der_saeufer

Verizon is doing the same in 2022, but it's not about lack of LTE bands on the older phones--it's lack of support for VoLTE. When Verizon shuts off CDMA and AT&T shuts off HSPA, phones without VoLTE support won't be able to make phone calls.

Many of those earlier phones are also missing LTE bands, but they would continue to work for the most part were it not for the loss of the networks they depend on for voice. The biggest expansion in LTE bands was right around the same time as VoLTE support, so the upgrade from the 5S to the 6 solves both of those. It's a bigger issue with Android where a lot of cheaper devices only supported bands for a particular region or carrier, so (e.g.) a Verizon Moto G may only support one or two of AT&T's LTE bands and will work poorly.

Outside the U.S., 3G is/was also a great fallback since there are only 4 bands in common use (plus one more for the U.S.) and nearly every phone sold supports all four so even if you have no LTE bands for an area you're visiting you've got usable data.

TGarza

The original iPhone SE lacks the bands of the iPhone mini 12. My MiL was having connection issues which the mini 12 solved by providing access to the newly deployed bands. That’s why it is important to me knowing the bands supported based on where I travel.

nkedel

How old do you have to go to not have VoLTE support? I was pretty sure, and a quick search seems to confirm, that my Nexus 6 had that and that was a 2014 model. I think it was added in a later firmware, but still - surely anything from the last 4-5 years and higher-end phones from 2015-2016 should have it?

Band support may not be driving the forced upgrades, but it will be an issue, since plenty of phones from that era aren't going to have the 700mhz (band 12/13/17 IIRC) long-range band let alone the newer 600mhz (not sure if anyone but T-mobile is using that yet, but all three use the 700mhz range.) My late-2018 Samsung did not have the 600mhz band-71 support.

der_saeufer

IIRC the Nexus 5X also had VoLTE but the 5 didn't; for iPhones it started with the 6. There were a lot of crappy Android phones, particularly sold by AT&T and Verizon, without VoLTE support, though. Phones sold by T-Mobile supported it pretty far back thanks to their rollout of B12 LTE in rural areas without HSPA or EDGE behind it. We're just not gonna talk about Sprint...

Band 12 (T-Mo) and 13 (VZW) support became common around the same time as VoLTE; 17 (AT&T) did too, but it's less important. Once you've got the appropriate 700MHz band, the newer bands are mainly about adding capacity--you won't end up like people trying to use iPhone 5's on T-Mobile where it just doesn't work.

Europe has it easy... pretty much any band other than 3, 7, and 20 is just for capacity. And some carriers even in Western Europe still don't support VoLTE.

TGarza

Having a phone with the newer bands is necessary in my home market since Verizon and T Mobile are capacity strained with their existing deployments. T Mobile has the capacity but needs time to deploy new bands and to absorb the Sprint bands. Verizon purchased spectrum to address the deficiencies.

My MiL had band issues with the original iPhone SE on AT&T. Making the statement the newer bands are just capacity minimizes the capacity constraints in different markets across the US which varies by carrier. There is no one best carrier because each has capacity constraints and coverage gaps.