@DupaCycki @Clusterfck@lemmy.sdf.org Europe did the sensible thing and made cell phone towers public infrastructure. In the US, each cell phone company has to construct its own network of towers.

Kind of. GSM (which all but Verizon and formerly Sprint used) let most any phone on the network. CDMA let carriers pick and choose compatible devices. In the early 2010s when Verizon was attempting to buy more spectrum for its 4G network, Google put themselves as a potential buyer, but they wanted the FCC to set a rule for the spectrum that said any phone compatible had to be allowed onto the network. Verizon won that auction and since then Verizon’s been way more open on what they allow.

And with Sprint being purchased by T-Mobile, it would make more sense at this point to have a phone certified for AT&T and T-Mobile and Verizon would just have to let it on the network. These days, a phone being “certified” is Moore just a carrier making the statement of “we’ve tested the phone and we do know it works on the network.“ it doesn’t mean an uncertified phone will never work, it just means that this one should work by all metrics they’re able to tell.