“We're Shutting Down Our 3G Network” | Hacker News Reader

“We're Shutting Down Our 3G Network”

benergize.com

142 pointsspcebar141 comments

I have an old OnePlus phone that still works fine, but it won't work with AT&T's network changes. I called and AT&T said I could get an iPhone SE for free, but when the contracts came for me to confirm, there was no mention of getting a free phone, and instead I was committing to paying $400 over three years. The AT&T reps assured me I'd get be credited at some point in the future and that the phone would end up being free, but I just don't trust them. It's crazy to me that something that happens as frequently as upgrading a phone requires so much manual intervention from human support representatives and it still doesn't work.

I am on a OnePlus 5 via AT&T Red Pocket (mvno). The minimum supported OnePlus next year is the 6t.

https://www.xda-developers.com/will-my-phone-work-on-att-aft...

Specifically, I'm using the Red Pocket "essentials" plan that I bought on eBay for $100 (1 year of service, unlimited texting, 1000 minutes, 1gb data per month).

Red Pocket didn't know anything about the XDA article, and forwarded it to a higher tier.

I think that I would have the option of switching my account to a T-Mobile Sim card, but I bought a pixel 3a xl, and loaded lineage sans gapps. I think Verizon becomes an option with this device.

It doesn't like my home WiFi, so I'm upgrading to Gargoyle. This is going to be a project.

There are a lot of Pixels going out of support that will be cheap, and perfect for Lineage. Don't try to replace the battery (usually wrecks the display). The problem with old Pixels is that you won't get the Qualcomm updates.

On AT&T's conversion day, mvno customers will switch in great numbers.

I would record the call, that should be proof enough once they “forget” to refund you.

Because no one can fake a phone call? Just get the offer in writing.

Yes of course technically anyone can fake anything including hard copies. In practice, once you have to go up against your carrier, having a recording stating an actual employee number with a voice that matches the CSR that your account file says you spoke to will be good enough. Don’t be so pedantic.

No it won't, all CSR #2 needs to say is "CSR #1 is wrong and shouldn't have told you that." Now what? AT&T has done this to me in the past.

In that case, the same information written down instead of spoken won’t help either.

Well surely then you can void your contract, because you agreed it based on false information?

Wow this is crazy. In India, operators have no incentive in what handset their customer uses so they cannot interfer with user's choices.

Besides, they can't disable 3G/2G because of the sheer amount of people who still use these networks from villages.

> Besides, they can't disable 3G/2G

Jio has no 2G/3G and they have one of the widest ranging networks encompassing most remote villages. It has never been a problem. I suspect Airtel and Vodafone will turn off their 2g/3g soon.

>Jio has no 2G/3G and they have one of the widest ranging networks encompassing most remote villages.

that's coz they have a "roaming agreement" with BSNL to use the latter's 2G network

Ahhh... TIL. I had no idea.

This is normal, it's free with 2yr contract lol.

VoLTE is so damn frustrating. LTE works via plug and play with any phone that supports the correct bands, but VoLTE doesn't. I have a Sony Xperia phone here in Canada and it's just not possible to use it on VoLTE without rooting to install specific provisioning files and whatnot.

And that's not even counting how you can't just go from country to country without changing firmware.

I've always used a local SIM whenever I go on a trip to another country. But with VoLTE, you're incentized to roam with the carrier that has whitelisted and provisioned your phone, because your phone will be fed that home VoLTE provisioning information when roaming.

There's the irony: I can VoLTE call with a Verizon SIM roaming on Bell, but not with a Bell Canada SIM on its own network.

My very old rooted huawei maimang 5 somehow manages to even get VoLTE roaming without problems, and it automatically got VoLTE settings on every network I tried.

I still have to see how my new Xiaomi will fare.

Lots of networks blocks VoLTE on the network end if the device is not on their whitelist. Both two of my Xiaomi phones fails to get VoLTE on both networks in my country that offers it. Mea while my S21 has no trouble since it is whitelisted with the same two networks that refuse to provide VoLTE to the Xiaomis. Sadly it's a case of making sure you have (1) a VoLTE capable network, (2) a VoLTE capable phone and most importantly (3) a network that whitelists your phone. One network in my country started out only whitelisting only the specific phones they sold (and rejecting phones sold elsewhere even if it's the exact same model, firmware, etc) but I believe they have since loosened up by accepting phones sold by others as long as it's the same model as what they sell themselves. It's a absolute mess and to be honest the only reliable choices are Apple and the last few generations of Samsung phones (as that's what all carriers here sell) but if you stray to other brands it's very hit and miss whether your carrier will support it and worse whether you have the choice of changing carriers to another that also supports your phone. Makes me pine for the good old days of GSM.

I don't even think my carrier Lucky Mobile supports it. I don't really get why? Does this actually save them money or is it because the people who care/need it are incentivized to upgrade to Virgin/Bell?

EDIT: Apparently it does automatically but they disable the toggle to turn it off.

