Last time I checked (sometime in 2024), the collective /e/ “wisdom” was that Samsung devices would never have VoLTE in /e/, due to the proprietary way Samsung has implemented VoLTE in their phones.
However, after the last upgrade (to /e/OS 3.0T), I look in my Samsung S10+ under Settings->About Phone->SIM status and it tells me:
Mobile voice Network type: LTE
Mobile data Network type: LTE
Can anybody “in the know” confirm Samsung S10+ has VoLTE support in /e/ now? I really hope so, as this will mean I don’t have to buy a new phone (at the end of this year, my carrier will remove/disable the old 2G/3G calling)
Not certified, doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t do VoLTE. Certification is a (more or less) commercial process for any carrier.
LTE is an industry standard protocol, so if your phone is LTE capable and the carrier offers LTE, there is a very good chance your phone will do LTE, whether it’s officially certified or not, by that carrier.
My experience of the closing of 3G in the UK with a Samsung was that Vodafone sent a graphic showing that phones capable of 3G + LTE would connect to their 4G network but without VoLTE. My Samsung continued to work fine until I abandoned it for other reasons.
This sounds very confusing - it was my understanding LTE IS 4G, so if the phone can do LTE, it is 4G capable. If the phone is not 4G capable, it cannot do LTE.
y’all are debating the radio technology, but VoLTE is a marketing label for a bundle of techniques around packetbased realtime comms on top of the radio tech (or wifi, or usb-ethernet) - better refered to as IMS.
When you do VoLTE, VoWifi, VoNR, SMSoverWifi - you’re really talking to an IMS with your IMS phones implementation.
And the latter is (still) missing on customroms Samsung, thus you have no voice even when you have data.
the deciding factor is if the device is actively registered (not “available” either) in the IMS service status to “Voice-over-LTE” or “-over-WLAN” than the type of network you’re subscribed to. That is in *#*#4636#*#* upper right dropdown → IMS status.
But as said, that is irrelevant to the (Exynos) Samsungs I’ve been familiar with, not sure about newer or Qualcomm based ones.
I think you’re confusing 4G/LTE data service with 4G/LTE calls aka Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE). They are not the same.
To reiterate, LTE-capable doesn’t mean Voice-over-LTE-capable. The current situation is that the proprietary Samsung IMS/VoLTE implementation is not available to custom ROMs; that doesn’t prevent 4G/LTE data service, though.
That is precisely wrong. See these requirements, as well as the entire article: Voice over LTE - Wikipedia
Search the internet for “VoLTE certification,” and you’ll find some examples of companies offering the service to device manufacturers.
Wikipedia has a good graph explaining how LTE relates to 4G. VoLTE is a collection of technologies that get reused in sucessors. The less market-y term to use is IMS as that is what your devices IMS stack interfaces with at the carrier past some gateways.
The underlying transport isn’t essential to what VoLTE or VoWifi is. It’s regular SIP at the core behind more carrier acronyms (ePDG, P-CSCF).
Even if you technically interface with the IMS, after authentication the gateways can say “yes” or “no” to your particular IMEI that implicitly tells the device model (or by its user-agent).
Certification might mean carriers making sure your device and IMS implementation meet some criteria (on 911 emergency calls, audio codecs it wants etc).
To even get to your carriers IMS, the smartphone needs to ship an implementation and that is what’s missing on (older?) exynos Samsung builds. Sony, Pixels, Motorolas etc do though, especially qualcomm based ones. For those, LineageOS added the warning to at least register once with the original firmware to get the IMEI allowlisted (but it isn’t strictly necessary in my experience).
All that said: screw carriers and their acronyms for voice. If you can, use the call function in messengers (webrtc mostly) or a dedicated SIP client (with cloud messaging notification). It adds latency to the call because they won’t be prioritized, but at least will use a highquality voice codec (Opus mostly). Family&Friends get the cue and call back the same way. Though I see the issue if you’re doing business on a phone number or the day comes when you need to call emergency services.
/explainer end
For builders of older Samsungs, one option is the “FLOSS IMS”(1) by phh. There’s also an integration into TrebleDroid GSIs. It’s prototypish and has mixed feedback (because very carrier dependant).
Then there’s a monkey patched proprietary Samsung IMS pakage (2) that builders can try to apply per device (Readme is good, also see “Shenanigans” section).
There are /e/OS GSI threads (A13 and A14) building up on TrebleDroid (3), you could ask there as to if (1) can be / is included and what’s the feedback.
Thanks @tcecyk for the clarifications. Although the phone reports LTE for both voice and data, you are right, IMS is not registered.
Is there any one place where VoLTE support for each phone model is clearly specified? I did check the model page for a few phones (under the /e/ website), but I cannot find any clear list of “missing features”, and under “known issues” for samsung models, I cannot see VoLTE support listed.
It’s a bit unnerving choosing a new phone model, while not being 100% certain whether it will do VoLTE, or I’m just wasting my money…
It doesn’t look that the list is up to date (or if it is, /e/OS is in big trouble with most of the latest models it supports).
Given half the world has already disabled 3G calling and the rest of the world is about to (in the next 12-24 months), I am surprised to see how little info exists about VoLTE support for /e/OS, and that support for new Samsung models (which have the same VoLTE problem as the rest of the Samsung phones) is currently in active development - voice calling is the single most important function of a phone; without it, the phone is useless (one might as well get a tablet)
There are various other discussions around VoLTE and external projects which might someday provide a usable solution for VoLTE for Custom Roms on Samsungs, but they’re scattered throughout the forum in various other threads. A forum search for ‘IMS’ will bring them up for you, if you want to read them.
anything fully Qualcomm based released with Android 9/10 (2020ish, slightly earlier) is a safe bet for a proprietary-files.txt included and working ims stack. Earlier devices too, but I haven’t read negative reports on that device category. (The demarcation line is not as clear: but oem vendor ims (qcom) and pixels seems good, Samsung/verizon proprietary bad).
Pixels are safe to buy. But I think the thread purpose is really to track progress on a solution for existing Samsungs. The most current info on IMS stacks is in this thread
