> A few weeks ago, Someone commented that some phones are labelled
>> "4G" but only have "4G" data capabilities, and only "3G" voice
>> capabil- ities. My wife's phone, IIRC, is an LG 930 AT - what
>> Verizon calls an "LG Spectrum 2" in the lists of devices I own
>> that are going to stop working at the end of this year, right
>> after the elections in the U.S.
>
> The LG VS930 came out about ten years ago, and runs Android 4, which in
> smartphone terms is somewhere like using Windows 98 (Android releases come
> faster than Windows). Its LTE support is limited to Band 13. That is Verizon's
> widest-coverage band and by an FCC rule specific to Band 13 (the only
> nationwide mobile license) they are supposed to allow "any" compatible device
> on that network. But they may not have had VoLTE finished by 2012, so the
> phone's voice support is probably only CDMA. Plus Verizon's 4G network nowadays
> makes extensive use of bands 5 (800 MHz cellular), 2 (1900 MHz PCS), and 66
> (1700/2100 MHz AWS, superset of Band 4).
Here are the details on my wife's phone (From the phone's settings menu, "Phone info" page):
Phone Model number is "VS930 4G" Warranty Date Code 04/04/2013 18:36
I hope someone has access to databases that can provide an authoritative yes/no answer about whether this phone is "3G" or "4G." More to the point, I hope someone can tell me how to keep it in use after the end of the year.
I either have to throw out the phone and the Network Extender I bought, or convince Verizon that they've made a mistake. I suspect that the Network Extender is going to stop working no matter what: I bought it from Verizon when I found out that their covereage was not as good as the other ham operators in town said it was, but Verizon doesn't seem interested in offering the increased reliability and covrage that these devices offer to users in the hills of Western North Carolina - many of the businesses in town make them available to their customers - and I suspect that their PR crew can't stand the thought of having to admit that even Verizon is subject to the laws of physics.
Time will tell: rather than endure sub-par service and being able to make calls only from certain rooms of my home, or when standing on my porch, I'll just use my VoIP phone: it works reliably, so I'll be able to get calls even while I'm inside my home. My wife still helps out with meals-on-wheels once a week, and I'll give her my Ting mobile 5G phone to use. I pay $25 a month for it, and it seems to work OK in the car.
Bill