Bell supports VoLTE on Lucky, but not WiFi Calling. They only offer it on the Bell and Virgin brands.

It’s likely done purposefully so that customers in rural areas cannot use the flanker brand, and must instead stay with the more expensive alternative.

My luck with both WifiCalling and VoLTE has been so touch and go between different devices and even within multiple devices of the same model... that i just gave up and started doing everything exclusively within Google Voice.

Nuking the Messages app also had a nice little benefit: No more text spam that the carriers refuse to do anything about.

I recently found myself without any LTE signal the other day and was told by support that I needed to contact a certain department by… calling them.

I did have WiFi so my first thought was WiFi calling. Unfortunately, it appears on iOS that WiFi calling for some reason depends on hotspot, which I couldn’t enable without and LTE connection. Kinda deflated the purpose.

Thankfully, I had completely forgotten about Google voice, which someone reminded me about.

I remember a few years back though, a phone I had on I forget which carrier could fall back on 2g networks when LTE wasn’t available for whatever reason. It seems that ability is disappearing as old generation networks are shut down.

I understand why you feel that is ironic, but the VoLTE call on Bell uses only the Bell LTE data bearer and not any other resources that are VoLTE specific from the Bell network. Everything relating to VoLTE is coming from Verizon. In many roaming situations VoLTE roamers are downgraded to CS in order to comply with lawful intercept.

Oh, I know all that --- it's just funny to me.

VoLTE has been "broken" (from a standards perspective) since before it even launched in most markets - it is just too "finicky" and configuration-specific. LTE/4G demonstrated the success of standards in that it "just works" as long as you have the right bands in place. Since most (modern) phones have the bands needed for the main global markets, you can pop in a SIM card and get connected anywhere.

VoLTE is far more complex, and there's network-specific configurations "hard-coded" into the (usually) Qualcomm modem firmware, including IPSec parameters for communicating with the IPsec endpoint in front of the IMS SIP server.

