From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

My wife and I visited Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. She has an
iPhone 14 with O2, I have an iPhone SE3 with ASDA(Voda). Both
services provide unlimited voice & text and limited data in the
EU. Data worked fine throughout.

Problem: On the final stop in Vilnius I needed to phone her
urgently but couldn't: 'recent calls' said 'call abandoned'. And
she couldn't phone me. At the time we were both roaming on TELE2
LT and my phone said 4G at the top. The problem was her phone:
she couldn't ring a local number either which I could.
(Thereafter we used WhatsApp voice calls between
us.)

Another oddity she had noticed was that whereas I had received
'Welcome to <country>' texts for all three countries, she only
got one for Estonia.

Back in the UK and preparing for a call to O2 CS, we again went
though the settings on her phone (which are all over the place).
She found in Mobile service > Mobile data options > Voice & data:
set to 5G auto but at the bottom (off the bottom of the screen)
VoLTE was set to OFF. That looks like the cause of the problem to
me. My phone does not have that setting, maybe because it's
slightly older (same iOS version) or maybe it's a Voda/O2
difference.

I think VoLTE should have been on by default. We probably turned
it off in an (ulimately unsuccessful) attempt to get her phone
working in Serbia or Croatia (I forget) on a recent Danube trip.
(Although on the same boat we were sometimes in different
countries to each other.) That issue was about data not voice,
but we did notice that texts failed too.

So, a lesson and a question. If you fail to get 'Welcome to...'
messages, voice calls (including 112?) might not work. (Depending
on the roaming operator at the border vs your current location.)
SMS too - though in our case the two phones were using iMessage
so we didn't notice. In future we will test voice calling in each
new country.

And the question: Why does this VoLTE switch exist? When might I
use it - if I had it? The setting mentioned performance IIRC - it
didn't say that it would break normal phone functionality.


Does anybody have this switch on a recent Android phone, btw? Does
it explain its use?
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Remove numerics from my email address.
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Dave Royal wrote:

Does anybody have this switch on a recent Android phone, btw? Does
it explain its use?

My Pixel 8a, calls it "4G Calling" rather than "VoLTE", it describes it
as "Use 4G services to improve voice calls (recommended)", I leave it
turned on, though I have the phone set to prefer WiFi calling, which
will generally only apply when I'm at home or a customers offices.

Networks in the countries you visited are at various stages of shutting
down 3G and 2G services (the UK apart from O2 has shutdown 3G but left
2G running, although some bandwidth may have been taken from 2G and
given to 4G/5G).
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> Wrote in message:

Dave Royal wrote:

Does anybody have this switch on a recent Android phone, btw? Does
it explain its use?

My Pixel 8a, calls it "4G Calling" rather than "VoLTE", it describes it
as "Use 4G services to improve voice calls (recommended)", I leave it
turned on, though I have the phone set to prefer WiFi calling, which
will generally only apply when I'm at home or a customers offices.

Networks in the countries you visited are at various stages of shutting
down 3G and 2G services (the UK apart from O2 has shutdown 3G but left
2G running, although some bandwidth may have been taken from 2G and
given to 4G/5G).

"4G Calling" - this phrase raises a question I nearly asked, but
the post was already too long. I associate LTE with 4G - but what
about 5G? If my wife and I are both using 5G - as happens - might
a voice call use just 5G? Or drop down to 4G, or what? What's the
ultimate plan for telephony providers?
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Dave Royal wrote:

"4G Calling" - this phrase raises a question I nearly asked, but
the post was already too long. I associate LTE with 4G - but what
about 5G? If my wife and I are both using 5G - as happens - might
a voice call use just 5G? Or drop down to 4G, or what? What's the
ultimate plan for telephony providers?

I think 5G is treated as 4G (i.e the network is IP-only) and everything whether it's voice or text runs on top of that.

Most 5G networks are "NSA" non-standalone, which means the 5G relies on
the old 2G/3G/4G infrastructure, the next great thing for the network operators is 5G SA, which is a 5G network with all the legacy bits removed.

With 4G or 5G but without VoLTE enabled, your phone (voda = no 3G left)
would have to drop to 2G, your wife's could drop to 3G (which O2 still
have until end of year).


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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> wrote:

Back in the UK and preparing for a call to O2 CS, we again went
though the settings on her phone (which are all over the place).
She found in Mobile service > Mobile data options > Voice & data:
set to 5G auto but at the bottom (off the bottom of the screen)
VoLTE was set to OFF. That looks like the cause of the problem to
me. My phone does not have that setting, maybe because it's
slightly older (same iOS version) or maybe it's a Voda/O2
difference.

VoLTE is a setting that has to be provisioned by the carrier, ie unless they send the VoLTE profile then the phone won't do VoLTE and may not show you
any VoLTE settings. The provisioning mechanism differs between phone brands and some networks don't provision VoLTE, or only for some customers (eg contract but not PAYG). That means VoLTE support differs by both phone and carrier; you can't expect it to be there in any combination.

iOS is a big player obviously so support for the phone is pretty good (at
least recent phones, not sure how far back it goes) but there's still the carrier variable.

