Hypothesis 2, the more paranoid one: Some people have been suggesting
> that Verizon have been deliberately breaking these phones. The reason
> given is that they aren't E911 compliant, and if they were still
> functional, Verizon would have to *give* you another one in order to
> be in compliance with the minimum 85% that the FCC wants. Now that
> it's "broken", they can *sell* you another one, or lock you in to a
> new 2-year contract. (Note that this doesn't necessarily contradict > the first theory.)
You may have some validity in wondering about the second. In many mobile forums that I've gone to I've heard it mentioned that Verizon will no longer activate any handset on its network that doesn't incorporate GPS tracking in it. The older handsets did not incorporate this and Verizon has a mandate that by a certain time
95%(?) of their subscribers must have this type of handset. Verizon will not at present activate any non-compliant non-GPS capable handset on their network. For a while you could get around this by using the on line tool on the web to do this, but last I heard that's not even possible any longer. Since they have a mandate to have it done they may be doing this.It's not the first time a cellular company has used underhanded practices to force people to buy new equipment and not re-emburse them for doing so.
Cingular has done that with their acquired AT&T Wireless subscribers in many cases.