Verizon HTC U11 is one of the first to ditch CDMA support

Even though Verizon doesn’t officially carry the HTC U11, the Taiwanese manufacturer still sells a version of its latest Snapdragon 835-equipped flagship with cellular support for the Checkmark network. But there’s one standout point about this model — the lack of CDMA support.

HTC public relations chief Jeff Gordon confirmed the drop on Twitter.

U11 supports voice and data on Verizon’s nationwide LTE network.

— Jeff Gordon (@urbanstrata) June 14, 2017

On HTC’s site, the purchase page for the U11 lists GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and LTE standards in the networking specs. No CDMA2000, 1xRTT or EV-DO.

Myriam Joire points out rightly that since Qualcomm keeps CDMA support baked into its chipsets, OEMs would usually keep it active for pertinent networks. But the industry has been crawling towards full LTE saturation and needs room and cash to experiment with 5G spectrum — the legacy networks have got to go sooner or later.

I don’t know, but I do know Verizon needs to move people off CDMA as they sunset that network. No point requiring CDMA now.

— Jeff Gordon (@urbanstrata) June 14, 2017

Verizon’s path to a BYOD policy has been a long and frustrating one, but it has gotten easier over time to come in and out of service with a device still able to function. The company plans on switching off 1x service by 2020 while converting its EV-DO spectrum past that year. Still, it’s refreshing to realize that we finally have at least one device off the CDMA grid on Big Red.

We should note that Sprint, which is the only US carrier selling the U11 through retail, had its model support its “3G” CDMA network.