VoLTE, VoWiFi and 5G and Telcos standardization

Forums › Android › VoLTE, VoWiFi and 5G and Telcos standardization

Valcor

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#291838 8-Dec-2021 11:56

Hello guys I have noticed a lot of talk about phone compatibility to these technologies and wondering if this is allowing New Zealand services providers the ability to create a very unfair and anti-competitive and anti-consumer market when it comes to what mobile headsets they can allow on their network.

Up until the recent rollout for 5g you only needed your handset to comply with certain broadcast bands for it to work, now it is required for the provider to allow the phone on the new network standard.

This leads to a homogenized retail experience where only few phones/brands are allowed to compete in the market giving them unfair advantage and giving the consumer less choice and overall giving too much power to the telecommunications company.

Do you think this is something that will improve over time or something that is worth approaching ComCom about?

I just see a very dark future ahead of us if we are only limited to Apple or Samsung, Oppo or Huawei.

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Max
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#2828567 8-Dec-2021 12:08

Not the carriers that are doing this.

It's the phone manufacturer.

If you've seriously read the Pixel 6 thread you'd see a few posts stating that Google has 0 interest in NZ in the same way Oneplus has 0 interest in NZ thus do not create the necessary changes to get the aforementioned tech working.

sbiddle has mentioned this and I do tend to agree, Android is a mess because everyone does it differently. Apple? They've had it working since the 6s and the SE, so that's a long time.

The rules for getting 5G to work hasn't actually changed. Same with VoLTE and VoWiFi. It's just being brought more into light.

For what it's worth and my own experience, Oneplus with the Oneplus 8 on the initial Android 11 RC build that went out to the public, 5G worked out of the box no need to root or do a damn thing. Next update they broke it.

Pixels? Google has 0 interest so no configurations are built for our networks so you just get the very default and very minimal basic configuration to get the phone connected and working.

Xiaomi? Everything works except VoWiFi on most devices. VoLTE needs a carrier check bypass(which you can do with a secret code), once that's removed it works almost flawlessly.

To play devils advocate, phones should be tested and certified to work on our networks because in situations such as an emergency, if that phone isn't working fully and you can't make a call because you're in a RCG area or we finally decide to turn off 3G all together and VoLTE is a requirement, you're not making that call(unless you're one of those people that uses SIP and have it configured on your phone).

To play the competitive and enthusiast advocate. We should have more choice and we SHOULD have more brands to pick from and everything should work and if it doesn't, a giant disclaimer.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

RunningMan

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#2828569 8-Dec-2021 12:09

Not really an issue for the Android forum. Existing thread on this here

Also @sbiddle blog https://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/9030

Oblivian

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#2828572 8-Dec-2021 12:14

It's a little much to expect them to cover EVERYTHING out there these days unfortunately.

The reason they target that market is based on data/stats back from the network usage and what devices report on the network. Where the majority of this country run on Iphone, Samsung, Or the cheaper OPPOs. Use to be Huawei, but the issues with google has squeezed them out a bit (no updates for sub 2yr old flagship models anymore since July 2020).

As such, instead of licensing issues and being pinged costs every time they want to update models that may only have a few hundered in use nationwide, don't target or support those models. So tech heads or importers as it were are not in that majority and miss out.

Targeting the ones already in use and available in country ensures smooth updates and support across all the providers a bit more as Most the current handsets tend to ne moving to common OTA firmware/updates.

1 provider gives the details, it's pushed out to all /more ranges of handsets in 1 swoop. Rather than need to re-code and test on various models and different OS/Firmwares.

Iphone have that cornered by the get go and by making devices global and run the same OS/Firmware. So they only need to send an update and you can almost gaurantee every handset will be fine.

Unlike Android/imported devices - Theres no ColourOS, No Android Pure, no Samsung front end, No EMUI, No Android ONE etc that you need to check won't mess with your network etc. Take away risks of failure, you take the blame away from yourself.

sbiddle

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#2828589 8-Dec-2021 12:19

I'm not quite sure what's anticompetive about Google being so incompetent that we have ended up with a highly fragmented Android market and no centralised carrier pack model like Apple have which ensures their phones work properly on every network in the world.

And the case for buying operator branded phones is nothing new. The days of just checking for frequencies are history, that hasn't been the case for 10+ years now. Any imported phone in recent times will always run the risk of incompatibility issues long before VoLTE became a thing.

lucky015

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#2828610 8-Dec-2021 13:03

sbiddle: I'm not quite sure what's anticompetive about Google being so incompetent that we have ended up with a highly fragmented Android market and no centralised carrier pack model like Apple have which ensures their phones work properly on every network in the world.

And the case for buying operator branded phones is nothing new. The days of just checking for frequencies are history, that hasn't been the case for 10+ years now. Any imported phone in recent times will always run the risk of incompatibility issues long before VoLTE became a thing.

