It took Microsoft a lot of time to come out with its new Lumia flagship smartphones, but many weren’t excited to see that AT&T had exclusivity on these handsets. This drew some criticism from T-Mobile CEO John Legere as well who said that Magenta didn’t turn down these handsets, it’s just that Microsoft never offered it to them. Verizon and Microsoft seem to be involved in a little tussle of their own, as per a new report Big Red is actually blocking the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL on its CDMA network.
Microsoft and Verizon have had their differences in the past, it’s not surprising to see the two involved in a rift once again, it appears that Verizon is blocking the new handsets on purpose from its network, even those units that are factory unlocked.
Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL are powered by Qualcomm’s latest chips that have a universal radio which works on almost all available bands, even those of Verizon’s CDMA network. However Microsoft is not yet selling unlocked units with support for the carrier.
This is reportedly because Verizon’s CDMA network can actively identify devices and unless the carrier adds those devices to its list of supported handsets, no phone can work on its network even if it has a universal radio.
So the allegation here is that Verizon isn’t adding the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL on its list of supported devices on purpose, Microsoft did say recently that it will focus more on carriers that are more receptive towards their platform, this is believed to be Verizon’s response to that jab.
Filed in . Read more about Lumia 950, Microsoft and Verizon. Source: winbeta.org