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Comment by kkielhofner | Hacker News Reader

I’m really confused by this - my iPhone 6 from 2014 has 4G LTE (and still gets security updates). What were you buying in 2018 that was 3G!?

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There were a number of cheap Android devices that had LTE, but never had VoLTE enabled. Instead of allowing them to work as data only devices, most carriers just blacklisted them from their networks.

Yup, got burned by this. I had a POCO X3 (4G LTE but no VoLTE) which I'd still be using today had AT&T not labeled it as a 3G phone. Even just attempting to use it with my SIM card now automatically deactivates my plan.

Now they have a phone whitelist restricted to (mostly) mainstream brands...

The US telcos went back to whitelisting phone models for volte, so unless you bought phone that were sold by them they'll prevent your from making calls (and accessing 5G network too).

Is the VoLTE implementation actually substantially different from device to device?

What's the reasoning behind doing this?

They do it because they can.

There were some burner flip phones that didn't have 4G up until around 2015, LG making a few of them. This guy was buying used pieces of crap and complaining how they weren't going to support a waste of spectrum.

Incorrect. It was a brand new Samsung Galaxy A5 Duos which I bought in early 2018 for well over $300. Yes, it was 4G, but not voice over 4G. It stopping being able to make voice calls on AT&T’s network only four years later. I think T-Mobile still supports 2G, so it would work there, but I’m not sure.

Anyway I got a Pixel 5 and now use T-Mobile’s instead of AT&T’s network (via Ting, since I use little mobile data and that gives me a phone with a low-bandwidth data plan for $15 a month + tax), since T-Mobile is better about supporting legacy phones and protocols.

In terms of the “waste of spectrum” argument, I think it’s better for the earth to “waste” some spectrum than waste millions of perfectly good phones. One takes up landfill, the other doesn’t. But, to each their own.

I got Samsung M51 blacklisted by AT&T earlier this year (with perfectly functional 4G support that stil works fine on TMobile)

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