The Verge implies Sprint/Verizon will NEVER get Nexus 4!

[motoGEEKer]

can't be any worse than Sprint I don't think. You might even want to look into Straight Talk or Simple Mobile.

 

[Tom in Bristol]

Maybe the Verge is right...that *LG* will never have an LTE Nexus. But could there be an LTE Moto Nexus in VZW's future?

 

[diskoman69]

I get the crowd that's excited about Google saying enough with CDMA 4G but from a business standpoint, they're basically cutting off their nose to spite their face. AT&T and Verizon are the largest subscriber bases out there and both have the iPhone with LTE. How many customers do you reallly think are going to say, sure I'll take a terrible data connection just to have access to this phone. Not many. Yeah, Google gets to stand on their high horse and proclaim that they didn't give in but that doesn't count for much (if anything) when a company is trying to gaine market share. I have Verizon and I have a Galaxy Nexus. I HATE all the brand-specific skins for Android and love the Nexus. Am I willing to downgrade to 3G? Heck no. If there are no other options when my contract is up I'll get an iPhone instead. How're those principles helping out Google now?

Considering AT&T is GSM, this move by Google doesn't affect them in the least. Considering that Verizon doesn't want to give up control of updates unless they absolutely cannot ignore the loss of market share due to it, Google made the correct move. Verizon already made a complete mess of the Galaxy Nexus due to this, and Google isn't about to go through that again as it damages the brand name. Remember, Apple went through the same mess for years with Verizon as that was the initial vendor they wanted to release on. It took them over 3 years to roll out a CDMA version...on their terms. Google has to build their Nexus brand to the point that Verizon can't ignore it; then, and ONLY then, can we expect there to be another CDMA Nexus phone. Sprint unfortunately doesn't have enough subscribers to warrant making a whole separate SKU like Apple has for Verizon/Sprint. Don't forget there are 3 different versions of iPhone 5s.

 

[natehoy]

What confuses me about all this, is how those CMDA carriers treat iPhone updates. Do they have to test and approve of the new iOS versions before they can be pushed out? If that's the case, then Apple must send the updates to carriers WAAAAAAAAAAAAY in advance to make sure they can push it out on the exact dates they want to.

I think Google could possibly convince carriers to leave the bloatware and customizations out of the Nexus phones, but I don't think they could convince them to ease off of testing. They just need to have a serious sit-down and explain what the appeal of having a "pure" device is, and how it would be a mutual benefit if they lightened up a little bit. They should draft a compromise plan and submit it to them during the conferences and just be like hey, we can solve this and please everyone.

And the carriers would simply ignore them.

Verizon offered and even welcomed the iPhone because it brings one thing to them - the one thing they want - new customers. In guaranteed large droves. Verizon happily makes the commitment to upgrade ONE MODEL of phone in return for an almost-certain guarantee of millions of new or renewing customers. Verizon and Apple can partner to make quick updates because out of the millions of customers' worth of revenue for the iPhone, Verizon can easily afford a dedicated team of technicians, probably located right in Cupertino, to compile and test the CDMA/LTE hybrid radio drivers Verizon needs.

Even though Android as a spectrum of phones represents a larger market share, the fragmentation of the Android lineup (which is a boon for consumer choice) is a poor selling point to Verizon in terms of being realistic about upgrades. In order to provide Nexus-level updates, Verizon is going to need to provide compilable driver code (stop laughing! It's not THAT funny! Oh, OK, I guess it is) or commit to providing frequently-updated binaries. That's going to cost them as much as it would to maintain an iPhone update team, but there will be far fewer handsets to justify it, probably by at least an order of magnitude.

If Verizon comes out with another Nexus offering, it's going to be a carrier-locked phone with a lip service commitment to Nexus-style upgrades that will last just long enough to move the last units off the shelf. Then Verizon will pull their team off the Nexus upgrade train and put them on the next Verizon flagship phone, leaving the "Nexus experience" phone to languish behind by months in OS upgrades, if it ever gets them at all. They can call it the "Verizon Galaxy Nexus Part II" if they want truth in advertising.

