gaps. My phone didn’t support the lower frequency one so I would lose coverage if I was too far away from a window in my house (despite living close to 3 towers).
Not to mention, they can and do reallocate spectrum periodically so while you may be fine for a while, if they reallocate and the device doesn’t support the new bands, you may suddenly lose service.