band 4 for limited connectivity on verizon?

[PowerBomb]

No, I'm not really trying that hard to insist that there still might be a way to get your n5 to work on verizon. Just putting together ideas from various bits of news that came out in the past few weeks.

It was "no nexus 5 on verizon, no way no how" all along because of no support for band 13.

Last week it was announced Verizon is starting to use band 4 in certain large cities and people were seeing great speeds from the new AWS band 4.

The Nexus 5 supports band 4.

Don't get me wrong I'm not at all trying to cook up a theory that says this phone will be "on" verizon officially.

I'm only comparing it to something like the new Nexus 7 situation. It supports band 13 but not officially certified for use on Verizon. People started plugging in old SIM cards that had already been activated in other devices, and their new n7 would start getting a verizon LTE signal.

Just kicking around the idea wondering what would happen if you bought an n5, used that same idea of putting in an already activated SIM, and maybe at least being able to pull data off of band 4 IF you live in one of the areas where band 4 is currently being used.

you'd still have no voice capabilities with no CDMA radio in the device, but you could use google voice/hangouts for texts and install something like talkatone or grooveip and try doing your voice calls over your data connection.

Again just kicking around the idea, I'm not trying to insist that the n5 is coming to verizon or anything like that. Simply wondering if it could be tricked into connecting to band 4. N5 uses band 4, verizon has started using band 4, and it would seem awfully similar to the way people were getting the new nexus 7 to pull down a verizon data signal. Also similar to how after Nexus 4 came out people were getting it to connect to band 4 and unofficially get connected to LTE, until 4.2.2 came off and disabled it in the phone. But prior to that people were getting N4 onto a band that it wasn't really supposed to be on too.

You'd have no other data tiers to fall back on if you left a 4G area, no 3g no voice no evdo. If it even would work, it would only be feasible for people with unlimited data still and who never leave LTE coverage area.

 

[jhawkkw]

I'm only comparing it to something like the new Nexus 7 situation. It supports band 13 but not officially certified for use on Verizon. People started plugging in old SIM cards that had already been activated in other devices, and their new n7 would start getting a verizon LTE signal.

Just kicking around the idea wondering what would happen if you bought an n5, used that same idea of putting in an already activated SIM, and maybe at least being able to pull data off of band 4 IF you live in one of the areas where band 4 is currently being used.

There's one huge difference between those two LTE bands. The band 13 LTE has an open network clause that says that Verizon has to let you on that frequency and can't kick you off if it's compatible and not detrimental to their network. However their band 4 LTE has no such clause, meaning if Verizon detects an unauthorized device on their network using that frequency that they can kill the connection to it.

 

[JunBringer]

Verizon is so nazi about that stuff that they'd find out and kick you off I'd bet. I'd love someone to pull it off though.

 

[LoyalServant]

With Verizon it's all about control.
They want to have absolute control over what you use.
They think that the GSM operators have anarchy.

I don't see devices on AT&T or T-Mobile causing the whole network to crash....
It's all just Verizon FUD.

This is why I dumped Verizon over a year ago never to return...
They have nothing but contempt for their customers and their network has started to take a dive anyhow.

In other words... if you get a Nexus 5 to work on Verizon you can count on them trying to find a way to shut it down or keep it off.