Phones and carriers

[Parman7172]

why do carriers not allow all phones the ability to run on their network, and why wouldnt a phone company build phones that are capable of running on all networks? Seems like an open network and an excellent phone could dominate. Why not?
Just curious about this, Par

 

[anon(238680)]

why do carriers not allow all phones the ability to run on their network

Because a technology was chosen when that network was planned and constructed and its not compatible with all phones today.

and why wouldnt a phone company build phones

Totally separate technology from being a carrier.

Why not?

Billions of dollars in cost to pretty much duplicate what's out there now. Project Fi maybe excluded.

 

[Parman7172]

I wasnt talking about changing a network, just designing phones capable of working on most networks.

 

[chanchan05]

I wasnt talking about changing a network, just designing phones capable of working on most networks.

I really don't understand the US either. I mean since the rest of the world is GSM, we can change SIM anytime.

 

[Rukbat]

Some of the newer phones can operate on CDMA and GSM, but most of them come in a CDMA version and a GSM version. (@chanchan05, that's a leftover from back when we split the single telephone company into a bunch of separate companies - Verizon decided to use CDMA when they entered the cellphone industry. Sprint came along later and chose CDMA.)

It wouldbe possible to make a single phone capable of both CDMA and GSM, on all 4GLTE bands, but it would be a bit expensive, so most phones are made for the North American, South American, European, Asian or African market, to limit the number of radios they have to cram into a single phone. (Some do have all bands, though, and can be opened by the user [in software] so they can use all bands.)