Neither Google nor Verizon have anything to gain from Verizon carrying another Nexus phone. Verizon has a piss-poor record of dragging along with updates on phones that aren't that old (Gingerbread was months and months late on my HTC Thunderbolt, and I'm starting to accept that ICS - promised by August of this year - will never happen).

"Nexus" needs to go back to its roots - where Google and the phone manufacturer can provide the consumer with timely updates without carrier interference or intervention. The Nexus 4 does that. Unfortunately, that means they cannot support LTE for now, since the various implementations of LTE are too carrier-specific and require carrier intervention. They also cannot support CDMA for the same reason.

If Verizon fulfills its commitment of "LTE everywhere 3G is currently located by 2013", there may well be a GSM/LTE Nexus phone that could access the Verizon LTE network with no need for fallback to CDMA in a year or so. Of course, in current 1xrtt signal areas, such a phone would not work, but there might be enough people who rarely or never travel to 1xrtt zones that they'd be willing to accept this, if in return they get a contractless, unlocked phone.

 

[gone down south]

Remember, Samsung reported selling only about a half million GNex's in the 12 months before their Apple lawsuit filings.
If you generously give 50% of those sales to Verizon customers, that's 250,000 customers.

Verizon doesn't stop to scrape gum off their shoes for 250,000 customers. They could care less about supporting Nexus on anything but their own terms.

 

[TheOnlyMorgan]

Sprint is in the same situation as the Nexus One and the EVO. The Optimus G is coming out and has nearly the same specs just with LG's skin. They don't want to promote another phone against it, especially since they're so similar.

 

[Woosh]

What confuses me about all this, is how those CMDA carriers treat iPhone updates. Do they have to test and approve of the new iOS versions before they can be pushed out? If that's the case, then Apple must send the updates to carriers WAAAAAAAAAAAAY in advance to make sure they can push it out on the exact dates they want to.

I think Google could possibly convince carriers to leave the bloatware and customizations out of the Nexus phones, but I don't think they could convince them to ease off of testing. They just need to have a serious sit-down and explain what the appeal of having a "pure" device is, and how it would be a mutual benefit if they lightened up a little bit. They should draft a compromise plan and submit it to them during the conferences and just be like hey, we can solve this and please everyone.

I think Google does updates a little different than iPhone does. At least this past iPhone, ios 6 was in beta for about 5 ish months? Before it officially was "announced" with the iPhone 5. So they make the OS and then continue to beta it letting ppl use to test it out. I think mostly Google does their internal beta? I'm not totally sure about that.

But Apple also has the numbers to back it up. GN sales were abysmal. Apple can pretty much demand anything they want from carriers and they will oblige to get a piece of that action.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Maybe the Verge is right...that *LG* will never have an LTE Nexus. But could there be an LTE Moto Nexus in VZW's future?

I would be surprised if the LG Nexus 4 never saw an LTE device. I'm more surprised that Google didn't
release it with an LTE radio. Even if they had to have three or four different models and just have people
choose their carrier in the Google Play Store as part of the buying process. I'm dumbfounded. I'm talking
strictly GSM here. But, even if they had models with CDMA radios for CDMA carriers, it wouldn't be so
bad either.

 

[lescarpio]

Unfortunately, I'm pretty upset with Verizon's service when it comes to update and phone variety. Whenever I see an unlocked phone that I'd love to have, its always HSPA or GSM, never CDMA. Their call reception and coverage is great and all, but that can't be the only reason to stick to one carrier. I don't like being stuck with little options!

My HTC Thunderbolt hasn't received an update since 2.3.4, that may not be a Verizon thing, but it sure is lame. ATT/T-Mobile here I come!

 

[nickacs]

Unfortunately, I'm pretty upset with Verizon's service when it comes to update and phone variety. Whenever I see an unlocked phone that I'd love to have, its always HSPA or GSM, never CDMA. Their call reception and coverage is great and all, but that can't be the only reason to stick to one carrier. I don't like being stuck with little options!

