I did some more digging and found that at&t Sim cards notify at&t whenever firmware is updated. It seems they have unallowed your phones’ IMEI. If you go to T-Mobile’s website and check your IMEI you may find your IMEI is allowed access and will work fine with LTE.
https://scribe.rip/telecom-expert/what-is-at-t-doing-at-1111340002-c418876c212c
Here is a link to the story about at&t Sim cards.
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Interesting, i was looking for the VoLTE toggle in. my newer moto g(7), but didn’t find one; i did find a list of network settings ( e.g. LTE, WSCDMA, CDMA, GSM, global, etc) in various preset combinations… Is that what you used finally?
For U.S. users without working VoLTE, you could try this as an interim solution:
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Get a jmp.chat account for $2.99/month (current Beta pricing). It includes calling, texting, and picture messaging. Port from your mobile carrier to jmp.chat, and add the account to your SIP dialer (or use Linphone dialer, etc.).
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Get a data-only international SIM. I just saw, as one example, that Vegolink’s new U.S. pricing is $7/gigabyte for roaming on AT&T and $15/gigabyte for T-mobile. Data roaming in many other countries is cheap as well.
So, for $2.99 a month (EDIT: and some potential additional cheap costs for outgoing minutes), plus $7 for each gigabyte (non-expiring as long as you top up before one year has elapsed), you could completely replace your normal carrier and not be subject to VoLTE restrictions. One (major) downside is that you wouldn’t have e911 support from jmp.chat.
I don’t have any experience with Vegolink or info about their reliability and business practices, so I’m not specifically recommending them, only bringing them to your attention. Nor do I know anything about the owners, other than what is listed for company info: https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE342741. You’ll have to do some research and decide if you want to do business with them.
I don’t have any experience with jmp.chat, either. I have used my VOIP account with Android’s SIP dialer, and it works well.
I do have experience with a similar international SIM company, Surfroam. I was not happy with their business practices.
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If you check T-mobile’s IMEI checker and your IMEI is allowed, it means your phone’s broadband processor has been approved to work on the 4G network and will work simply with LTE.
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That, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that calls will connect. VOICE over LTE is not the same as LTE DATA.
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This setting might not even appear in the menu until you insert the SIM into a phone from an OEM that tested and certified that specific phone model (and regional variant) with the specific carrier that provided the SIM.
It would be nice if every OEM certified every phone with every network worldwide, but I think those are few and far between.
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I’m bookmarking this, especially because of how detailed it is.
Unfortunately for the time being, i’m stuck with the yearlong plan on redpocket (240 for 10GB/mo), expiring in a year.
Well worth looking into though, and thank you!
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On T- mobile in the US , calls connect because my phone’s baseband processor is approved by T-Mobile to operate on the Volte network. Whether I have a setting to turn it on in the application processor or not my phone is transmitting and receiving Volte.
At&t in the US appears to be delisting phones based on firmware updates, apparently they have an interest in keeping their customers in goggle or Apple’s walled garden. David Allen Burgess has an excellent blog on medium.com under telecom experts that explains this.
https://medium.com/telecom-expert/structure-of-a-smartphone-383575de3eaf
https://medium.com/telecom-expert/what-is-at-t-doing-at-1111340002-c418876c212c
https://medium.com/telecom-expert/the-coming-volte-train-wreck-b2e78947a08c
I suspect that your calls are dropping to 3G or 2G instead of LTE, which is what the author describes in the third article (The Coming VoLTE Train Wreck). One way to know for sure is to make a call and see if the LTE indicator in the top notifications area of your screen changes to H+ or H or something other than LTE during the call. If the LTE disappears, you’re not using VoLTE. (And if calls are connecting for you now without VoLTE, they will eventually stop connecting as T-mobile shuts down more 3G and 2G network connections.)
With Ting (T-mobile’s network), my Sony stays on LTE during calls. This phone has VoLTE on T-mobile because Sony tested and certified this model for T-mobile’s network. It would not get VoLTE on AT&T’s network, because Sony did not do the certification process with AT&T.
(I was going to include some screenshots, but I can’t get them to paste here for some reason.)
I had the same issue with my previous phone, which was not certified for VoLTE on the network. In fact, I didn’t even realize I was having problems with incoming phone calls not reaching me until I noticed my outgoing call problems. If they connected at all, sometimes I could hear the person on the other end, but they couldn’t hear me. I assume T-mobile had started limiting 3G coverage in my particular area, and as I didn’t have VoLTE, I couldn’t use the LTE network for calls.
Yep, their yearly plans are a very good deal.
One thing you might want to do while you’re waiting for the plan to run out is to add either an ultra-cheap paygo VOIP plan from a provider like Callcentric, or a jmp.chat account to the SIP dialer on your phone. Then if you happen to find yourself in a situation with no calling ability on RP, you would at least be able to make a call or send a text through the SIP account (which would connect over the RP data connection, or over WiFi, as the case may be).
The VOIP account or jmp.chat account would use a separate number, of course, because your mobile number will still be with RP.
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Ah! Didn’t realize that H+ was a warning!
I would like to apologize for posting incorrect information about using e/os galaxy s9 in the US. My phone is currently making calls and texts on t-mobile’s 3G system which will be offline in July.
But I have found a solution that Taurus previously mentioned. It is jmp.chat. I signed up for the service and have a new working Voip phone number that I can also use for messaging. I created a free jabber account at ubuntu-jabber and use it to access my number. Finally, I had to install the f-droid app store so I could get an updatable version of the cheogram app that works with jmp.chat. The app converted all of my current contacts into cheogram contacts and enabled sip calling on my phone’s dialer. When I can no longer make mobile calls I will simply forward all calls from my mobile number to my jmp number and I will still be able to use my phone for calls and texts. Then just before my current plan runs out I will port my number over to jmp and sign up for a new unlimited plan of which talk and text I will never use.
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One advantage the /e/ Samsung users have is that T-mobile apparently doesn’t realize that VoLTE isn’t currently working on these phones, so you could actually subscribe to any T-mobile or T-mobile-based MVNO plan and use it just to have data for the jmp.chat account to ride on. There are a lot of cheap MVNOs to choose from.
I use mint mobile $360.00 /year unlimited data, which I usually use ~35G/month. Now I just hope they don’t start using tattle-tale sims like att.
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No longer easy to root etc after /e/ upgrade to android 10 on these devices…automatically encrypting after each reset
Afaict, the wisdom so far on this: 1 year warranty should replace a phone with which you can never make calls again. Have you seen anything else?
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