As it turns out the 3G shutdown will stop ALL mobile phones working..

[ad...@reviews.wox.org]

Well this is just peachy.

4G and 5G  is a DATA ONLY  service.

Unlike the UK which maintains a 2G voice fallback network to
facilitate their 5G connections, handshakes, roaming  and
emergency calls - Australian telcos are aiming to force
everyone to use a proprietary VOIP based platform.        On
top of that the platform each telco uses is INCOMPATIBLE
with the other two major telco's voice services.     Foreign
'on paper' identical voip platforms  (such as verizions
version) are also not compatible.  On purpose.

So not only are they expecting /EVERY/ Australian to buy a
new phone, you can only get a working one direct from your
mobile provider - and you cant take it with you if you
change providers. it simply wont be able to make calls.

So an unlocked optus handset, wont work on vodaphone or
telstra, or vice versa.  International roaming will no
longer work here or overseas for ANY other mobile
provider.   They are also proposing to BAN all phones not
manufactured and distributed directly by
optus/telsta/vodaphone.     Yup.

The only part i find really funny here is the fact that this
will also break almost every Apple Mobile phone too.  At
least until some cultist knocks out a VOIP app on the
appstore that talks to your phone provider.   Although at
that point, why even bother buying an iPhone, since an iPod
would then have identical functionality then.

Now it seems the only thing that will work on non-proprietry
mobile phones is the data connection.   Maybe.

This means if you use whatsapp or skype or such,  you can at
least pretend you can still make voice calls - but it will
be completely depending on your data connection and speed -
and if the person you call uses the same VOIP platform.

This also means all the 4g/5g towers will likely be data
saturated and the internet speeds will end up too slow to
even make calls on SUPPORTED proprietary phones.

Oh yea did I also mention that 000 emergency calls wont work
either, on any mobile phone after the switch off.  As it
turns out in the standards used in mobile phone design, 
they require using 2g or 3g networks to connect the 000 call.

It /MIGHT/ still work if you buy one of the new overpriced
network locked optus or telstra handsets..  but given it is
in the design spec, those phones too may attempt the call
over the turned off 2g/3g network.  Also that means the
triangulation function wont work.      So it means if
someone calls 000,  but cant give an exact address,  all
phones will no longer be trackable to a location based on
tower location for rescuers.

Australia,  the leading authority on being the Global
Village Idiot.

--
New and improved 2600... well.. ..we drew on some flames and polished it a bit..
--
Google - making sure, life is no more, than 1984...
--
In politics - Later never happens.

[ad...@reviews.wox.org]

Also - there is a small group trying to get this problem
across to the government, they have had some progress, given
the switch off was pushed back a month.

Here is a video discussing some of the reasons why turning
off 3G will probably cause a national disaster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPlTz-3estM

[Damien Gardner]

That's literally not correct.

Optus and Voda support OpenVoLTE.  Any handset that supports OpenVoLTE will work on Optus and Voda.   However Telstra does NOT support OpenVoLTE, and only supports a small subset of phones.  If you have a model which was NOT released in Australia (such as an iPhone that isn't an Australian model, or similar for Galaxy phones, etc), so it doesn't get the appropriate carrier settings sent down when it registers for Telstra's somewhat proprietary version of the protocol, then yes, your phone will not work.   The Solution? move to Optus or Voda. (Yes, I know this is gross, because Optarse and Vodafail are horrible, but it's one way to keep your phone working..)

Best thing that can come from all of this would be Telstra being forced to adopt OpenVoLTE, so they're compatible with everyone else..

Cheers,

DG

--
--
------------------------------------------------------------
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "2600 Australia" group.
To post, send email to: 2600-au...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe, send email to: 2600-austral...@googlegroups.com
For 2600 monthly meetings, visit http://www.2600AU.org
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/2600-australia
To unsubscribe, send email to: 2600-australi...@googlegroups.com
Disclaimer: Comments to this mailing list are owned by the poster
------------------------------------------------------------
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "2600 Australia" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 2600-australi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/2600-australia/ada44930-0efd-4188-81cd-38dd2c7853dc%40reviews.wox.org.

