31–40 of 108 posts
> Many carriers only permit VoLTE and VoWiFi on devices they sell or have officially tested. Does this happen even if you are using a carrier's SIM card; it's just because you didn't buy the hardware from them? It's not just an IMEI-level block so data still works?
VoLTE was an afterthought and carriers don't trust untested vanilla implementations. So they only allow known-good phones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I remember the issue was that many models of phone would use 4g/5g for everything but emergency calls, which was done over 3G. So the government made the choice to block those phones from the network entirely rather than leave them seemingly working but unable to make emergency calls.
Pretty much, but the govt didn't do any blocking directly. They just told the carriers, "Hey, you must not allow people to use devices on your networks that are unable to make emergency calls, or we'll apply serious penalties." The carriers then responded, "I notice that there is no requirement that we allow any device that can make emergency calls. So we will only allow devices we also sell (and maybe a few other mo…
> that let Pixel users enable VoLTE anywhere It did a great deal more than that. It also allowed the toggling of VoNR, which apparently affected the fallback behavior of some people's services. (Ie. It would fall back to LTE and not roam back to 5G data unless nudged manually) However for me, it would enable backup calls over a secondary sim card's data, which would allow text and calls overseas without the usual ext…
> that toggle is enabled for my carrier... but only on iOS WiFi calling with SIM1 number via SIM2 data has always worked on iOS, so I was surprised when it didn't work on Pixel.
Does that work for inbound calls, or just for outbound? How does the voice network find you?
This phone/carrier nonsense is just stupid. I had lots of trouble with Wi-Fi calling on Android phones: * A phone purchased outside US/unlocked but non mainstream (aka not Samsung/Pixel) phone purchased in the US cannot enable Wi-Fi calling despite having hardware & software support for it, as it's not a supported model * An at&t Samsung phone that is later unlocked cannot enable Wi-Fi calling when using a Visible SI…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
VoLTE was an afterthought and carriers don't trust untested vanilla implementations. So they only allow known-good phones.
Ok, but why block VoWiFi?
If Google had not patched this, it would have violated local regulations right? In other words, they are trying to be compliant right? What do people want - a company to openly violate known local laws?
> it would have violated local regulations right? First, "local" where? I don't know of any laws making VoLTE devices illegal (..unless blessed by a phone carrier?). If you know of any, feel free to list them, but know that Google has blocked it for all users, globally, not just in the localities where VoLTE is somehow illegal. Second, I don't want Google enforcing the law - contrary to your framing, it would not be…
So, if Google were aware of a hack that allows users of their devices to circumvent conditions put in place by carriers against misuse of their network, and Google did nothing to patch this, Google could lose their license to produce devices which can access the radio spectrum. You personally could also be hel liable for using these hacks, but Google would definitely be on the hook, and could, in principle, be entirely prevented from manufacturing and selling phones, if this ever escalated enough.
How on earth is this a "vulnerability"? It needed adb shell access.