Could easily be argued that they are under a lot of pressure from carriers to maintain the current structure with individual SKU's, irremovable apps, etc especially with the lower end products (there seems to have been a lot of push back on them even relating to OTA security updates being pushed by them)

Unfortunately with freedom and flexibility people can do very smart or very stupid things, it is nice to see a few of the larger android manufacturers move to a carrier pack system of their own however.

chocaholic

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#2861012 3-Feb-2022 09:34

What worries me with Google blocking the use of their phones using VOLTE in NZ, is post Covid ...all the tourists coming into the country with a Google phone suddenly finding they cannot use them in the countryside in an emergency situation. VOLTE has really only become a major issue in the last couple of years.

My Oneplus 6 worked fine until they put a new tower down the road, now I have issues and need to replace my phone. Skinny kindly sent me a sms saying my phone does not have VOLTE and recommended I buy a new phone. Luckily for me I understood what that meant, but others they would not know. Mention VOLTE in the local retailers and they look at you strangely and they are selling phones that are not VOLTE capable to the public who are none the wiser. I seriously believe that the retailers should only stock phones that meet this requirement. All phones should work no matter where you are in the country otherwise you could be putting lives at risk.

Like others I don't like Samsung or iPhone and feel trapped into using a brand I don't want to use. Oppo is not Oneplus and well by the sounds of it, Oneplus is not the Oneplus I loved anymore. I used to love my Nexus until I drowned it. A new Pixel would have been my choice. There are so many interesting brands & model phones out there in the world, which will never be an option whilst we have this non standardization issue with VOLTE on Android

Coming to the sad reality that I will be forced to use a phone I do not want to use and cannot have the phone camera I would like to have. I am now planning to move to M365 as Google has abandoned us in the phone world so I will move on completely.

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okkii

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#2862504 6-Feb-2022 13:05

What happened to oneplus phones in NZ, for a brief time they were sold here but now it seems to be just back to the parallel imports? Now they are part of oppo (always were in some form iirc but now it's official) it's probably no big loss though since both of them seem to offer pretty similar phones and os experiences now. But other than oppo, xiaomi, and moto, there don't seem to be many other options other than samsung (and apple obviously) left for smartphones. Wouldn't mind seeing Honor or Non-ROG Asus phones here but it's probably too small of a market to enter without a telco partnership.

nztim

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#2862559 6-Feb-2022 15:47

Stick with Apple, VoWifi & VoLtE will just work

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

grolschie

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#2864237 9-Feb-2022 18:36

nztim: Stick with Apple, VoWifi & VoLtE will just work

How come it just works with Apple devices? What are they doing that others aren't?

Oblivian

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#2864244 9-Feb-2022 18:45

grolschie:
nztim: Stick with Apple, VoWifi & VoLtE will just work

How come it just works with Apple devices? What are they doing that others aren't?

Explained many times before.

It's running IOS - _1_ software platform to support. And say only 2 new devices each year. Include carrier settings to apple. They all get it

It's not android 8 with Samsung launcher, its not android 11 with colorOS, it's not android 10 with EMUI

And not ~20 handsets a year to keep tabs on.

So testing, writing the update and paying for it to be pushed by the many makers/suppliers is more tedious.

grolschie

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#2864336 9-Feb-2022 20:12

Yep, but surely they need to support all the network configs of the various telcos worldwide, as we are told is needed for Android devices to support VoWiFi on a particular telco.

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#2864339 9-Feb-2022 20:24

grolschie: Yep, but surely they need to support all the network configs of the various telcos worldwide, as we are told is needed for Android devices to support VoWiFi on a particular telco.

Everyone does it differently. Apple just has it more nailed down to a point where it works on ALL of their devices. Android vendors have their own proprietary sauce(Samsung especially hide it under Knox) that's beyond Google's recommended IMS CarrierConfig.

Due to the amount of devices in the wild and fragmentation it's so hard to create configurations and carrier bundles for every device.

I am dumbing this down so much but there is SO MUCH more to this.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

Oblivian

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#2864341 9-Feb-2022 20:25

Iphone. True world phones
Android. Not
Such as the box I just got - 'only for sale in new Zealand'
Guess what they're supporting here and have it listed as such.

grolschie

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#2864342 9-Feb-2022 20:30

I would've thought Google could help this by requiring certain specs or minimum functionality to ship with Play Store, etc.

MaxineN

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#2864346 9-Feb-2022 20:37

It's more down to modem + chipset + firmware from the OS itself. There are so many chipsets and modem configurations and then there's the firmware updates to support it via OTAs or carrier bundles.

Google does have something but it's never enforced or used.

Again I'm really dumbing this down.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

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