- T-Mobile revealed in an internal document to employees that 19 devices will no longer be able to connect to its network as of January 29, 2021.
- Some of the affected devices are Galaxy Note 4, Nexus 9, Huawei Mate 8 and Xperia Z3.
- T-Mobile will send a text message to affected customers on December 28, 2020.
As much as we write about new and unreleased phones, we are aware that not everyone gets a new phone every year or even every two years. Some people ride their old smartphones until they don’t turn on, but eventually everyone is forced to upgrade. That could be the case for select T-Mobile subscribers in 2021, such as Android police obtained internal documents this week containing 19 devices that will no longer connect to the carrier’s network in January.
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According to the documents, old phones, tablets, cameras and more will be affected by this change. T-Mobile began notifying affected customers by email on December 18 and will then send text messages to those who have phones that no longer connect to the network on December 28.
This is the full list of devices that will no longer connect to T-Mobile’s network on January 29, 2021:
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (AT&T)
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Verizon)
- Samsung Galaxy Note Edge
- HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle
- HTC Desire 650
- Google Nexus 9
- Huawei Mate 8
- Huawei P9
- Mikrotikls SIA_R11e-LTE6
- Netgear Arlo security camera system
- OnePlus 1
- Quanta Dragon IR7
- Samsung Galaxy S5 Duos
- Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
- Sony Xperia Z3
- Sony Xperia Z3 Orion
- Sony D6616 Xperia Z3 Orion
- Soy m02
- ZTE ZMax
Most of the phones on this list date back to 2015 or earlier, and as impressive as it is that someone was able to keep one of these phones as a daily driver for half a decade, it’s probably not very safe to use them anyway, given that all of them stopped receiving updates years ago. If there is no other reason, anyone using these devices should upgrade just for the sake of security patches that can protect their private data from bad actors.
That said, if you’ve lasted that long, it might be worth waiting another week or two before upgrading as one page of the document tells T-Mobile employees to “stay tuned for additional offers specifically targeting affected customers. ”No offers have been made public yet, but if T-Mobile is going to provide incentives for subscribers to stay on the network, it will likely be before the January 29th closing date.
As for an explanation, Android police assumed it could have something to do with T-Mobile’s “requirement that all devices be VoLTE capable of connecting to our network” as of January 2021, but T-Mobile says this is not the case. It turns out that this is indeed the case, but there is also good news: Affected customers will receive a new device for free. According to the report, the choices include the Samsung Galaxy A21, Galaxy A11, Alcatel GO FLIP 3 and T-Mobile REVVL 4.
Finally, it’s worth noting that this also affects Metro and Sprint customers.
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Jacob started as a hobby in college with video games and technology, but it soon became clear to him that this was what he wanted to do for a living. He currently lives in New York and writes for BGR. His previously published work can be found on TechHive, VentureBeat and Game Rant.