An example of one of these configurations (in JSON-ish format): https://github.com/JohnBel/QualcommMBNs/blob/master/extracte... - even including things like a "user agent":

``` "ImsUserAgent": { "ValueString": "Vodafone VOLTE Qualcomm" }, ```

VoLTE roaming can work, but it's complex and requires specific roaming agreements between carriers. These arrangements need negotiated individually (for now) between operators, and have a number of considerations including technical and legal - since there's IPSec in use, local laws (in the country you roam in) might restrict the ability to do this, as local lawful intercept wouldn't work. The home network needs to set up rules for which networks won't permit IPsec to be used (I believe AT&T will do this, but only where there's a legal requirement to permit local interception of calls).

The long and short of it is that, as you say, VoLTE is a load more complex than it ought to be. Throw in delivery of SMS-over-IP (settings also in the above MBN example) for extra complexity - many operators rolled out VoLTE/VoWiFi without SMS support, and some still don't properly do SMS over IP as far as I recall.

5G more generally is starting to head this direction too though - with the complexity of EN-DC supported configurations for 4G, and the very limited support for 5G standalone, even among devices advertising it, I fear with 5G we will have another few years to go before you can buy a "5G" phone and have any confidence it will work. VoNR (the successor to VoLTE) will likely have all the same issues replay as we saw with 4G.

I really wish we could get carriers and standards bodies to bash heads together and set up a "baseline" standardised IMS profile for VoLTE/VoWiFi - there's nothing inherently preventing this from working, as you can easily use VoLTE on a private network if you follow the standards, but operators love to meddle, tweak, and add custom useragent strings etc.

> LTE/4G demonstrated the success of standards in that it "just works" as long as you have the right bands in place. Since most (modern) phones have the bands needed for the main global markets, you can pop in a SIM card and get connected anywhere. VoLTE is far more complex, and there's network-specific configurations "hard-coded" into the (usually) Qualcomm modem firmware, including IPSec parameters for communicating with the IPsec endpoint in front of the IMS SIP server.

I sort of get the feeling this is by design.

The success of standardization predates LTE by a lot if you look beyond the US which had competing technologies until LTE. GSM networks (2G) allowed roaming and switching between phones by swapping SIMs in all of Europe in the mid nineties, and most of the rest of the world a few years later. Just the US use of a unique 1900Mhz band kept roaming mostly unavailable.

Indeed, I was using LTE as an example of the peak standards benefit, but in Europe this simply hasn't been a factor for decades. 2G and 3G were similarly uneventful and straightforward (for the most part).

This was all standardized correctly in IR.92, but a bunch of software was essentially baked prior to standardization, which means you need a bunch of config to say "do the standards defined thing".

> local laws (in the country you roam in) might restrict the ability to do [IPSec]

Is there a way to find out which countries do this?

BMW recently sent out an email of impending loss of 3G connectivity.

> The decision to phase out 3G network technology was made at the discretion of the respective cellular carriers and lies beyond the control of BMW. As a result of the sunset of 3G service by wireless carrier partners, by February 2022 your vehicle will no longer be able to receive any ConnectedDrive/BMW Assist services, such as BMW Assist eCall, Advanced Real‑Time Traffic Information, Remote Services and BMW Online, depending on your BMW model.

Old Teslas (like 5+ years) will lose net when 3g goes. You can do a computer upgrade but I don’t think it’s cheap ($500-$1500 range offhand)

It’s really annoying this isn’t software defined for future proofing. As long as your RF hardware is robust onboard, the rest can be done in software.

Are you suggesting some 3G RF hardware can be retrofitted with software patches to be compatible with 4G networks ?

This is theoretically possible (SDR) but it's very expensive.

(Before anyone replies about $20 SDRs, those aren't even close to 4G/5G capable.)

Indeeed. Last time I looked these chips were $1300 each in quantities of 1000. Too expensive for even a luxury car.

I think the answer here is an internal USB modem or something. Easy to upgrade. Just up to the car manufacturer to commit to writing new drivers. (I assume that they don't want to do this, so are probably happy when technology changes out from under them. Everyone has to buy a new car!)

What makes this silicon so expensive?

Future-proofing puts you on the wrong side of Moore's Law. Let's say 4G requires 10x the transistors of 3G. In reality that's not a problem because 4G came out 10 years after 3G so transistor costs came down 10x or more. But if you wanted to build a 4G-upgradeable radio years early you'd have to pay for that 10x performance upfront using older and more expensive technology. This same argument applies to future-proofing other tech like video codecs as well.

- Car stuff has to be certified in order to be road legal (in Europe, ECE marked)

- Car stuff has to deal with a way wider temperature range than normal consumer stuff (-40 to +125 °C). That is the thing that makes silicon so expensive.

- Car stuff has to deal with vibrations and mechanical stress, meaning more expensive PCBs, less options for solder (remember the infamous NVIDIA solder issue of ~2010?) and connectors

- Car voltage regulation is a hot mess, at least for ICE vehicles - IIRC during engine start, voltages can drop to something like 6-ish volts and after that (or during battery disconnects/other load dumps) into 120-ish volts, and the voltage has an awful lot of ripple because usual generators are AC that's driven through a diode rectifier, with the battery acting as stabilizer.

- Most stuff in cars requires hours of work to replace it - Tesla were to my knowledge the first ones who did software updates outside of shop visits at all.

Regarding the temperature range; this procides a bit more detail and nuance:

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/301826/how-t...

High complexity, low volumes, I would imagine. A few of the answers below talk about it being a car part but SDRs that can do 3G/4G are targeted at people developing cheaper chips. Electronic test gear is much more expensive than cars (at least at the bleeding edge), so the pricing doesn't preclude it from being used there.

