Long Time Verizon Windows Phone Users Cheated By Microsoft.

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d3ac0n

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While the Icon never "got" Cyan, it was the first US phone on any carrier to get Denim I believe....

And ATT 830 users might have something to add also...
What about Windows 10? 930 is getting it WITH firmaware update and Icon is 8.1 and NOT Windows 10 upgradable
 

dkediger

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Again I want to thank EVERYONE for their reply's. Good discussion. Here in Southeast Iowa the main competitor to Verizon is US Cellular. They have good coverage in this area on par with Verizon but have never been into Windows phone. One of my young co workers had the Odyssey with US Cellular and had issues with it and no update for it switched to an inexpensive Android. He is admittedly not a mobile enthusiast. My fellow workers are mainly on Android and iPhone of course. Only one of the system admins has had two windows phones in a row. HTC 8X and HTC One M8 4G LTE. I am going to revisit AT&T coverage in this area. If it has improved I will consider going that way as i don't want to give up on windows phone just yet. But I'm not kidding my wife and I has asked everyone we run into and no one uses AT&T here for lack of signal I guess. Even though we are about 20K population in my town it is mainly farmland. We drive to Iowa City, Quad Cities, Galesburg ILL and St.Louis occasionally. It might be an unreasonable assumption that most posting are in metropolitan areas (It would be interesting to know). Out here in the sticks coverage is a different deal. We have many areas with little coverage. Especially on hyway 61 going to St. Louis. I have not been on a contract for a long time. And like I said Verizon has not been all bad. They have supplied me Windows phones and decent coverage for a long time even acknowledging all the negatives of being Windows phone on Verizon. If coverage was good for AT&T I would have a totally different attitude. I know it's just phones. It is pretty much only on this forum that I get to talk to people with Windows Phone. I am still rooting for the platform to survive.

Thanks
Bill


Pretty much my situation as well here in central KS. While everyone may think "lol, farm hicks" when they read that, we're a light industrial community with facilities from a dozen Fortune 100 companies all within 3 miles of me as I type this.Again being Kansas, it's not like we have geographic shadows from mountains or valleys to cause reception problems. Verizon simply inherited the spectrum stranglehold here and has upwards of 85% of the customer base (based on what connects to my WiFi networks) with most of the rest being CDMA carriers like Sprint, USCellular, or other CDMA MVNOs. ATT has no credible presence here, despite what their coverage maps lie about.

Simply, I have no carrier option.
 

dkediger

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What about Windows 10? 930 is getting it WITH firmaware update and Icon is 8.1 and NOT Windows 10 upgradable

Insider preview works fine. Not sure what firmware upgrade you are referencing. The OS will be upgradeable from Microsoft though. Even running it on my old 928.
 

d3ac0n

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Insider preview works fine. Not sure what firmware upgrade you are referencing. The OS will be upgradeable from Microsoft though. Even running it on my old 928.
Would I be able to use Windows Device Recovery Tool to flash to Windows 10 Mobile RTM?
 

Williaml99

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"Actually, on the business side, i find their support the most helpful, available, and friendly of any vendor I work with..."

Agreed, when I call in they always try to help. A few bumps in 15 years all in all good.
 

dkediger

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Would I be able to use Windows Device Recovery Tool to flash to Windows 10 Mobile RTM?
Short answer, nobody can really know for sure until that time. Microsoft has even been unclear and contradictory on which devices will be included.
I would guess if there is a firmware update, then Verizon would need to approve it, if there isn't, then it is probably fair game. All the Insider builds have included the basic Verizon apps, so far, even when doing a hard reset.
 

d3ac0n

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Short answer, nobody can really know for sure until that time. Microsoft has even been unclear and contradictory on which devices will be included.
I would guess if there is a firmware update, then Verizon would need to approve it, if there isn't, then it is probably fair game. All the Insider builds have included the basic Verizon apps, so far, even when doing a hard reset.

slKZfUr.png


See that. 930 on the list. Icon not on the list. Exact same hardware. Differentiator is Verizon logo and BS.
 

Doug Swallow

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I'm not sure we'll ever know exactly what is or has gone on behind the scenes between Microsoft/Nokia and Verizon. Everything is speculation.

