5 years of updates is still a short time. We only have one planet...
> The biggest issue for long term cell phone support is, even if we get an OS with a 10-year security update timeline like Rocky Linux, will the phone itself be able to make calls on whatever cellular networks exist 10 years from now?
I don't think this is the biggest issue : operators usually maintain a certain type of carrier for at least 20-30 years (in France, we are only talking about shutting down 2G - which still raises a lot of issue because of the many IoT devices using GSM...)
The biggest issues are IMO
- lack of parts to repair old phones
- no possibility to manage bootloader keys / relock the bootloader (not even mentioning devices with locked bootloaders)
- "stable-api-nonsense" ideology and no BIOS/UEFI/ACPI for smartphone => no way to have "one firmware to rule them all"