All three major telcos have been warning customers to make sure they upgrade from 3G-only devices, but also to check if their 4G and 5G devices have something called Voice over LTE (VoLTE), so that they don’t get caught out when 3G networks shut down.
Telstra and Optus 3G shutdowns
Telstra: June 30, 2024
Other affected carriers using the Telstra network include:
- ALDI Mobile
- Belong
- Boost Mobile
- Exetel
- Lycamobile
- MATE
- More
- numobile
- Superloop
- Tangerine
- Woolworths Mobile
Optus: September, 2024
Other affected carriers using the Optus network include:
- amaysim
- Aussie Broadband
- Catch Connect
- Circles.Life
- Coles Mobile
- Dodo
- iPrimus
- Moose Mobile
- Southern Phone
- SpinTel
- Yomojo
The 25 most common devices which may be affected
According to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association.
- Alcatel 2038
- Alcatel OneTouch 2045
- Apple iPhone 5
- Apple iPhone 5C
- Apple iPhone 5S
- Aspera A42
- Doro PhoneEasy 623 OPTUS
- Doro 6521
- Google Pixel 2 XL
- Huawei E5331
- Huawei E5251s-2
- Huawei Y6 Prime
- Nokia 301
- Oppo A57
- Oppo F1s
- Oppo F5 Youth
- Optus X Smart
- Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini
- Samsung Galaxy S5
- ZTE Blade A0605
I still get 3G sometimes 50km from the Melbourne cbd, despite having a 5g capable phone direct with Telstra. This cut off is a problem in these areas where reception is terrible.
5G was supposed to be better for regional coverage, but MAAAAN does my phone fail over to 3g a fair bit.
My last whinge on this topic.
In the Android world, you could improve security and effectively extend the life of the phone by installing a 3rd party ROM, eg LineageOS. Depending on the community and skills of interested developers, this could continue being updated and even included upgrades to new Android versions with new features for years after the manufacturer abandoned it.
But some phones have proprietary implementations for VoLTE and VoWiFi. Eg on my Samsung phone,.which will soon stop receiving Samsung updates, everything on any AOSP based ROM works except VoLTE and VoWiFi.
So, this effectively makes these 3rd party OS’s useless. You won’t be able to take or make calls.
I’m not happy about that, and make make sure my next phone purchase will have VoLTE etc available on AOSP
I am potentially in the same boat. I’ll need to wait for the Optus shutdown date to be sure, though. Hopefully my older phones continue to work since they are all still being regularly updated and are superior in some ways to modern smartphones (size, headphone jack, SD card, no selfie notch, etc).
The other thing that pisses me off about 5G is that the higher speeds are only over very short distances. So unless you’re close to a tower or they start rolling out a heap more towers, most people won’t get any benefit over 4g
I know where I live, and where the tower is, I can’t get 5g.
I find it even funnier when some providers offer 5g plans capped at 100mbps, which is the same speed as their 4g plans
And don’t forget 5g uses more battery than 4g, so unless you need the speed, turn it off and just use 4g.
I’ve got no use for 5g unless I was going to use it instead of NBN. And it doesn’t beat fiber or HFC as far as I can tell… either in price or performance.
There’s this cool thing at&t did where even if you have volte and 4g, your phone still won’t work if it isn’t on their specific whitelist.
Had a very fun time after I missed a phone interview because of that.
Oh, you mean like Telstra VoLTE compatible devices? Where only devices sold by Telstra are officially supported?
“If you didn’t buy your device from Telstra, you’ll need to get technical assistance to see if you can enable VoLTE on your compatible device”.
Yeah it was a similar deal. At&t has a whitelist of phones they support with VoLTE, and if you’re not on it you’re screwed.
Wasn’t too happy about the thought of having to buy a new phone. Checks out VoLTE is included and enabled. That’s it right?
Yep. You need 4G to connect to the network and VoLTE to make calls over native 4G. If in doubt turn off Wifi then make a voice call. Look at the phone’s screen to see if it still says “4G”.
Man if you are rocking any of those devices though its absolutely time to upgrade. Unless you use your phone for calls and text only and NOTHING else its a huge security risk to be using something that old and so far out of date.
What’s more interesting about the shutdown is how this might affect IoT devices that rely on 3G - e.g. Canberra’s public transit system uses the Optus 3G network to enable its MyWay card system - once it goes down, what will that mean for commuters (especially given that Transport Canberra doesn’t accept cash on buses since COVID).
