So if I'm on Verizon and I buy this, what speeds should I expect? I'd be ok with HSPA+ speeds (I find Verizon LTE to be extremely underwhelming), but as I understand it, Verizon doesn't do HSPA+. What will the Nexus 4 fall back to?
The phone is GSM based, Verizon and Sprint use CDMA. If the market for the phone was just the US, making it GSM only may not be a great choice. However, outside of the US, the rest of the world is almost exclusively GSM.
Uh.. they didn't 'cut out' anything. If anything, it's the carriers that are stupid for not adopting the same standard of using sim cards (Verizon and Sprint don't use sim cards..). I think they wanted to lock people in to their service.
I don't disagree...I've found the lack of GSM support on Verizon frustrating over the years. Unfortunately, Verizon effectively kills the competition for us in terms of coverage and price at a corporate level.