My HTC Thunderbolt hasn't received an update since 2.3.4, that may not be a Verizon thing, but it sure is lame. ATT/T-Mobile here I come!

I'm RIGHT THERE with ya bro... My POS Bionic, just now OTA ICS update (which is worse than .232 leak!), is soon going to be retired for the Nexus 4. Every freaking great phone, with VERY few exceptions (SGIII) are always on GSM carriers only/first. And we all know about Android updates on Version.. completely laughable

My VZW contract isn't up until May 2013, but I'm going to try the N4 on ST or TMO $30 plan for this month and Christmas time to see how they do. I'll be driving over 800 miles for each holiday in the next 2 months, so it will be perfect to see if ST/TMO handles the travel good. About 95% of the entire year I'm around town or at work, so even if the rural areas don't work good, it probably won't be a downer that much. Heck, I have really nothing to lose except maybe a little on a brand new N4 that I might re-sell soonafter.

Good luck! Cya VZW, I hope...

 

[natehoy]

I would be surprised if the LG Nexus 4 never saw an LTE device. I'm more surprised that Google didn't
release it with an LTE radio. Even if they had to have three or four different models and just have people
choose their carrier in the Google Play Store as part of the buying process. I'm dumbfounded. I'm talking
strictly GSM here. But, even if they had models with CDMA radios for CDMA carriers, it wouldn't be so
bad either.

The problem is that at least Verizon's network requires the carrier's input, so you'd need to have Verizon involved every time you wanted to do an upgrade. And given that Nexus devices get upgrades every couple of months, Verizon's just not going to commit that amount of effort for a phone that might sell 200,000 units for them.

Though all is not lost. I've read in a few places that the specific radio that Google chose for the Nexus 4 is (supposedly) capable of CDMA and even LTE. Maybe someone in the ROM community will port the carrier-specific radio code necessary to build a ROM for each carrier in the near future? Of course, that presumes that you can even activate a non-approved phone on a CDMA carrier's network.

With GSM, it's easy. Every single GSM carrier uses the same standard, and GSM involves the use of a SIM chip which is your "credentials" on the network. Get a SIM, pop it in, turn it on, get your GSM mojo on.

With CDMA, it's a little trickier. Each carrier's implementation is a little different, and the carrier has to be involved in both connecting a model of phone to their network AND authorizing the use of a specific phone to their network.

LTE is relatively OK, except you have to fall back to something non-LTE a lot, so you need to implement something meaningful to fall back on. The GSM carriers have a laughably small LTE footprint at the moment, and falling back to CDMA has already been discussed.

But, if the rumors are true, it's not unreasonable to assume that the ROM community will get their paws on radio drivers for phones that use the same radio and port those drivers to the Nexus 4 in custom, carrier-specific ROMs.

 

[andr0idralphie]

Save for the missing WiFi calling the Nexus 4 covers all of T-Mobile's 3G/4G bands which is pretty damn fast all around NYC which is all I care about. Unfortunately my wife and I rely on the WiFi calling in the apartment because we don't have a landline and the mobile network doesn't penetrate too well through the apartment.

 

[natehoy]

Save for the missing WiFi calling the Nexus 4 covers all of T-Mobile's 3G/4G bands which is pretty damn fast all around NYC which is all I care about. Unfortunately my wife and I rely on the WiFi calling in the apartment because we don't have a landline and the mobile network doesn't penetrate too well through the apartment.

The way I see it, you have two options...

1. Get a cell signal repeater. That's what I use at my house. I put an antenna where there is good signal (outside in my case) and the repeater indoors.

