Re: Spigen cases are not compatible with Verizon Note 4
What you are missing is the premise for the difference. It has nothing to do with deciding to put a hole one place vs another place.
All of the carriers have supported competing technologies over the years. That is lost now in the deep dark history of the change from analog cellular to digital cellular. Some of you may not even know there was once a thing called "analog cellular".
Now we are up to LTE and even "4" or 4LTE for that matter having by generation worked through 2G and 3G and there is little in the way of competition on the technology front. Now that we are up to 4LTE there is little to distinguish the 4LTE package on a Verizon radio tray from the 4LTE package on an AT&T radio tray. But even through 2G and 3G various hardware designers and manufacturers struggled with making a 2G or 3G radio that could live on the same radio tray with whatever previous digital technology had to be supported. Everything must be backwards compatible by FCC rule. So while there might be little to distinguish a 4LTE package in a Verizon phone from one in an AT&T phone all of the 2G and 3G radios have to be backwards compatible based on what choices said carrier made in the past. In fact, these babies have to be backwards compatible all the way back to any digital phone technology deployed and still in use anywhere by a particular carrier.
At one time there was a fierce competition between CDMA technology developers and GSM technology developers. They fought tooth and nail to convince the various carriers to choose their technology. The developers also fought tooth and nail to convince major hardware manufacturers to build equipment based on their technology. The costs involved were enormous and as big as some of these hardware manufacturers where, they often felt compelled to stick their foot in one camp or the other.
Here, Verizon was the big win for the CDMA camp. AT&T was the big win for the GSM camp. Worldwide, GSM clobbered CDMA. However where CDMA won it usually won big ala' Verizon just as an example. While all this was happening on the technology front, various auctions were held by governing bodies like the FCC here for frequency blocks by territory. As a result, here we ended up with multiple carriers supporting various digital phone technologies with different frequency blocks across each of their footprints. That was not so much the case in Europe where the overarching "wisdom" was that "technology competition" would not allow enough volume to accrue to any one technology preventing any one of them from being driven sufficiently down the cost curve. So Europe made one decision for the whole kit and caboodle. That decision was for GSM. Talk about huge financial gambles and stakes.
At any rate FCC rules require that all of the carriers must be backwards compatible with every digital technology they have supported and deployed and in all of the various frequency blocks they own. The time spans within this FCC rule are daunting....far longer for example than what the FCC required for the conversion to digital TV. So while all of the N4's look like N4's there are different N4's based on what technologies have to be supported. So the Verizon radio tray is not the same as the AT&T radio tray. In fact, the Verizon radio tray is likely dissimilar when compared to any of the other radio trays in any of the other US carrier based N4's. It might not be the same size as the AT&T radio tray using AT&T as an example. The trace lines especially to the antennas may have been put in different places because of the actual locations of components on the radio tray. I suspect that differences in the radio tray is what has ultimately resulted in the Verizon version of an N4 having a different location for the left side mic hole. Remember, not only did that hole have to be moved, but Sammy had to incorporate a funnel to help drive your voice up to the mic location. So it also had to be set back farther than the norm. This funnel is what makes me think it is likely the radio tray and the antenna trace lines that forced this issue. Trust me, this has nothing to do with Verizon trying to sell more cases. It is if anything entirely an issue of the radio tray and antenna and other trace line locations in a Verizon version N4.
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