Hardware Change Required....well, kind of...
Hey Fellow Droid Geeks,
I am an Electrical Engineer and I work with the core devices that these phones "run on", so I may have some insight as to how this "works" if anyone cares. :biggrin:
The main processor is the (obviously) OMAP TI DSP Processor. However the RADIO (as we EEs call it) that communicates with the wireless tower is contained in a piece of silicon known as an FPGA or ASIC. This device contains the modulation schema for the specific radio TYPE (aka CDMA/GSM).
The FPGA is a generic piece of hardware that can be "configured" to contain a certain set of operations and features. THIS DEVICE CAN BE RECONFIGURED, however one needs the proprietary bit file from the manufacturer which Verizon and (let's say) Motorola keep under lock and key. This bit file that reconfigures the FPGA Radio is their "bread and butter".
The ASIC is basically the same as an FPGA, except IT CANNOT BE RECONFIGURED. It is a "one time programmable" (OTP) device.
I'd have to tear apart my Droid X and read the P# off of the radio chip to see what type of device it is (either FPGA or ASIC).
"Technically" one could reconfigure one's Droid phone's radio to BECOME a 4G phone, but you'd probably like to have the ORIGINAL 3G bitfile just in case the "new" 4G bitfile doesn't work (if you brick the radio chip you brick your phone). Obviously this would ONLY work if the radio was an FPGA, NOT and ASIC.
There are other "magic" schemes that engineers use to make sure a device STAYS the way they designed it....like scrubbing the radio chip after every reboot from an EEPROM to prevent this kind of thing from happening permanently. Pure speculation at this point, obviously.
Just thought I'd throw that out there, if anyone cares :biggrin: :motdroidvert:
It probably is NOT worth it. One would have to own the FPGA programmer (typically $150+), write the mods to the OS (hours of one's time) and the mods to the Radio (again, hours of one's time).