[ad...@reviews.wox.org]

Ok thanks for the clarification -  I am surprised this has
not attracted more discussion.   Well here at least.

OK to clarify my prior post,   telstra handsets and
non-telstra handsets  wont be interchangeable, so if you
have an unlocked phone, the fact that it is unlocked is
literally pointless,  since depending which provider you
want to switch to (example moving from optus to telstra) it
wont work. Going the other way however (telstra to literally
any other provider) is at least a 50:50 chance your phone
will keep working if it has VoLTE.

On top of that [m]any phones not sold by an Australian
monopoly (anti trust much?) will likely not work either. 
Even ones that did before the cut off.
Given the public outcry that is soon to follow, you may be
right, Telstra may be forced to move to an open standard at
the very least,   or at the most after a bucket load of
fines for violations to public safety after fatalities
caused by no access to 000  be forced to fork out the cost
of handing new phones out to all their low income customers.

Then again telstra never learns, after the fires a few years
ago, it was found, in violation of public safety laws,
telstra had been blocking emergency calls from connecting on
their rural towers from non-telstra users. Deliberately.   
People died. Didn't dare do it in the city areas, only
country folk lives were seen as worthless by Telstra.   This
is the mindset of the people telling the government to
switch off 3g.  Not really ideal.

To use a phrase often coined by Dogcow and his cohorts back
in the day.    "Telstra, Making life {sl}eazy."

After the fires, they unlocked their towers.. for a while,
but should we take bets on how long it was before they
locked 000 calls out again?   Thankfully, at least out here,
in some of those regions Optus installed more towers after
that, which DID connect 000 calls. Local councils literally
fell all over themselves to issue the permit approvals for
new towers by that point. Ha!   Maybe it was all part of
some devious plan. (Hello black adder..)
Although after 3g cut off, i guess all bets are off.  All
the telco's seem to be on the same page here.

I expect at some point the asian knock offs will add support
for the Australian nonsense, allowing imports to work again,
that happened back in the edge/GSM days, Australia
apparently adopting a less common standard back then too.  
But in the short term, it seems telecos, and "our glorious
leaders" expect every man woman and child to buy a new
Australian mobile carrier made mobile phone.   Which
speaking to a lot of elderly people simply wont work, they
are all so furious they indicate they will cancel their
mobile service and return to using their house phone because
they simply cannot afford one.

The plans are already absurdly inflated in charges as it is,
(going from $10/month to demanding over $100/month in many
instances) without throwing in the cost of needing a
thousand dollar phone too complex for them to even use too.

They will do it too, some areas out here are so behind
schedule they still HAVE land lines, and the ones that don't
have a subsidised NBN VOIP only service for their mode 3/4
emergency medical monitors.  Because NBN price gouge on the
line provision rental,  Telstra loses money on these types
of users too, but the government forces them to service
them.  Woops.

Some Telecos in certain scenarios are handing out super
basic voLTE handsets to elderly and at risk people,   but
unless said person knows (and who) to call (ha! might be
hard after the cut off)  and request one, they will still be
left high and dry, (or should that be low, wet and drowning?)

Curiously I have had a few panic'ed telstra subscribers come
in, showing me messages from Telstra, about going in and
enabling "volte" tick boxes,   only do discover said box is
already enabled in that phone, and it still stubbornly only
connects on to 3g.  Australian telco branded phones too,
although older generation.  There is no mention of it
needing to be a specific phone, made by a specific vendor,
so Telstra are holding their cards close to their chest
here..  or holding their breath and sticking their fingers
in their ears.

Also seems to be a lot of VoLTE phones, that literally show
on the screen they are using 4g VoLTE, but the teleco is
still bombarding them several times a day to "buy a new
phone"  regardless of if the handset supports it, literally
it seems the only reason telecos are doing this are for an
excuse for a phone upsell.

Even the UK Government never shut off its 2G network, 
because the emergency call/tracing function is literally
baked into the RFC for mobile handsets, and citizens dying
because they cant call 999 tends to be bad publicity.. sure
they tossed the 3g network, but it still has a 2g backup for
voice, 4g+ for data/lte.