Certainly one aspect worldwide is the differences in how cellular standards have come about and how at times, being among the earliest to implement such networks isn't necessarily a good thing. That Verizon (and Sprint) in the US still use CDMA instead of transition to GSM is a case in point; it's always been difficult to bring your own devices to networks that simply aren't open. AT&T used TDMA prior to acquiring Cingular, and then beginning a changeover entirely to GSM. It was painful for subscribers at times. But now those subscribers have the benefit of the much more open GSM-based cell phone devices being usable, simply by inserting the SIM card you already have in your current device.

Now today, we certainly have chipsets used in mobile devices that can support all current cellular standards and frequencies. Of course, it seems those same chipsets still have ways of being configured/combined to support subsets, but the option exists to use combinations that truly support everything in use today. At what cost? Certainly at a slightly higher cost, but really, $1, $5? Who really knows, but [probably not a lot of price difference. Of course, 5,000,000+ devices x $1 is still a chunk of change worth saving.

But in the case of Verizon and Sprint, they still have to allow those devices on the network. Unlike GSM where the real identifier is the SIM card, CDMA networks require use of information on the physical device, and that means the networks have much more control over the devices they allow to connect.

Verizon is a hybrid. There's simply no way most could live with the LTE-only side of Verizon. It's the CDMA side that gives them the complete coverage they have. The LTE deployment is comparatively very spotty. Verizon compatible devices simply must support CDMA, and must be allowed onto the network by Verizon.

Would Microsoft create CDMA-compliant devices that can physically connect to the network?

Would Verizon authorize those devices to be usable on the network?

Now until we really see inside the 950 and 950 XL devices, we can't know for sure that support isn't physically there for CDMA. The SoC supports it, but there's other components that must be used on the radio front end, and they could have chosen, for whatever reason, to use one that cannot support CDMA. Or it's there and simply disabled for now.

But of course, to figure this out we need everyone to be more forthcoming in what's going on behind the scenes, and I doubt we're going to ever truly get that.

But keep in mind that it's more likely Verizon wants control over things on their network, and has a stronger reason to put up roadblocks to Microsoft, or anyone else, without some sort of deal. It's much the same in Cable company deployments; it's required government controls to get to a point where third party devices can be used on their networks for cable channel access, but the video-on-demand segment is still a mess, and only TiVo has managed to get a foothold in supporting that on just two of the major cable companies so far.

For the most part, at least, there's more competition in the cellular industry, though of course coverage differences are a practical concern, especially in less populous areas. But it's far better than the state of cable competition. So aside from expressing the desire to Verizon for devices like the 950 and 950 XL, where possible, you may need to give Verizon more incentive: actually switch to using other providers to express that displeasure. But most importantly, whether you stay or switch, you need to let them know you're unhappy with the current state of things, and in this electronic age where sending emails is far too easy to automate, nothing is going to carry more weight than a real, written letter sent via US Mail with a concise explanation of your desire and your unhappiness over the current state of things.

And maybe behind the scenes, there actually is work going on to create CDMA-supporting versions of these devices, but perhaps it involves some amount of give and take on both sides and that's preventing it from being even talked about yet in public. And certainly some external pressure from their customers would be a good thing, too.
 

xrs22

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While the Icon never "got" Cyan, it was the first US phone on any carrier to get Denim I believe....

And ATT 830 users might have something to add also...

Yes it was and when I had my 928 before the Icon came out, we got our updates first on Verizon. Could've been luck on getting them at the right time I suppose.
 

TexasLabRat

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Why can't you just buy an unlocked phone and put your sim card into it?

