After being rumored since the early Summer months and the rumor picking up steam after the official expansion of LTE access in the past two months, Page Plus has announced to dealers that its previous bread and butter in allowing flashed phone activation will end next month and activations will be restricted to Verizon-branded devices that have previously been activated on postpaid as well as the recently growing slate of PagePlus devices that the MVNO itself sells and supports through its online partner storefronts.
Phone Activation Policy Change
There will be a policy change going into effect January 15th, 2015 and we want to let you know now so that you have time to prepare. At that time, our system will no longer allow the activation of devices that are not approved by Page Plus. This includes reprogrammed, or “flashed” devices from other carriers, and all flashed 4G devices from any carrier.
Previously, Page Plus and its dealer network drove most of its customer growth through a cottage industry of flashing phones from other CDMA carriers and brands such as Sprint, US Cellular, MetroPCS, Virgin and Boost Mobile as well as flashing Verizon’s first and second generation LTE smartphones when they were officially restricted from activation by bypassing the 4G radio and flashing devices to allow 3G-only activation. The aforementioned also had the additional benefit of being able to be activated on the least expensive $12 plan without having to purchase a monthly plan, which is now required for official LTE smartphone activation.
As a result, the most savvy customers would wait for certain devices to be available for flashing before upgrading to another device, or as was the case with the Moto G, flashing another carrier’s variant due to activation restrictions on the Verizon Prepaid version. What is not known at this time is what the official position on already activated and active flashed devices currently in use on the service will be, as the prevailing assumption is that those devices will be allowed to remain active through a grandfather clause and any major changes will leave the flashed phones inoperable after the 15th, including variants with disabled 4G LTE radios that were still allowed to be activated on Verizon’s network and Page Plus by proxy, such as the Straight Talk iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III made available in select markets