the radio cannot be software defined (and user modifiable) for type acceptance and regulatory reasons

In what country? The FCC certainly allows SDR to be certified. "User modifiable" is sufficiently broad as to be nearly meaningless.

https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/fcc-sdr-whitepape...

Here's the actual text on restrictions for SDR: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/2.944

The FCC defines SDR here extremely broadly, any radio which "frequency range, modulation type or maximum output power (either radiated or conducted)" can be changed.

This describes a substantial portion of radios - including many if not most WiFi access points. They are legal and many US companies design, manufacture, and/or sell these types of radios (I work for one of them).

Absolutely they are legal to sell, but you have to go through type acceptance under part 15, and then you need to make it so the user cannot modify them.

“ The rules require any manufacturer certifying a device under the new process to take steps to prevent “unauthorized” changes to the software on the device that might alter its radio frequency and power parameters in a way that takes it out of compliance with the regulations known as FCC Part 15 regulations.”

Test equipment is exempt because it is not licensed as an intentional emitter under part 15.

$500 to $1500 sounds relatively cheap for a Tesla repair since a battery issue can be in the tens of thousands (because they want to replace the entire battery) and even relatively minor body damage can be in the thousands or the tens of thousands.

They really should have used an easily replaceable mPCIe cellular module. $50 replacement cost. Interface has been around since 2005.

And $1450 labor.

I have actually found Tesla labor prices very reasonable.

Car manufacturers don't even try to pretend that their prices have anything to do with the actual costs of components. You want an "original X" part? That will be $$$$, thank you very much.

Just because the old modules were mPCIe doesn't mean a new one will be too.

I have an Thinkpad T430s, that came with mPCIe 3G modem; for LTE, it was possible to find a replacement, but for 5G, I don't expect there will be any (any whitelists in firmware aside).

Or similarly, I have an openwrt router with mPCIe 802.11-ac wifi (Turris Omnia). It is not possible to replace them with -ax adapters, they all have m.2 interface.

With cars and other long-used goods I would expect the same problems.

Sure, most have USB-only connections and some have actual PCIe connections (I suppose). And then there's the fragmentation at the software/AT command level.

Still, Tesla could have spent the software effort required to make it work with a few of the most common 3G/4G/(5G) modules from reputable manufacturers.

This is apparently a photo of the easily replaceable card that it's on: https://www.ebay.com/p/3035604932

I'm not sure how you plan on taking apart the dashboard for less than $50 of labor, though.

It doesn't have to be placed in the dashboard.

So you're saying that existing cars, where it's in the dashboard, can be modified for almost nothing to put this card someplace else?

Edit: I mean, hindsight is great when you're designing a new car, and Tesla did make it much easier to replace this card in newer models, but we're talking about old cars. 75 minutes of labor for an S, 90 for an X.

> So you're saying that existing cars, where it's in the dashboard, can be modified for almost nothing to put this card someplace else?

Of course I'm not saying that. Please re-read my post if necessary.

Edit: This is a design deficiency, is what I'm saying.

Isn't hindsight awesome? Even though your first bit of advice was implemented on day 1 (the modem is on a separate card), it's still expensive to replace it.

Tethering off your phone seems simpler, especially if you got their app running.

That's not accurate. You don't need to upgrade the MCU/infotainment computer and the retrofit is only $200.

"A source has informed me that due to AT&T shutting down its 3G network by Feb 2022, Model S's without an LTE-capable modem will lose connectivity features unless connected to WiFi. HOWEVER, Tesla will offer retrofits for $200. Affected vehicles are pre June 2015."

"Tesla will be offering retrofits for these vehicles for a bargain price of only $200, even though the vehicles affected by this could be up to nine years old."

Source:https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1415851250055323648

See https://www.tesla.com/support/update-3g-services

They're going to upgrade the modems to LTE for $200 each.

I really appreciate my 2011 Civic's lack of a cellular modem.

Ditto with our 2003 Citroën. This always online paradigm will cause more and more problems down the road, as the first IoT generations lose Internet access.

Do you? Because when it's -10F here, I can remote start my car, even if outside remote start range. Rather nice to always have a toasty car (or cool in summer).

Okay that's good. Last I heard was that they stopped doing daughter board upgrades, and you had to swap your entire computer. Things like this tend to change pretty fast/often in Tesla land, so can't always keep up.

(Also don't have a 2014 Model S so doesn't impact me personally)

My 2013 Ford was delivered with a 2G modem, and had a recall to upgrade it to 3G. I guess when that goes offline, the online features will be totally abandoned. The final (presumably) radio firmware already significantly reduced utility of them anyway, the system no longer wakes up for network to car requests, so might as well not make them.

The loss of 3G is going to be an unmitigated disaster it seems. Might even be appropriate for the FCC to step in and force them to keep it up.

A lesser loss is that 3G often works in a big crowd where LTE is overloaded. Maybe that'll at least change to 5G vs LTE over time.

That's not the case everywhere. Depending on your network's configuration, it's entirely possible to have areas of high traffic where 3G service is so poor even 4G is miles ahead. This is because networks may decide to provides lots of spectrum to 4G whereas the spectrum available to 3G has be reduced to the bare minimum they need to operate. This is the case for all three networks operating here in New Zealand. One carrier has gone from providing 30 MHz of 3G spectrum down to only 15 MHz (basically halving the capacity), meanwhile the same network provides up to 80 MHz of 4G spectrum with plans to reduce 3G usage further so it can be reallocated to 4G or even 5G. Also 4G is so much better at handling poor signal conditions—I know of several places where the rollout of 4G saw marginal singal locations improve from sporadic data (coming in bursts randomly every now and then) to actually being able to slowly browse the web anytime with data coming in at a steady stream. The difference was like night and day. I'd be glad to see 3G go but am disappointed about all the issues with VoLTE as its making the migration to 4G more difficult.

