Carrier Japan MVNO carrier requires iOS 7.1 to 7.1.2 to work - Why?

[plasticparadox]

Hi, I have an iPhone 5S on Japan's au/KDDI network. Nearing the end of my 2 year contract and looking at the cheaper MVNO options. The 2 carriers that I'm looking at, "mineo" and "UQ mobile" both require an iPhone 5c or 5s running only on iOS 7.1 through 7.1.2. No exceptions, and iOS 8 and above are specifically listed as not working with the service. According to the carriers' sites, this is not an app issue, but rather iPhones with iOS 8 can't use data on the MVNO.

My question is does anyone know why this could possibly be? If the hardware is the same, then surely there must be a fix for this. Has anyone heard of this? Here are the carrier pages.

mineo (English translation)
UQ mobile (English translation)

 

[jpn]

Hi, I have an iPhone 5S on Japan's au/KDDI network. Nearing the end of my 2 year contract and looking at the cheaper MVNO options. The 2 carriers that I'm looking at, "mineo" and "UQ mobile" both require an iPhone 5c or 5s running only on iOS 7.1 through 7.1.2. No exceptions, and iOS 8 and above are specifically listed as not working with the service. According to the carriers' sites, this is not an app issue, but rather iPhones with iOS 8 can't use data on the MVNO.

My question is does anyone know why this could possibly be? If the hardware is the same, then surely there must be a fix for this. Has anyone heard of this? Here are the carrier pages.

hi

neither of these 2 carriers support 3G data on CDMA and/or WIMAX networks.

it has to do with this and the resulting technical issues that seem to be limited to the (newer) handsets from apple as no other maker's handsets have this issue. and only on the newer apple models.

believe it or not.

what a strategic marketing mistake this one is (by mineo and UQ).

going with either one of these MNVO is a bag of hurt.

go with b-mobile. you won't regret it. no matter how good you think your au cdma coverage might be better than docomo GMS/3G/LTE, avoiding the two MNVO you name is a given.