So absence of any toggle suggests that either VoLTE hasn't been provisioned
or possibly the network has disabled the means to turn it off (not sure if
they can do that).

This is going to be a silent killer of many 4G phones released in the last
10 years - they ostensibly work but can't make phone calls, or maybe they
can but only on some networks, in some places (where there is either VoLTE provisioning or 2G fallback). I've already had this problem with Spusu who still aren't provisioning Pixel phones for VoLTE, but the mess goes much
deeper than that.

Theo
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

On 07/07/2025 11:03, Andy Burns wrote:

Dave Royal wrote:

"4G Calling" - this phrase raises a question I nearly asked, but
the post was already too long. I associate LTE with 4G - but what
about 5G? If my wife and I are both using 5G - as happens - might
a voice call use just 5G? Or drop down to 4G, or what? What's the
ultimate plan for telephony providers?

I think 5G is treated as 4G (i.e the network is IP-only) and everything >whether it's voice or text runs on top of that.

Most 5G networks are "NSA" non-standalone, which means the 5G relies on
the old 2G/3G/4G infrastructure, the next great thing for the network >operators is 5G SA, which is a 5G network with all the legacy bits removed.

With 4G or 5G but without VoLTE enabled, your phone (voda = no 3G left) >would have to drop to 2G, your wife's could drop to 3G (which O2 still
have until end of year).

I don't know the full specifics, but for all practical purposes this is a
good answer. At the moment, 5G is mostly 4G with better radio enabling
faster data and more efficient use of spectrum.

I have VoLTE enabled on my Pixel 9 Pro. Last December, on holiday in
Fueteventura, I was on a Google Meet call to friends (laptop tethered) and
received a normal call from home. My phone immediately dropped to H+
(remember when that was fast?) and the meet call dropped to (bad) audio
only. It seems VoLTE hasn't fully made it to the Canaries.
--
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A PICKER OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

On 07/07/2025 20:18, Jason H wrote:

I have VoLTE enabled on my Pixel 9 Pro. Last December, on holiday in Fueteventura, I was on a Google Meet call to friends (laptop tethered) and received a normal call from home. My phone immediately dropped to H+ (remember when that was fast?) and the meet call dropped to (bad) audio
only. It seems VoLTE hasn't fully made it to the Canaries.

Not just the Canaries. I was in Barcelona in February (working inside
the same exhibition centre that hosts the World Mobile Congress in March ironically enough)

Roaming on Orange.es with my Pixel 7a. Fantastic 5G data connection,
never wavered, (unlike the UK) but any incoming or outgoing call, it
dropped to H+.

(Also, unrelated, I never got a ring tone when calling out, just silence
until the person (or VM) answered)
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Mark Carver <mark@invalid.com> wrote:

On 07/07/2025 20:18, Jason H wrote:

I have VoLTE enabled on my Pixel 9 Pro. Last December, on holiday in
Fueteventura, I was on a Google Meet call to friends (laptop tethered) and >> received a normal call from home. My phone immediately dropped to H+
(remember when that was fast?) and the meet call dropped to (bad) audio
only. It seems VoLTE hasn't fully made it to the Canaries.

Not just the Canaries. I was in Barcelona in February (working inside
the same exhibition centre that hosts the World Mobile Congress in March ironically enough)

Roaming on Orange.es with my Pixel 7a. Fantastic 5G data connection,
never wavered, (unlike the UK) but any incoming or outgoing call, it
dropped to H+.

(Also, unrelated, I never got a ring tone when calling out, just silence until the person (or VM) answered)

Roaming seems to have turned into a complicated can of worms. In times gone past you were properly on the local network, eg IP address from that
network. Now you are sometimes like that, but sometimes teleported back
through a VPN and all location services think you are in the UK (including
the BBC).

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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

On 08/07/2025 18:11, Tweed wrote:

Mark Carver <mark@invalid.com> wrote:

On 07/07/2025 20:18, Jason H wrote:

I have VoLTE enabled on my Pixel 9 Pro. Last December, on holiday in
Fueteventura, I was on a Google Meet call to friends (laptop tethered) and >>> received a normal call from home. My phone immediately dropped to H+
(remember when that was fast?) and the meet call dropped to (bad) audio
only. It seems VoLTE hasn't fully made it to the Canaries.

Not just the Canaries. I was in Barcelona in February (working inside
the same exhibition centre that hosts the World Mobile Congress in March
ironically enough)

Roaming on Orange.es with my Pixel 7a. Fantastic 5G data connection,
never wavered, (unlike the UK) but any incoming or outgoing call, it
dropped to H+.

(Also, unrelated, I never got a ring tone when calling out, just silence
until the person (or VM) answered)

Roaming seems to have turned into a complicated can of worms. In times gone >past you were properly on the local network, eg IP address from that
network. Now you are sometimes like that, but sometimes teleported back >through a VPN and all location services think you are in the UK (including >the BBC).

I think the principle of the thing is you should be as good as on your own
network. So, in China my roaming phone could access WhatsApp, YouTube and
so on. I was in effect East of The Great Firewall. I'd like to test to that
out with a few eSIMs.
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