This potentially will make Australia the only country with
no actual mobile phone voice network anymore.  They are even
being perfectly open with the fact that emergency calls will
no longer connect - and even if they do, the cell
triangulation will no longer work, handicapping emergency
services.   Almost like they are proud of it? "During our
term we reduced emergencies by 90%, how great are we!"  spin
spin spin

What we will have is an over saturated glorified wifi
network...  internet speeds already struggled on mobiles in
some rural areas, how is making every phone use data to make
calls going to improve that?    On top of that Australia has
some of the highest mobile data charges in the world.   
Should I also lay odds that some mobile providers will start
including the data overhead of the VoLTE calls in the
bills?  Even if they don't - having data running all the
time will let the phone OS do as it pleases in the
background burning data.     The fix for some users is you
can install a VOIP app to facilitate voice calls over their
data connection if the VoLTE isn't supported but the data
still works.  They will definitely bill your for THAT.

I guess this means if Elon Musk implements his own plans for
something similar,  a ground accessible universal wifi
network, Mobile phone companies may soon discover they have
become entirely redundant.    They did it to themselves too
just for greed. Seems to be a common theme. Unlike the
mobile service, these hypothetical starlink wifi phones
would likely work anywhere in the outback too, except
underground.  (sorry cooper pedy)

In other news, apparently for the first time in history, 
record numbers of people are emigrating FROM Australia.  
They cite cost of living is too high, power supply too
unstable, and the increasingly greedy authoritarian
Government that puts taxes and fees literally on everything
from travel, owning an EV or owning solar panels is frankly
scary.
Paraguay of all places is one of the destinations they move to.

Weird.

On 22/10/2024 10:01 pm, Damien Gardner wrote:
> That's literally not correct.
>
> Optus and Voda support OpenVoLTE.  Any handset that
> supports OpenVoLTE will work on Optus and Voda.   However
> Telstra does NOT support OpenVoLTE, and only supports a
> small subset of phones.  If you have a model which was NOT
> released in Australia (such as an iPhone that isn't an
> Australian model, or similar for Galaxy phones, etc), so
> it doesn't get the appropriate carrier settings sent down
> when it registers for Telstra's somewhat proprietary
> version of the protocol, then yes, your phone will not
> work.   The Solution? move to Optus or Voda. (Yes, I know
> this is gross, because Optarse and Vodafail are horrible,
> but it's one way to keep your phone working..)
>
> Best thing that can come from all of this would be Telstra
> being forced to adopt OpenVoLTE, so they're compatible
> with everyone else..
>
> Cheers,
>
> DG

[Damien Gardner]

It's absolutely insane - My parents literally only have a mobile for 2factor SMS's. they DO NOT make or receive phone calls.  ALDI are emailing daily now saying it is going to be suspended soon (SHIT, today, I better deal with that...) because it doesn't support Telstra's VoLTE...  But They don't NEED phone calls, they only want SMS..  BUT I can't just convert their plan to a data only plan, because data plans aren't allowed to send/receive SMS's, because of sms spam issues a few years ago...  SIGH.

--
--
------------------------------------------------------------
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "2600 Australia" group.
To post, send email to: 2600-au...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe, send email to: 2600-austral...@googlegroups.com
For 2600 monthly meetings, visit http://www.2600AU.org
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/2600-australia
To unsubscribe, send email to: 2600-australi...@googlegroups.com
Disclaimer: Comments to this mailing list are owned by the poster
------------------------------------------------------------
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "2600 Australia" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 2600-australi...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/2600-australia/2bc362ed-9f01-4621-928c-ab20f72d5fa9%40reviews.wox.org.

[ad...@reviews.wox.org]

ALDI mobile is an interesting case, an elderly couple came in with a phone they got their even MORE elderly father.

Brand new phone, from post office.     Flip phone.  4g/5g VoLTE capable.  Literally a week old.   It worked first couple of days, then all outbound calls stared getting redirected to a voice recording "blah blah 3g turning off, get a new phone"

It still intermittently accepts calls, maybe 40% and maybe 70% of SMS's still make it through.   Phone was meant to be 4g compliant, 1/10 calls would even work outbound.

