Can I Use A BlackBerry Q20/Classic With Rogers?

[haydenlawrence]

I'd like to get rid of my iPhone and move to something less smart, and I would like to return to a BlackBerry Classic/Q20. It is a LTE compatible phone, but operates on BlackBerry 10.3.3 which is "unsupported" as of January 4, 2022. Does this mean I cannot use it with Rogers or could I still use it? 

Please assist.

[-G- · Accepted solution]

As far as I know, you can't really use the classic BlackBerry phones with any carriers anymore:

https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/support/devices/end-of-life

https://www.rogers.com/support/mobility/blackberry-phones-discontinue

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Blog/BlackBerry-Devices-and-Services-End-of-Life/ba-p/487572

While the hardware may still be perfectly good, they relied on proprietary infrastructure in the back-end, hosted by both the carrier and BlackBerry Ltd. (formerly Research in Motion), to support even their most basic functions, and all of services that made the BlackBerry phones a "BlackBerry" got shut down permanently more than two years ago.

The official "end of life" announcement states:

Updated December 22, 2021: As a reminder, the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022. As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality.

Some "post-apocalyptic" die-hard users have reported that their BB10 devices still kinda sorta work... but these devices no longer get provisioning updates from the carriers or security updates, and even basic SMS messaging is problematic.  If you wiped your phone or found a new/refurbished Q20 online, I don't know if it will be possible to get past the basic setup screens now that the legacy BlackBerry servers have all gone dark.