2. Convert to a Google voice number. Get a VoIP line and app and have Google voice ring that in addition to your cell number. When in Wi-Fi range, answer the VoIP line. When not, answer the cell line.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

 

[jbuggydroid]

I'm sorta surprised at this. I can understand why no Verizon but no Sprint? So far Sprint has had two nexus devices and has done a pretty good job at not adding bloatware and getting updates it to it pretty quick in comparison to Verizon. To me it seems Sprint understand what a nexus is all about. They just slower on updates due to lte technology being closed sourced and they have to make sure the new updates work with their lte. At least that is how I understand things

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[natehoy]

They just slower on updates due to lte (edit: and CDMA) technology being closed sourced and they have to make sure the new updates work with their lte. At least that is how I understand things

I think the Nexus 4 is Google finally saying "we've had it with dealing with @#$@#$ carriers and their !@#$@#$ delays in letting our frequent updates through on Nexus phones. We are Google, hear us roar!". Look at the complaints from Verizon users over delays on the GNex. Heck, look at all the whinging on the Nexus Seven forums when the rollout took almost a full week to hit our devices *gasp* (cue overly dramatic music). Now imagine making a Nexus 4 variant for a half-dozen carriers who will all lose interest in updates in a matter of months.

Looks to me like anything that requires a carrier to intervene (CDMA, LTE) is stripped from the phone, providing an absolutely pure Nexus experience. Updates DAYS, not weeks or months, after the code hits the repositories. No dependencies on a carrier to intervene and add "special sauce" or approve the update. Just pure, utterly standards-based Nexus-y goodness.

I've said this before, and my apologies if it was actually on this same thread, but in several places I've read that the hardware radio in the Nexus 4 is fully capable of doing LTE and CDMA. So it's quite possible that one of two things will happen - either the modding community will port radio drivers to custom builds of Android and build out carrier-specific firmware, or maybe a carrier or two will decide to take the phone on as an option and make their own firmware spins for it. However, either the modding community or the carrier now becomes an extra gate through which code for your phone will pass, possibly delaying the update cycle (or, once the Nexus 4 starts getting older, possibly stopping it altogether - especially if a radio driver binary becomes unavailable for the current Android/Linux kernel). So the Nexus 4 may yet work for your preferred carrier, but you'll be (of necessity) one step removed from the "Pure Nexus Experience".

Of course, the information I've read may be wrong and it may be a GSM->HSPA+ only radio. Or there may be no interest at all in porting the drivers, or no possibility of doing so.

Time will tell. If you want a standards-based phone, you'll have to choose a standards-based carrier. If you want a phone that works with a non-standards-based communication protocol, you'll need to adopt their standard to talk to them, which means buying one of their phones.

 

[Woosh]

I'm sorta surprised at this. I can understand why no Verizon but no Sprint? So far Sprint has had two nexus devices and has done a pretty good job at not adding bloatware and getting updates it to it pretty quick in comparison to Verizon. To me it seems Sprint understand what a nexus is all about. They just slower on updates due to lte technology being closed sourced and they have to make sure the new updates work with their lte. At least that is how I understand things

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

This could be for a few reasons......Sprint might just not have wanted it. They paid Apple what 8 billion ish to take their phone? So idk if they even cared much about Google and their phone because I'm sure it didn't sell overly well.

But it might have been Google's choice fully for "user experience" as they say and if there is only one model out there, for devs that is a lot easier to deal with.

I think the Nexus 4 is Google finally saying "we've had it with dealing with @#$@#$ carriers and their !@#$@#$ delays in letting our frequent updates through on Nexus phones. We are Google, hear us roar!". Look at the complaints from Verizon users over delays on the GNex. Heck, look at all the whinging on the Nexus Seven forums when the rollout took almost a full week to hit our devices *gasp* (cue overly dramatic music). Now imagine making a Nexus 4 variant for a half-dozen carriers who will all lose interest in updates in a matter of months.

Looks to me like anything that requires a carrier to intervene (CDMA, LTE) is stripped from the phone, providing an absolutely pure Nexus experience. Updates DAYS, not weeks or months, after the code hits the repositories. No dependencies on a carrier to intervene and add "special sauce" or approve the update. Just pure, utterly standards-based Nexus-y goodness.