It’s insane to keep a massive portion of spectrum on this old technology to support a very small amount of people with outdated hardware.

Not just that – it complicates cell planning a lot.

As far as I know, UMTS and LTE behave very differently under load, and at least in the early versions of UMTS there was the phenomenon of "cell breathing", where the serviceable cell radius varies with network load (due to the CDMA modulation/multiple access scheme used).

Having to provide denser cells in sparsely populated areas just to avoid dropped calls during the odd traffic spike sounds like a real pain.

In my old house, on UMTS, I would have perfect signal except for 6am-4pm when the local school was there. It was fine in the summer. The local school soaked up the entire “cell” and my house was a dead spot.

It's more about these devices that aren't so easy to replace like car modems. If 3G won't be it then we need to settle on something else that can be promised to be there in the foreseeable future for the longevity of IoT/cars/whatever else.

I'm getting bit by this too, so I've been keeping an eye on possible workarounds. People are finding ways doing upgrades that BWM is mostly saying are impossible: https://www.reddit.com/r/BMWi3/comments/of67m0/i_had_a_3g_to...

I was going to say, this is going to be awful for so many devices. There's still quite a few areas along I5 that only get 3g.

Subaru upgraded my telematics unit in my car for free when 3g was ending in my area.

Blog fell over already. https://web.archive.org/web/20210718185549/https://benergize...

Yeah, I got that second text. But the funny thing is, I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which is absolutely supported. Here is the whitelist [PDF] https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Device... I contacted AT&T support via chat and they did some debugging. The last thing they had left to try was swapping out the SIM card. So they dropped one in the mail, but if this doesn't work it will be because AT&T can't even get it right on the few phones they say are supported. https://twitter.com/sep332/status/1415087312090931212

It seems like the only support specific variants which seems a tad ridiculous. My Canadian Samsung A51 doesn't seem like it would be supported because it's an A515W and not an A515U. What's the difference? I think for those two variants just the firmware.

I’ve flashed a Canadian S8+ to work on Verizon previously. It was a a royal PITA and I had to get the phone unlocked as well (carriers are required to provide the activation codes here).

It ended up working though and my grandmother is still using the phone.

A few weeks ago I moved my sim from a broken LG V20 to a Oneplus 3t and att suspended my account. I wasn't sent a message or any kind of notification. My sim just stopped working.

I had to call att support for 30+ minutes to find out that it was because the 3t doesn't support volte and get my account reactivated.

The way att has been handling this transition has been really shitty.

VOLTE is a banned subject on the lineageos subreddit because support for it is so spotty and hw manufacturers and carriers don't release the information to rom devs that they need to support it.

Someone else had all of their outgoing calls redirected to AT&T customer service. https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1415078945989566469

I just tried an "unlocked" iPhone 7 on my brother's Verizon prepaid, and SMS works, but calls don't.

He bought a Samsung, and that seems fine. He's keeping the iPhone for Siri. I don't feel like teaching him how to enable Google Assistant just yet.

About 15 years ago I had a teacher who remarked that phones are starting to do more and more things. He said that it won't be too long until the calling functionality becomes spotty. I guess we're there now.

Not quite clear from your comment, it stopped working even when you switched it back to your old phone? Otherwise, it just sounds like your phone didn't work because it was incompatible, not because your account was banned.

The phone should still work for other functions so if stuff like data etc stopped working entirely it does seem possible it was due to a SIM being blocked/disabled.

My account was completely disabled. I tried two other phones that are compatible with att volte and they only worked after talking to att support.

The author appear to be using OnePlus 3T which uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 with X12 LTE Modem. It support VoLTE with AMR-WB but not EVS. I doubt EVS is a hard requirement until VoNR in 5G. But not supporting it seems strange.

In the old days Network require certification for phones to work. I am not sure if that is the case in US but for many part of the world that is no longer required.

It could also be the lack of band support if AT&T forces VoLTE on certain band, but I also think that is extremely unlikely.

Edit: Turns out AT&T operate on a whitelist system [1] ( What ? ) with a list [2] of phones. Sort of surprised but also not so surprised coming from an US Mobile Carrier.

At least US is moving quickly to drop 2G and 3G and refarm those spectrum along with dropping circuit switch backend. But mobile cost is still ridiculously expensive.

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/t-mobile-att-require-volte-ph...

[2] https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Servic...

> Turns out AT&T operate on a whitelist system [1] ( What ? ) with a list [2] of phones. Sort of surprised but also not so surprised coming from an US Mobile Carrier.

Pretty sure all carriers in Poland operate on a white list of phones.

https://wificalling-volte.pl/

Having a white list of devices is pretty unusual in Europe, afaik.

Can confirm, I've worked with mobile phone related stuff for about 15 years and never before this article have I heard of a whitelist. My first reaction is that the concept sounds ridiculous, you're supposed to be able to put a SIM card to any device you find and just use it.

That's exactly how it works, just without VoLTE and VoWiFi.

