Just days ahead of the shutdown, Australia’s media regulator ACMA finalised a new “direction” (basically a rule) that meant telecom companies had to refuse service to all phones that relied on 3G for making emergency calls.
The idea was to prevent people from mistakenly believing that phones were fully working, only to realise they were unable to make emergency calls when the crucial moment came.
Australians with older 4G phones may also be caught out because of the way the phones are configured.
It is up to the telcos to work out which phones are affected, notify the owners, block their phones, and help make other arrangements such as low- or no-cost replacement phones.
However, as Telstra and Optus noted during a Senate inquiry into the shutdown, telecom companies are unable to tell which individual devices suffer from this problem unless have they sold them.
I’m not saying it’s not partly on the providers, but validating that a bunch of obscure phones that aren’t sold in your country meet new regulatory requirements is not as easy as you’re making it out to be.
That’s the reason why every other fucking country still has either 3G or 2G activated. 4G is just a shitshow for making calls.
Well, 2G and 3G are being shut off in the United States as well. I believe AT&T shut down their 2G network in 2017 and shut down their 3G network here recently. And T-Mobile in the United States shut down their 3G network in 2022. And while their 2G network is still currently running, it won’t be forever. I believe Verizon is also in the process of shutting down or has already shut down 2G and 3G as well.
Where I live, 3G is going to be phased out, but 2G is staying seemingly indefinitely. Not only for the old phones, not only for all the dying villages that are not getting any upgraded equipment, but also for all the automation dependent on it. Apparently quite a few places did it like this.
So to let people know that they won’t have emergency service during an emergency, they prevent them from having ANY service now (24-hour notice). Even if telecom companies behaved perfectly (which they wouldn’t) the initial idea was already a problem.
You’d think they’b be able to… I dunno… SMS them about the problem, instead of cutting the service they pay for?
Yes, the phones are non compliant and need to be barred. This is good. Everyone must be able to access emergency services in times of crisis. The fact some manufacturers make phones that don’t use 4g for this means their phones rely on outdated tech and standards and will be excluded.
Railing against this is just weird.
Except they weren’t non-compliant before and this is punishing the users, not the manufacturers. I don’t even know what tech my phone uses for emergency services.
It’s not a bunch of a large number. It is a set number of phones from well known providers from a few countries.
Basically no one wanted to pay for one Business Analyst to read documentation and make phone calls to providers. For a program that has years and millions in it.
Or worse, cause it is out of scope
Or the worst, so they could sell the “buy from the provider” bullshit
Regulatory compliance of hardware is not, and should not be, the responsibility of the service provider. It’s the responsibility of the manufacturer to have their hardware certified basically everywhere.
Frankly, the rules shouldn’t even allow providers to make that determination. They should either be certified to meet the requirements by an independent agency, or have providers be prohibited from allowing them.
They’re actively blocking North American and international iPhones from connecting to their Network. Apple has updates for each region that automatically download when you get there, but they’re claiming it’s a trade secret so only the phones they sell can get that update that’s made by Apple for them. It isn’t even a firmware update it’s a little app that downloads in the background. Google does the same thing with Android, the pixel line, and anything running the stock with Google services or pixel experience.
Read the article. Optus is not bothering checking. Just closing stuff off.
They also refused to use the standard voice over LTE and refuse to let any thing that they didn’t sell try to connect to their voice over LTE even if it’s compatible. Leaving restricted Apple from enabling voice over LTE for iPhones not from Australia even though it’s just a software update that you need that doesn’t run on the firmware level.
If only those affected could call for an appointment to swap to those low or no cost phones.
The carrier doesn’t decide that.
I literally quoted the part that required carriers to block ineligible phones.
