My main concern with these higher frequency connections is that they require a lot more power to run. So we can’t have phones that will last weeks without charging.
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Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
41–50 of 51 posts
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#42> newer phones like the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) I know we are a more tech savvy crowd but is using a 7 year old feature phone really the best example to make this argument? I imagine that most people keep their phones closer to four years.
it's exactly the kind of device I'd base an argument on. The machinations of the mobile device and telecom industry are adversary to a majority of consumers. I don't want to buy a phone every 5 years to continue to make at best 32-64kbit/s bitrate calls to mom and pop.
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#43> newer phones like the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) I know we are a more tech savvy crowd but is using a 7 year old feature phone really the best example to make this argument? I imagine that most people keep their phones closer to four years.
I think the sentence before that is more important though I do wonder if that is correct: In order to make a VoLTE phone call, your phone, your provider, the receiving phone and the intermediate network providers must all support the protocol. The receiving phone ? WTF? So I can't use my VoLTE phone to call a land-line in another country? That would be stupid if true. Meaning that really can't be true.
I'm pretty sure they're confusing VoLTE which only needs your phone and your provider to support it (and provision it, etc, etc, if you're roaming, there's more, etc, etc), and the higher fidelity "HD Voice" G.722.2 codec, which does require end to end support. Your provider might connect your end as HD Voice to a call terminating as POTS on the other end, but I'm guessing probably won't.
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slightly offtopic but related: One of my mobile providers supports configuring public (non firewalled) IP addresses for mobile devices and when choosing that option my phone battery drains very significantly faster than otherwise. I suspect it's because all the random packets that arrive every second or so on the public interface (when NAT and firewall are disabled) either cause the radio to use a lot more battery or…
I've been wondering about that! A long time ago, I had a phone plan like that as well (in fact, a public IPv4 was the only option), and I was wondering if random port scanning would eventually use up all of my data allowance. Turns out stateful firewalls aren't just a security factor on mobile internet connections.
I've luckily mostly been on unlimited data plans, so I don't know about it using up your data, but I guess it would? Your device is sending and receiving data. I don't think there's a distinction for externally made connections, otherwise vpn tunnels would have been really popular.
I did have an experience with my phone being suddenly used by random internet users. I had ampache running on my n900 (maemo/debian-based) and somebody found it on the internet and started streaming my music. :D I had a higher-than-normal amount of battery usage for a few days so I decided to see what's using it and discovered that my music was being played and downloaded.
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#45I'm feeling this pain right now. I was forced to switch to my backup phone after my main one broke. Data is okay over LTE, but it doesn't support VoLTE, and calls over 2G is miserable. Connection is super spotty unless I take the call outdoors, and even then, quality isn't great. Couple that with T-Mobile shutting down 2G in April 2024, and guess who's forced to purchase a new phone just to keep up.
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#46> newer phones like the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) I know we are a more tech savvy crowd but is using a 7 year old feature phone really the best example to make this argument? I imagine that most people keep their phones closer to four years.
> I know we are a more tech savvy crowd but is using a 7 year old feature phone really the best example to make this argument The J3 isn't a feature phone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_J3
Sorry I meant budget phone. Compared to the s7 which also came out the same year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S7
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the 2G network is still running at least for T-Mobile. I happened to check earlier today.
New T-Mobile SIMs haven't been able to work in 2G phones for a bit now. If you have an older SIM that's still active you can use it in a 2G phone but they don't want new customers using non-VoLTE devices on their network. They also haven't invested in expandning their 2G footprint since about 2015 when their network was significantly smaller. The 2G service will be discounted in April.
> ’The 2G service will be discounted in April.’
The last nail in the coffin for my Motorola Razr V3
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I happen to have a newly bought T-Mobile prepaid SIM card. It offers limited "high speed data" (4G, 5G, etc) and unlimited "slow speed data" (2G, 3G). Once I ran out of "high speed data", my service was supposed to fallback to 2G, but it doesn't work. I asked why via customer support and the consultant said that they know that it doesn't work, even though they're selling it. Took me 60 minutes on the phone to get to…
You don't fall back to the actual 2g connection. You're supposed to fall back to 2g speeds aka 128kbps or 256kbps. You'll still be connected to LTE towers, just at painfully slow speeds.
That would be great, but in my case I am getting no connection at all. Hacker News times out.
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#49My favourite thing is how they’re doing it all over again with VoNR (5G)! Why was voice a mandatory feature for 3G but everything since has been such a mess?
Because cellular standards up to 3G were designed to support circuit-switched voice lines, i.e. you would get a dedicated slice of network resources for your call. That meant the voice interface had to be built into the base standard just like data communications. 4G and 5G treat voice traffic as packet data (not quite like other data, I believe it gets slightly higher priority) so VoLTE/VoNR is just running a data application on top of the 4G/5G data link. That means you can specify the voice connection seperately and many carriers take advantage of that to do things their own way (to the detriment of consumers).
Re: Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working
#50I'm feeling this pain right now. I was forced to switch to my backup phone after my main one broke. Data is okay over LTE, but it doesn't support VoLTE, and calls over 2G is miserable. Connection is super spotty unless I take the call outdoors, and even then, quality isn't great. Couple that with T-Mobile shutting down 2G in April 2024, and guess who's forced to purchase a new phone just to keep up.
I'd recommend buying a phone from Tracfone (or one of their sub-brands) with a bundled year of service, and then unlocking it after 60 days. They frequently have sales of those bundles for $100 or even less. You should be able to take it to T-Mobile if the model isn't proprietary to Tracfone/Verizon (though you will be stuck with the Tracfone customized firmware). According to this page which tracks prepaid phone deals, QVC and HSN both have Tracfone bundles on sale with lower-end Samsung phones for around that price, and even one with a Pixel 6a if you're willing to spend a little bit more: https://prepaidcompare.net/deals/