The US (not sure about Canadian) mobile market is completely different to the European one. It's almost alien in comparison - the carrier tries to control absolutely everything, and generally sees the handset as an extension of their network to the extent they want to "type approve" every firmware release on every handset that is "allowed" onto their network.

Apple appeared to become the exception due to having such an "in-demand" handset (going exclusive with AT&T initially might have helped them negotiate better terms with other carriers to get the iPhone to their networks) - mobile operators can't modify the iOS firmware at all. On any other phone, expect branding, pre-installed bloatware apps, modified startup and shutdown screens, modified top-bar to show "5G" on presence of a 4G network, and 6+ month delays to security updates while they get the above modifications made to the firmware before they approve it.

Arguably part of the "control" mindset comes from CDMA networks, where you couldn't "pop the SIM" and change network - you had to get the ESN whitelisted on the network, and that gave the carrier a lot of control over your ability to switch phone, or whether you could buy it from anywhere except themselves. I guess GSM carriers admired this level of customer-capture, and wanted to replicate it.

It sounds like "GSM" carriers are going to have to move fully towards whitelisting to preserve voice calling service when they get rid of their circuit switched fallback networks.

Inbound roaming of foreign users will be interesting in the next few years - without any CSFB voice support, they will likely not be able to serve most incoming roamers (who don't have network-to-network arrangement for VoLTE roaming), and that might cause a loss of roaming revenues once travel levels return towards more of a normal.

> when they get rid of their circuit switched fallback networks

Why? Isn't that stuff they run in software (on network hardware) and could emulate forever for a low cost? (Or at least for another decade until very, very few people would care.)

Not really - many are still running it on legacy appliances like they have done for years.

There's also a lot of implications of moving CSFB type functions into the IT environment due to completely different security assumptions in both worlds.

That's not to say you can't do it, but the circuit switched networks are very often actual literal networks of legacy hardware that operators want to get rid of and take out of service.

The cost of keeping legacy systems going is also raised due to skills shortages and limited expertise. Another reason operators will try to get rid of it if possible.

> On any other phone, expect branding, pre-installed bloatware apps, modified startup and shutdown screens, modified top-bar to show "5G" on presence of a 4G network, and 6+ month delays to security updates while they get the above modifications made to the firmware before they approve it.

Have never seen anything like that on Pixel / Nexus phones bought from Play Store and not tied to a particular network. Is this an issue specific to carrier-bought phones or are all Pixels exempt?

Carrier bought phones except iphones. I think that was the point the OP was making; you can walk into a carrier store and buy an iphone from them, and it's the same phone you'd get from Apple, just with the carrier sim already included. But any Android phone you buy from the carrier is going to come with a whole lotta cruft.

None of that applies if you buy a phone separately from the carrier (so Google phones, or OnePlus, or similar), but most of those also make arrangements with the carriers, I think, to recognize the phone before sale (at least, my carrier recognized both my Pixel and OnePlus devices at the times I had them).

> Apple appeared to become the exception...

Apple was the exception because they initially went with AT&T. Jobs demanded no carrier interference. The first carrier they approached (Verizon, IIRC?) refused Jobs' demand, so instead of caving, Jobs went with another carrier.

Cingular, not AT&T. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Chooses-Cingu...

This is bizarre. After you pointed out my error, I went to Wikipedia to verify before saying anything more. I was wrong originally; you, me, and your link all know it. But Wikipedia says it was AT&T that first carried the iPhone [0]. I assume it's because AT&T bought Cingular, but it feels off not noting that it was branded under Cingular instead of the separate (at the time) AT&T.

It's an eerie feeling finding errors or omissions in what is commonly used as an irrefutable source of truth in the modern world. I appreciate the correction though!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility#iPhone

It is shocking to me that anyone would consider Wikipedia as an irrefutable source of truth.

If I'm at a bar and want to settle something lighthearted between friends, Wikipedia is the source of choice. If it's worth delving deeper, we'll go deeper, but for a quick answer I trust Wikipedia more than saying "Hey Google, which network was the first iPhone exclusive to?"

Perhaps irrefutable is too strong a word, but if I'm looking for an answer (instead of researching a topic) and want a quick, single source, Wikipedia is my go-to.

Apple went with Cingular not AT&T. The iPhone would not have been possible in this era of monopoly where we only have 3 carriers left. This is what we have lost not enforcing antitrust.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Chooses-Cingu...

In Turkey, device whitelisting is required by law, but it is done by the government itself, not by the carrier operator.

Interesting. What is the rational of that? So I cant bring in a obscure phone that no one have heard of before into Turkey and expect it to work on any mobile network?

This is hardly "Mobile" at all.

Not like that. It is done by IMEI-IMSI-personal ID number matching, not by device types. If any one component of that triplet changes, you have a month to register it to yourself again. Otherwise, no service to you anymore. And yes, they will probably refuse to register an IMEI for a device that is not previously certified to operate in Turkey.

Orange (.fr) has a whitelist of devices even for data LTE.

The earliest supported OnePlus is the 6t.

https://www.xda-developers.com/will-my-phone-work-on-att-aft...

Well, this is fun.

Got the letter that ATT is shutting down their 3G network and that my phone will need to be upgraded and they will send a free replacement that will automatically be activated in 30 days if I don't activate it myself (thus rendering my current phone unusable on the cellular network).

