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Ooooh man, I'd be pissed too. I would have left them too and ever since I'd be looking for the class action suit that I'm sure is in the works. If it isn't, maybe it should be. Verizon carried that phone with 5G branding, if they ended up not using the tech in favor of something else --- well, then that's okay too (technology changes) but they need to reimburse the customers who thought they were future proofing themselves. You can't sell it branded as 5G then later say, "oh, it's 5G but not the kind we use." -- "WTF! I bought it from YOU!" "I think they might use those bands in Malaysia or Cambodia, maybe think of moving." I had something similar but different recently happen with Verizon. I have a pixel 2, which I still love. Came out October 2017. So a little over 4 years old now. Google stopped updates for it last year. But still, overall it's a great device. Fast, responsive, does what you tell it to do... and Verizon will have 4G for a long time, so this device should remain compatible, right? WRONG! As they retire the 3G CDMA network they're also killing all 4G non-VoLTE (Voice over LTE) devices December 31st 2022. They gave a warning but nothing else. Even $300 off would have made me happy, come on - SOMETHING! Basically, I got "you'll be kicked off the network unless you upgrade." In my case, I needed to upgrade. Was planning one soon anyway (really shouldn't have gone this long in the business I'm in but it's such an awesome device!). But for most people, my Pixel 2 is still a perfectly good device - great even. They could allow it to continue to use data... but no. I ended up with the S22 Ultra but am still walking around my house with my Pixel 2... haha. All of the best devices are always FORCED to die eventually. More planned, forced obsolescence is all we can expect in the future.

1: I actually lol'd on this. XD This was the general consensus of many....MANY people and Verizon pretty much said F.U. to all its unhappy customers; @ one point even trying to disgustingly blame Samsung for " Not implementing multi-bands of 5G from the factory". The thing that really put the nail in the coffin for me was i just bought a Samsung Note 8 not even a year prior, ($899) and just brought it in for an issue i was having with media loading... than they were like " We've got a deal for you!!" 🙄 2: NGL, never imagined you having anything less than the newest of new mobile tech.... Glad to see you can still surprise us after all these moons, D

Having heard the US 3G shutdown news from over here, I'm surprised they did not bother to create a workaround for unsupported smartphones. It would just have been a matter of Verizon creating a simple App to handle voice calls and text messages via 4G data to replace the default dialler App, which even the oldest smartphones would be capable of (I remember using VoIP apps back in 2012). Sure it would take a little getting used to using an App to dial out or for SMS, but better than losing voice/text services entirely until the user upgrades. It's not like the App would need to be anything special either like WhatsApp to handle multimedia, video calling, etc. With the budget network I'm with (48 Ireland), they only support 3G roaming at present, so I can imagine this will be an issue if I visit the USA after the 3G switch-off. European law will soon require mobile operators to offer like-home connectivity when roaming throughout the EU, so it's likely they will offer 4G roaming even outside the EU when that happens. While the 48 network only offers 4G in Ireland with its partner network Three, it occasionally switches to 5G: