Post by @partial_accumen@lemmy.world

2026-04-15 03:07 UTC

> My phone at the time worked fine on 4G for over a year, but suddenly one day it no longer worked once they started enforcing this. I suspect the carrier wanted to collect a troll toll from phone manufacturers to allow them the privilege to sell a phone to their customers Its certainly possible that they're trying to extract a toll from handset manufacturers, but I could also see it being a spectrum consolidation. Can I ask if your OnePlus 5T was a model specifically made for the USA market or was it imported from China or Indian markets? I've seen non-domestic model phones not contain all the same radios as North American phones. So while its possible there were a few specific bands overlapping that allowed it to work, those bands could have been deprovisioned from phone service or sold off to other companies wanting to buy spectrum.

Replies (2)

@Professor_Piddles@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-15 14:20

I bought it as a generic GSM phone after checking that several of the 4G bands were ones that AT&T used. I don't recall it being marketed as a "US" or "international" version like I had seen in the past. I had not considered a change in 4G band usage, but I would certainly respect that a whole lot more than the arbitrary troll toll it very much looks like, and it would be nice if they explained that if that was indeed the case.

Open ##1328575
@___@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-04-15 03:40

The ATT post-3G sunset compatibility list linked above often includes only US ATT-locked versions of phones, even when other carrier variants exist. Look at all the older Samsungs that only take the GxxxA variant when GxxxU and U1 devices exist that are carrier unlocked and have all the same bands. In the case of the OnePlus 6T, only the T-Mobile version is 'supported,' when the unlocked version is the same in all other markets (including the US). I, too, have a lot of beef with this setup. For whatever reason, ROW Samsung Galaxy S10s (G973F) are supported. Go figure ¯\\_ (ツ)_/¯

Open ##1328577