Could the Lumia 920 and 820 Come to Verizon or AT&T?

Nokia announced two new Lumia smartphones today: the Lumia 920 and 820.  We look at the detailed specs to see if either could be coming to Verizon or AT&T.

We told you a little earlier today about Nokia’s new Lumia phones.  One thing that was not announced was the carrier support for either model.  This announcement was for the US, so the potential carriers break down as follows:

GSM:

• AT&T Wireless
• T-mobile

CDMA:

• Verizon
• Sprint

There are other smaller carriers in the US, but these four are by far the largest with AT&T and Verizon being the two largest.

Prior Windows Phones launched primarily on AT&T, which makes sense as GSM-equipped phones can sell on AT&T and on GSM carriers around the world.  This time, there was no exclusive deal announced.  Is it possible that these phone could launch on multiple carriers here in the US?  I decided to look at the specs and see which radios were on board.  If only GSM/HSPA+ radios are here, then AT&T and T-mobile are the only major carriers that could sell the phones.  What did I find?

Lumia 920 Specs

Here is the radio specifications on the Lumia 920, from Nokia’s website.

Operating Frequency

Bands

• GSM 850
• GSM 900
• GSM 1800
• GSM 1900
• WCDMA Band V (850)
• WCDMA Band VIII (900)
• WCDMA Band II (1900)
• WCDMA Band I (2100)
• LTE 800
• LTE 900
• LTE 1800
• LTE 2100
• LTE 2600

This phone appears to have quadband GSM support, quadband CDMA support and pentaband LTE support.  If all of these radios are indeed onboard, then this phone could run on any major carrier network in the US.  It also means that it would serve as an awfully nice world phone as all major international bands are available to the device.  You see the exact same radio specs for the Lumia 820 device.  This is not surprising as the SOC at the heart of these phones is the same ones as used on the Galaxy S III that was announced earlier this year, and that phone has been released on both AT&T and Verizon here Stateside.  And it is either available as a world roamer (AT&T) or will be shortly (Verizon).

Conclusion

In short, these new Lumia models are capable of running on all major US carriers.  This is huge as Nokia needs a real hit, and keeping the Windows Phone 8 Lumias on one US carrier only would impede market penetration.  Here’s hoping that we see the Lumia 920 and 820 on AT&T, Verizon, T-mobile and Sprint in the coming months, and as we see actual carrier announcements, we’ll let you know.