It was the only phone type their dad could manage to use.  They couldn't get him a touch screen phone, cause he would always screw it up, or end up pocket dialing north korea or something.     Even more interesting, I went over the settings,  under all the potato fliphone looking features is a hidden settings menu.  It was actually an Android smart phone under a GUI front end.  It was also definitely VoLTE compatible, it had a newer core OS than my smart phone.  Although it wasn't obvious since the buttons allowed full navigation, the screen was a touchscreen too.

I tried explaining that on the telstra network you can only use phones sold by telstra now, and they reiterated it was on ALDI.   They assumed their father had changed a setting that broke it, so I factory reverted all the settings to prove my point, and it still played up,  all outbound calls stubbornly sending it to a useless voicemail recording telling them at least in spirit, to fuck off and buy a new phone, yet when they tried to dial the number from their own phone, sometimes the dad phone would actually ring. Eventually they left in frustration, intending to go back to the post office and demand a refund.

I imagine this same drama played out to tens of thousands of other users using mobile providers hanging off telstra towers like aldi and a few backyard ISP rebranded mobile services.

Oh you know the cherry on top here..      many of the ISPS have gone on public record saying that after the switch off settles down, they are going to start sending out handset settings that will brick the phones they don't sell that still work.

Citing some AMTA regulation that says they can do this.. on the off chance that these "alien phones" cant call 000 they are allowed to sabotage them.. despite this being in direct violation of the Australian electronic crime illegal modification, deletion and insertion of data laws.

They have already done this on some older generation 4g VoLTE phones made by samsung.   There is a bunch of 4g VoLTEcompliant handsets, that they sent provisioning settings too prior that disables the VoLTE menu option, so that even THEY will stop working when 3g is turned off, and unless you KNOW it is an effected phone, call up and yell at them to send a code that enables it again, most owners of impacted phones will never realize they dont actually need a new phone.

As i said before, this it LITERALLY just an excuse to create a monopoly and upsell more phones people dont actually need.   

For fks sake.

On 28/10/2024 12:15 pm, Damien Gardner wrote:

It's absolutely insane - My parents literally only have a mobile for 2factor SMS's. they DO NOT make or receive phone calls.  ALDI are emailing daily now saying it is going to be suspended soon (SHIT, today, I better deal with that...) because it doesn't support Telstra's VoLTE...  But They don't NEED phone calls, they only want SMS..  BUT I can't just convert their plan to a data only plan, because data plans aren't allowed to send/receive SMS's, because of sms spam issues a few years ago...  SIGH.

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 at 11:08, ad...@reviews.wox.org <ad...@reviews.wox.org> wrote:

Ok thanks for the clarification -  I am surprised this has
not attracted more discussion.   Well here at least.

OK to clarify my prior post,   telstra handsets and
non-telstra handsets  wont be interchangeable, so if you
have an unlocked phone, the fact that it is unlocked is
literally pointless,  since depending which provider you
want to switch to (example moving from optus to telstra) it
wont work. Going the other way however (telstra to literally
any other provider) is at least a 50:50 chance your phone
will keep working if it has VoLTE.

[ad...@reviews.wox.org]

Actually the cherry on top of the cherry here..   about 6
years back they passed a rule that prohibits porting your
old mobile number to a different provider, if you cant first
receive an SMS on the current service.  In effect if they
shut off your service, and you want to switch to say
optus..  you cant take your number with you any more.

Prior to that all you needed was photo ID with the same name
and address as the account holder to port.

>
> On 28/10/2024 12:15 pm, Damien Gardner wrote:
>> It's absolutely insane - My parents literally only have a
>> mobile for 2factor SMS's. they DO NOT make or receive
>> phone calls.  ALDI are emailing daily now saying it is
>> going to be suspended soon (SHIT, today, I better deal
>> with that...) because it doesn't support Telstra's
>> VoLTE...  But They don't NEED phone calls, they only want
>> SMS..  BUT I can't just convert their plan to a data only
>> plan, because data plans aren't allowed to send/receive
>> SMS's, because of sms spam issues a few years ago...  SIGH.
>>
>