This seems like a mess
He published another article recently about exactly that. It sounds like the telcos are putting in less than the bare minimum of effort and the government has been too clueless to hold them to account. And when it does try to legislate it has done so in a nonsensical way that risks hurting more than helping.
Will be interesting to see if this applies to Vodafone, as I haven’t seen any messages despite using an imported phone. And the messages I received from Telstra were somewhat justified as the phone is missing B28, but that’s more of a coverage issue.
A shitshow in any case. VoLTE should really have been a core part of 4G and not this tacked on proprietary upgrade.
Vodafone’s 3G network has been switched off for 9 months at this point, I don’t know if customers would still be getting messaging about it. Though there was a section in the article about issues with roaming for international visitors in January:
As a result of the Vodafone 3G switch-off in January, inbound Roaming customers have been receiving text messages advising they will no longer have access to voice, text or data and emergency calling whilst roaming in Australia.
Even customers with 5G iPhones have received such text messages.
They’re totally gonna get fucked by themselves .
The big telcos downstream to other companies that offer sim-only accounts (eg: i have a dodo acct, they resell optus). So they either kill the entire lucrative resell part of the business, or inevitably face court because telling someone “oh this phone doesn’t work because you no buy from optus” when a slew of other people are literally using the same self-provided model on their network will be exposed as the massively artificial pile of shit that it is.
It sounds like if you bought your phone from Apple or Samsung or JBHIFI you are stuffed. Can’t believe it.
Visit AMTA to check your device.
The author of the article claims AMTA is not a reliable indicator of VoLTE compatibility:
Additionally Tools like the ‘AMTA 3G Lookup Service’ are not accurate or reliable. AMTA knows this, hence why you need to agree to a long list of terms & conditions before using it.
This new ACMA policy is deeply disturbing because many consumers, including myself, own fully functional devices that can make VoLTE calls and emergency calls, yet are deemed “incompatible” by the telcos.
These are devices with the exact same hardware and software as ‘officially supported’ devices, the only difference is the telcos didn’t sell them.
Thanks.
I have a mild headache I haven’t been able shake so I’m putting down my not catching any of that to being super drowsy and zapped.
In fairness it is a poorly written and confusing article (the guy is not a writer by profession, just a telecommunications expert trying to draw attention to the 3G shutdown). I shared the video just in case people had a hard time understanding the main takeaways, since Hugh Jeffreys did a good job summarising them.
