Unfortunately, it appears a lot of smartphones do not have the necessary technology to support this. ARS Technica writes about 2 billion phones that are still in use will not be able to use the contact tracing cooked up by Google and Apple.
Out of 3.5 billion phones in active use globally today, about 1.5 billion will not be able to use these apps because they are basic phones that do not run iOS or Android. An additional 500 million phones do use iOS or Android, but will not be able to support the app because they lack the necessary Bluetooth low-energy technology. Adding it all together, about 2 billion mobile users will not be able to use the digital contact tracing, most of them being from more vulnerable segments of the population:
The particular kind of Bluetooth “low energy” chips that are used to detect proximity between devices without running down the phone’s battery are absent from a quarter of smartphones in active use globally today, according to analysts at Counterpoint Research. A further 1.5 billion people still use basic or “feature” phones that do not run iOS or Android at all.
“In all, close to 2 billion [mobile users] will not be benefiting from this initiative globally,” said Neil Shah, analyst at Counterpoint. “And most of these users with the incompatible devices hail from the lower-income segment or from the senior segment which actually are more vulnerable to the virus.”