I've said this before, and my apologies if it was actually on this same thread, but in several places I've read that the hardware radio in the Nexus 4 is fully capable of doing LTE and CDMA. So it's quite possible that one of two things will happen - either the modding community will port radio drivers to custom builds of Android and build out carrier-specific firmware, or maybe a carrier or two will decide to take the phone on as an option and make their own firmware spins for it. However, either the modding community or the carrier now becomes an extra gate through which code for your phone will pass, possibly delaying the update cycle (or, once the Nexus 4 starts getting older, possibly stopping it altogether - especially if a radio driver binary becomes unavailable for the current Android/Linux kernel). So the Nexus 4 may yet work for your preferred carrier, but you'll be (of necessity) one step removed from the "Pure Nexus Experience".

Of course, the information I've read may be wrong and it may be a GSM->HSPA+ only radio. Or there may be no interest at all in porting the drivers, or no possibility of doing so.

Time will tell. If you want a standards-based phone, you'll have to choose a standards-based carrier. If you want a phone that works with a non-standards-based communication protocol, you'll need to adopt their standard to talk to them, which means buying one of their phones.

Where did you hear its capable of LTE and CDMA? I highly doubt that is the case. Supposedly LTE radios are super expensive right now and its VERY unlikely they threw one in for $300. Take a look at the kindle fire LTE, $499 and they sell their devices very near to cost. But maybe the it's simply over inflated because they needed to pay AT&T to carry it on their network? I just highly doubt this thing has the ability to run every single network known to man for $300.

 

[natehoy]

Where did you hear its capable of LTE and CDMA? I highly doubt that is the case. Supposedly LTE radios are super expensive right now and its VERY unlikely they threw one in for $300. Take a look at the kindle fire LTE, $499 and they sell their devices very near to cost. But maybe the it's simply over inflated because they needed to pay AT&T to carry it on their network? I just highly doubt this thing has the ability to run every single network known to man for $300.

Actually, a thread was recently started detailing the processor/radio IC used in the Nexus 7, and several variants of CDMA and LTE appear in the compatibility list for that IC. I can't imagine Google would have had a custom variant of the IC made up just for one phone - the additional design rework would far outweigh the savings for a production run that probably won't exceed a couple million units, if that.

But, as you mentioned in the same thread, even if someone manages to bake support for CDMA and LTE into the phone, CDMA carriers won't be likely to activate it on their network anyway. So the only users who would benefit are LTE customers on a GSM/LTE carrier like AT&T. And the differences between HSPA+ and LTE aren't THAT huge anyway...

 

[Woosh]

Actually, a thread was recently started detailing the processor/radio IC used in the Nexus 7, and several variants of CDMA and LTE appear in the compatibility list for that IC. I can't imagine Google would have had a custom variant of the IC made up just for one phone - the additional design rework would far outweigh the savings for a production run that probably won't exceed a couple million units, if that.

But, as you mentioned in the same thread, even if someone manages to bake support for CDMA and LTE into the phone, CDMA carriers won't be likely to activate it on their network anyway. So the only users who would benefit are LTE customers on a GSM/LTE carrier like AT&T. And the differences between HSPA+ and LTE aren't THAT huge anyway...

Yup, I think few ppl would actually use it. But if you checked my poll out there are a few ppl that said they would pay $550 for LTE on AT&T, so assuming that this is true it would be very good for those 3 ish ppl!

 

[svfd757]

Crazy how most of us on this Site criticize apple fan Boyd for defending their products tooth and nail. Yet you guys defend the lamest Nexus device ever. At least apple released their prime product with 4g. Google messed up big time and anyone who defends this phone is an android Shep

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Woosh]

Crazy how most of us on this Site criticize apple fan Boyd for defending their products tooth and nail. Yet you guys defend the lamest Nexus device ever. At least apple released their prime product with 4g. Google messed up big time and anyone who defends this phone is an android Shep

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

I have a hard time responding to this without a personal attack because its probably one the the dumbest things I've read.

Almost every review so far are glowing besides one small feature that most the world cannot use.

Sucks that you spend your entire time running speed tests to measure how good your phone is. Go enjoy your iPhone.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2