Classic BlackBerry phones will stop working January 4 [telecom]

[Sean Murphy]

By Samantha Murphy Kelly

(CNN)You soon won't be able to use that old BlackBerry phone sitting
at the bottom of your drawer somewhere.

Starting Tuesday, January 4, the company will stop running support for
its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This
means all of its older devices not running on Android software will no
longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or
make calls, even to 911.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/01/tech/blackberry-end-of-life/index.html

[Michael Trew]

Post by Sean Murphy
By Samantha Murphy Kelly
(CNN)You soon won't be able to use that old BlackBerry phone sitting
at the bottom of your drawer somewhere.
Starting Tuesday, January 4, the company will stop running support for
its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This
means all of its older devices not running on Android software will no
longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or
make calls, even to 911.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/01/tech/blackberry-end-of-life/index.html

I've read through that article, but I still do not understand the
technical aspects of it. For instance: I have a Nokia 3390 from 2001
here. It's a 2G only phone, but if I pop the SIM card from my current
phone (T-Mobile) into it, it still receives calls and text messages,
almost 21 years later.

I don't understand how "stopping support" can make the basic functions
of the phone cease to work. Do the cellular signals to/from the phone
some how relay through Blackberry's data servers? One would think that
calls/texts/data would be direct signals from your wireless carrier to
your phone.

[Marco Moock]

Post by Sean Murphy
Starting Tuesday, January 4, the company will stop running support for
its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This
means all of its older devices not running on Android software will no
longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or
make calls, even to 911.

It is interesting that the devices stop working when the support ends.
Other Android devices don't have that "feature".

(interim moderator's note: Blackberry phones receive some services from
Blackberry, and those were turned off. There has been some discussion on
crackberry.com about how to circumvent this, but it's not trivial.
Blackberry-branded Android phones still work. As of this morning my old
Blackberry Classic, with no SIM card, still works for Wi-Fi access.)