Verizon is not a GSM-based carrier so it's not that simple. A SIM is used for the LTE bands, but the CDMA "stuff" is required for activation/authentication. There are "sneaky" ways around this to some degree that others have done with different phones but it's unclear if that would be successful in this case since the CDMA radios are actually locked out in firmware plus Verizon's LTE band 13 is not one that is active, either.
 

xrs22

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My family was on with att for about 11 years and my 1st smartphone was the Samsung focus. Ever since then I was always with windows OS, why? It was different and liked what it offered. But we ended up moving to the Cali mountains from Texas, long story, and had NO! reception at all. No calls and we could only receive texts and not respond to them. Prior to switching we had talked about going in Verizon but they carried no window phones, only the dated HTC trophy, which by that time was too old to be in the store. So in between the trophy and the Lumia 900 timelines. Now having switched found the newly released 928 which i found in Newegg.com for $45.99 I believe coming right outta the gate. Now I could make calls and send texts back up in them thar hills, granted to you hit low spot that's under the range and a dropped call but I understand that as far back as we were. So 928 and edged up to the Icon after being informed the 930 was international only but being the same spec'd and design phone just more color options. Now after this and reading that the 950 and xl was the last of the Lumia lines and not fully Microsoft products. So hopefully in believing that, in 6 mos. will be a developed ms phone that would cone to us. Isn't att only getting the 950 after all? I mean if that's it, I don't wanna switch carriers for the lower of the 2 newest phones. I'd wait the 6 mos. for what's coming up, cause we still got the released 10 to wait for and it's "like having a new phone". That's just me though and although the customer service was pretty good there was some hang up's on a returned 928 that I sent but eventually got cleared up.
 

oldpueblo

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Since it embeds the video it ruins the time link, jump to 45:00 to hear what's up with Verizon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDrjNzzzK-0&feature=youtu.be&t=2706

Honestly guys, your best bet is to just let Verizon know how unhappy you are with their lack of Windows Phone support. I feel for you guys with no other carrier option. :( What annoys me the most about Verizon is nothing stops them from having one really good Windows Phone and one budget one, like they did with the 822/928. Sure they have the HTC One M8 and two new budget phones, but why not go the safe route and focus on the Icon a phone that they know we'd prefer? The whole "it doesn't sell" bull**** doesn't fly with me because they have literally 23 Android phones available right now, many of which you know are total ****. Do they seriously need TWENTY-THREE different Android phones? Talk about a support nightmare, Windows Phone wouldn't be close to causing support headaches like those would. This is a business decision they made, let your voices be heard on twitter/support calls. That's your only hope.

ZpGcFvu.png
 

Senordingdong2K

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Verizon is not a GSM-based carrier so it's not that simple. A SIM is used for the LTE bands, but the CDMA "stuff" is required for activation/authentication. There are "sneaky" ways around this to some degree that others have done with different phones but it's unclear if that would be successful in this case since the CDMA radios are actually locked out in firmware plus Verizon's LTE band 13 is not one that is active, either.
Ok, thanks for concise answer.

I've never had problems with network exclusivities as I stick to sim only contracts and buy phone unlocked from third party. Often from a different country.
 

psiu_glen

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Verizon is not a GSM-based carrier so it's not that simple. A SIM is used for the LTE bands, but the CDMA "stuff" is required for activation/authentication. There are "sneaky" ways around this to some degree that others have done with different phones but it's unclear if that would be successful in this case since the CDMA radios are actually locked out in firmware plus Verizon's LTE band 13 is not one that is active, either.

No sneaking around it - MS is actively locking the CDMA and band 13 that Verizon uses out. Other recent phones using the truly universal SOC's that integrate all of this are then universal, the only catch generally being you need to be an existing customer. Take your previous SIM and throw it in your unlocked, retail price device, and boom, done.
 

Clint Curry

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I feel your pain, I live in Lincoln Nebraska (city of 250k approx.) there is signal here and Omaha, the whole rest of the state all runs off of Viaero (I wish AT&T would just buy them already...)
 

drtek

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Sorry Charlie. Verizon is responsible for this while news. NOT MS. There is a saying. " You real what you sow." VZ brought this in by themselves. By delaying updates and refusing to update phones, who do you think bears the brunt of the complaints? I will give you a clue, and it isn't VZ. So, stop blaming MS, and man up. Enough of this whining. It may be interesting to read, but it is sad.
 

Krystianpants

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MS should have their own testers that test each providers network. Apparently that's how apple does it and it allows them to release the software updates knowing it won't cause any big problems. From what I understand Verizon doesn't want to update any existing windows devices as it will give updates to MS after instead of going through verizon channels. And so that may be what they are fighting about.
 
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