My current phone is compatible with the ATT LTE network and I don't want whatever crappy free phone they send. So I called, waited over 20 minutes on hold, and right as I'm verifying the account information to the representative the call ends and they don't call me back.

> The problem I have with both phones [Pixel 4a, Galaxy S10e], especially the Galaxy, however is that they are several years old

That appears untrue. The Pixel 4a was released in August 2020, so less than a year ago. It has guaranteed software updates until August 2023. (Or maybe until November 2023, unclear which model the author is referring to.)

I have S10e, I'm not sure I would get it today camera is not great by today standards and not sure how long it will be supported. But the form factor and the power button fingerprint reader have been great usability features - I'm sad there is no newer variant.

I don’t believe googles update commitments. I had a pixel 2 XL it gets updates, but many of the new features were only available on the newer pixel devices. I’ve had the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 5, the pixel, and the Pixel 2 XL and I got tired of Google forgetting about their existence as soon as the next device came out.

Agreed. Between my wife and I we've had a Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 5x, Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 along with a few other regrettable phones. The short support window, even for Google devices, has made us finally jump ship. We both switched to iPhone 12 this spring and so far the change has been easy.

I'm past the age of wanting to constantly tinker with my phone and my wife really just wants a good camera. I don't see us going back to Android unless Apple tightens its grip to the point of making owning a Mac mandatory.

You're correct, I conflated the lower battery size of the 4a with the age of the s10e in my head. Both were independent issues.

It looks like signing up with a proper VoIP operator and paying a few bucks a month more is now the way to make sure you have voice connectivity everywhere you have mobile coverage. And a bunch of text / voice / video messengers, of course. As much as mobile operators tried to avoid turning into dumb data pipes, such network fragmentation pushes them hard in this direction.

The tricky part is SMS aka text messages. They were a neat GSM hack, and were / are present on every new protocol. Many companies use them for 2FA (not great, I know). Not having them because of the network fragmentation makes me feel like in 1990s again when different GSM and NMT networks could not agree on passing them transparently.

Well, ok, please give me a dumb LTE data pipe that works everywhere, I'll sort out the rest. Thank you for your market segmentation.

> It looks like signing up with a proper VoIP operator and paying a few bucks a month more is now the way to make sure you have voice connectivity everywhere you have mobile coverage.

Without latency guarantees. If you end up on a congested cell and/or are deprioritized you will have noticable latency spikes and jitter. voLTE/voNR and their corresponding signalling have dedicated priority QoS.

I did use VOIP for many years over 3G WCDMA and 4G LTE networks as well as WiFi when I roamed between countries and swapped local prepaid SIM cards. Used Google Voice for SMS. My setup worked most of the time but I wouldn't go back to it again unless I had the necessity to. Too many times I'd get calls with big latency.

I have no idea what is going on at AT&T but I've definitely seen their customer service slide dramatically in the last few years, to the point that I finally left the network after 9 years. I don't blame the reps - there seems to be complete organizational chaos, and lots of cost-cutting going on making the issue even worse.

This solution of just force-mailing out new phones blows my mind. Phones are such a personal choice, and these replacements seem pretty sketchy on the whole, what a phenomenal waste of resources. Surely a better solution would be to give people a voucher to use with AT&T that would at least cover a cheap phone with comparable specs and could also be used against future phone bills if you want to upgrade yourself?

The new ATT provided phones will almost assuredly have ATT spyware on them as well.

My AT&T 3g flip phone was cut off yesterday morning. I got a text from AT&T at ~6am telling me that the device I was trying to activate was not supported. Sure enough I was unable to send or receive calls or texts. I knew about the Feb 2022 cut off date but its absolutely ridiculous that they would pull this ~8 months early.

Ignoring the primary issue of the post, I take issue with the reason for not going with the alternative phones:

> The problem I have with both phones, especially the Galaxy, however is that they are several years old.

The Pixel 4a was released in October of 2020. My Pixel 2 was receiving updates for years after I got it, so I'm not sure what the author is referring to here.

You are correct. I was conflating the lower battery capacity of the 4a with the age of the s10e, which are independent issues I got mixed up in my head. I'll fix the post tomorrow. Thank you for pointing that out.

I stopped using AT&T while ago, and have no love for them, but let's be fair: the OP bought an unlocked phone elsewhere (not from them) and now complaining that they are not replacing it with comparable model. As sombody who always buys unlocked phones I have no expectations from my carrier to support or replace them. I can always sell them though. I can also always leave the carrier as having unlocked phone allows me to stay on month-to-month plan. It is sad they have to shut down their 3G network, but I am sure they have business pressure: support costs, bandwidth allocation, etc. This is the price for rapid progress of all phone technologies from good old GSM to 5G in recent just a couple decades. Old stuff needs to make space for new.

>the OP bought an unlocked phone elsewhere (not from them) and now complaining that they are not replacing it with comparable model.

No, I'm pretty sure they're complaining about it being replaced in the first place, with a 30d deadline at that, when AT&T claimed the original deadline was February 2022.

I use AT&T too (prepaid plan, on a dumbphone) and I got a text about the February 2022 deadline back in March 2021. But the text said nothing about them sending me a new phone and forcing me to switch sooner, and I haven't got another text since then either. That said, I already have a new phone that I was planning to switch to when February 2022 got closer (not AT&T, because my new phone isn't supported by them lol) . So it won't be too much of a problem if they do force me to switch sooner.

