Upgrade and PHP?

[Carbo]

I am currently running v3.4.6.  I recently contacted my website host about an issue unrelated to my forum and they replied with:  
One thing I wanted to make you aware of, your account is currently set to PHP version 5.6.  We did this because your existing website (specifically the forums) is not compatible with a higher version.  PHP versions 7.0 and earlier are all End of Life, and will not be receiving security patches, etc. from the PHP working group.  Is there anyway your developer can update your forums so that we can move your account up to PHP 7.1?  This will not only improve security, but will also improve page load times for all websites on your account (PHP has to be set account wide, it is not site by site).
My question:  being a techie ignoramus, is this an accurate statement?  Should I upgrade to IP's latest, which I believe is v4.4.2 ?  

Thank you.

[Adriano Faria]

Yes, IPS 4.4.X requires PHP 7.1 or higher. 

New Server Requirements: PHP 7.1.0 or higher required (7.3.x now supported). MySQL 5.5.3 or higher requires (5.6.2 recommended).

 

[Carbo]

Thank you!  So I'm guessing my site host would need to upgrade PHP on my site first, and then request the upgrade to 4.4.  Correct?

[Adriano Faria]

At the moment they upgraded, your 3.4.6 won’t run anymore. 

You can also upload this to check your server compatibility after upgrade PHP:

 

[bfarber]

Yes, 3.4.6 was written before PHP7 was available and so is not compatible. But on the flipside, our current releases require more current versions of PHP.

To upgrade your community you would need to (1) update PHP to 7.1 or higher, and then (2) immediately upgrade your community afterwards, since your 3.4.6 site will cease to function as soon as PHP is updated as Adriano mentioned.

[Carbo]

Appreciate the information.  Thank you!