I'm still kinda of confused... does that mean we could say get a simcard and make voice calls via this network? insert sim card into mobile phone android/iphone and make phone calls?
That’s enough to make bars appear on your phone. What’s missing is the IMS, which adds traditional calling, voicemail, SMS, etc. However, FaceTime, iMessage, etc. will all work.
I don't expect this is for telephony, but rather a faster (I guess it's faster...) wifi. But who knows. Maybe if you install your own telephony servers or whatever you could call people on that network. Unsure anyone would care about that unrealistic usecase.
Or did you actually mean "cellular"? Mesh indicates a deployment where not all access points have a backbone connection. Cellular indicates a deployment where all access points have a backbone connection.
This actually works already over WiFi too and that's called VoWiFi. That does not support handovers between networks though, so it is not that convenient. Specifically it means that if you walk outside the WiFI network, your call will drop. I suppose the different branding is due to this quality aspect, as there's no difference in the protocol.
And unlocked phone should work provided it supports required frequency(tricky) and voice calls should be possible, but it probably can’t readily connect to PSTN and given actual “1-555-1234567” numbers, or make 911 calls for that matter. If you’re going to have Asterisk SIP VoIP server running on-prem, that is probably supported.