> As sombody who always buys unlocked phones I have no expectations from my carrier to support or replace them.

As someone who buys unlocked phones, I wouldn’t use a carrier who didn’t support them. They’re a bad abusive carrier not worth your money if they do not.

I don’t understand why anyone would be more ok with their cell provider dictating what device you can use than they would be with their internet provider dictating what computer they can use.

> their internet provider dictating what computer they can use

A better analogy would probably be an ISP dictating what modems/CPEs are supported on their network – and isn't that common practice?

Certainly not for DSL.

This seems like such a weird business practice of US carriers.

Every single network I've ever used worked as plug-and-play with both Android and iPhones (except for frequency band and technology support, of course; a GSM 900/1800 phone won't work on UMTS 2100).

I understand the carriers' desire to provide a consistent user experience, but the practice of allowlisting devices based on IMEI prefix or even exact IMEI seems like a real pain, especially when in 99% of all scenarios, it would just work anyway.

Is this due to VoLTE/911 calling requirements, or is it really just a leftover from the time when US phones didn't really have SIM cards and the phone was (almost) inextricably linked to a given plan and vice versa?

I'm really glad I saw this. I have a ~2015 Blackberry Classic that I love, and when I got the texts, went to the store. I asked them that, since my phone supports 4GLTE (from the icon on the screen) would I be alright. The salesperson said it would work, so I forgot about it. But I didn't realize there was a different network for calls/data. And from how they are apparently forcing phones upon people, sounds like I need to be proactive in getting a phone I will like.

So yeah, thanks OP.

Why does VoLTE require pre-approving phone models? Voice over VDSL (IMS, 3GPP's embrace & extend of SIP) seems to work fine independent of the device placing the call.

Because VoLTE stacks on phones are a heap of junk, and there are Core Network / Phone model interop bugs all of the time.

A few years some ATT 911 calls failed due to VoLTE issues. The FCC punished them. So now they refuse to enable VoLTE except on blessed phones.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/final-report-march-8-2017-att-m...

The US cellular market still involves bundling handset and service, sold in physical stores. Bringing your own phone is deviating from the happy path. Carriers are not motivated to fix interoperability bugs because it increases customer churn.

Link to the AT&T 3G whitelist[1][2] that the blog alludes to.

I was one these longtime AT&T customers that jumped ship a month ago; I have several unlocked BlackBerry Key2 and essentially don't use data (roughly 1 GiB on any given month per unit over the past 2 years). The cost of these phones approach flagship territory, and there still isn't a suitable replacement on the market as integrated physical keypads go IMO, so it was a no-brainer.

That the much older KEYone and Priv models would continue to be supported on their network, yet the newer Key2 and Key2 LE models aren't on their whitelist despite supporting VoLTE and receiving an unusual number of system updates in the past year alone, was at first baffling. As I understand it now, the situation is a business decision (not tech constraint) to whitelist only older VoLTE-compatible models previously sold by AT&T---whereas the Key2 supposedly never was.

After all the periodic SMS reminders and dealing with their batshit annoying bot that would entitle itself to interrupting the first 30ish sec of my voice calls, I got really tired of it and burned a random Sunday afternoon porting over---saving over $300/yr per phone with still more than adequate data. Never looked back.

[1] https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1324171/

[2] https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Device...

The carrier VoLTE support for limited phones is not just a single carrier issue but its for a lot of carriers all over the world.

And thanks to the Android ecosystem some phones which support VoLTE will never get the required update to have the carrier settings nor will the carrier get anything from the OEM to be added to that whitelist.

The 3G network in NL is also gone (except for kpn, which will keep it for 1 more year)

But 2G is staying until 2025 so old devices can still do normal phone calls and SMS.

Same in Germany. First operators have shut down 3G and the last will follow soon. But there is 2G for voice, SMS, and in theory data. Of course in today's bloatweb EGPRS is not fun to use.

2G is sufficient for things like remote sensors that send a few kB every hour, and probably has enough customers willing to pay for the service to continue a little longer.

I found that quite impressive.

Where I live in the UK (flat, semi-rural area peppered with small towns, 30mins away from a large city), there’s lots of spots where 3G is the only thing that works… if you’re lucky.

The plan for the UK seems similar, maybe just a year or so later.

https://www.mobiusnetworks.co.uk/blog/blog/the-sun-sets-on-3...

https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/minister-pled...

Clicked for the article. Stayed for the pizza recipe.

Could you just port your number to an IP VOIP supplier and skip the VoLTE issue entirely in the case where you have working 4G data?

Yes, but 2FA SMS (short code SMS) support is spotty.

There are even MVNOs that send you a data-only SIM card and activate a VoIP app, for example Fonus. 911 calls go through the SIM-less system and are automatically routed to whatever carrier has the best reception.

> That’s my boring story of entitlement.

Damn straight. Call me a soulless corporate drone but I completely understand AT&T here. Sometimes you need to drop old and unprofitable services.

With millions of customers, you can't afford to cater to everyone who wants to be treated as a special case. There are genuine special cases that need the attention, and "but I like my phone" is just an example of a modern Karen in the wild.

Times change and we must change with them.

I know, right? If my corporation overlords told me "You have twelve months to make a decision. PSYKE you only have 30 days because we took the liberty of deciding for you." I'd be slobbering with delight and gratitude at their thoughtfulness. Only a Karen would be annoyed by that.

I would have ignored the text because it looks like spam. How can you be that stupid and still exist as a company?

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