The inevitable Australia 4G VoLTE post

So far for me Vodafone works in the L5, as it has done now for months.

But wait…I have taken my Telstra sim out of my now obsolete Xiaomi (which was a great de-googled dual sim phone), and put it in the L5 and so far it works. The Telstra sim was not working in the Xiaomi but all functions are currently working in the L5. Here’s hoping.

One question someone I hope can answer…there is an orange exclamation mark over the four bars that indicate signal. Things still work however. Can anyone enlighten me about this?

000 not tested.

My location: Northern NSW.

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Just a caution though … Optus is a little behind schedule and won’t fully shut down 3G for a little while longer. So if your SIM is of the type “use Voda network when available but roam to Optus otherwise” then you can’t be certain just yet. (But, sure, I’ve been using the Voda network with that kind of roaming arrangement since late last year when Voda shut down 3G, and before that of course, and have had no problems.)

Hmmm. That’s a bit mysterious. You might want to use the AT command AT+BMRAT while on a call to verify that it really is staying on 4G. (If you’re not confident doing AT commands directly on the modem, you might want to skip that suggestion. Otherwise see the Wiki for how to do that if you don’t already know.)

Is it possible that Telstra changed something as part of the 3G shut down? (Trick question because we all know that anything is possible with Telstra.) So what was previously not working with Librem 5 on Telstra now does??

I don’t want to test that myself just yet. Maybe later.

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I can also confirm that my Librem 5 is working so far on the Telstra network. I have a solid signal with just “4G” alongside it. I can make calls and receive, so far without a hitch. I couldn’t get the testing suggestion working however. I found another thread that had a ‘socat’ command but it returned to me that that ‘socat’ wasn’t recognised or something.

But I don’t think I need to do that test as it looks to be ok unless there are more twists to the saga of this 3G/4G fiasco.

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sudo apt install socat

but yeah if it’s

a) not being blocked outright(!), and
b) working to make calls, receive calls, send texts, receive texts

then I wouldn’t worry about it.

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Thanks for that. Yes, it all seems good at this time so I won’t worry about it. I did text ‘3G’ to 3498 and it tells me that the device is not compatible but I’m thinking that they aren’t dealing with many phones like the L5. So at this time my L5 looks like becoming my real phone after what has been years as it sat there with me just doing the occasional update while I used a phone that is now obsolete.

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I fear that the borg hive mind will soon detect our little part of the world and do it’s best to keep us out. I have a contingency plan for when we shut down 3G here and that is to go to a purely SIP configuration and arm my L5 with a data only SIM though which I will connect to my chat.jmp account which offers SIP service. I can even port my existing number there when the time comes.

Something to keep in your back pocket should things go dark.

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Firstly, I am surprised to see hardly any talk about the experience of Australian users seeing as though 3G has now been turned off. I was hoping to get some idea of how others have found things.

But for me. I have been using both Telstra and Vodafone sims in my L5 with the same results now on both. When things were supposedly turned off three days ago I was surprised to see my Telstra card continue to work. Every function was fine. Take and make calls, texts etc. All perfect. I didn’t try my Vodafone card at this time although I had tested it before (on the Vodafone network maybe…not totally sure) and it worked perfectly. There was an issue that I didn’t fully investigate about first time callers to the mobile not being able to be heard but I didn’t bother with that.

So yesterday the Telstra sim card stopped receiving calls. I can ring out etc as it had done but when someone rings and I answer, the call is immediately terminated. A pain. So today I put my Vodafone card in the L5 and I get the same behaviour. Basically now I can’t receive calls. The rest all works. I had hoped that it was only with the Telstra sim, but it is both.

I’m keen to hear from other Oz users, and also from anyone who may have a clue what may be going on and if it is something I can fix in some way. Otherwise it may be the L5 becomes an expensive paperweight which I really don’t want.

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As an update to my previous post as I delve deeper. It appears that I can ring other numbers on the L5, they can talk back to me, but I can’t communicate with them despite being connected. This is on the Vodafone network. So, unless I hear something different from others or some way around this, I’m afraid that the L5 might be non-usable.

I am not convinced either that I have exposed all of the possible problems so if others can tell me how it’s been for them it would help.

In all it looks like being a major disappointment. Which is a, umm, a disappointment.

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Lacking a GLES3 it is a big pain too. About your 4.5G(volte) calls issue try burning uptodate firmware for modem.

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As far as I know mine is up to date. AT least it was a month ago.

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So, if I am understanding you correctly, there isn’t a problem with the call connection but there is a problem with sound and, more specifically, you can hear them but they can’t hear you?

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That is exactly correct. I know that someone suggested that I should update firmware but I’m pretty sure mine is up to date and the interesting thing is that these functions worked (at least on my Telstra sim) up until sometime yesterday.

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Putting it out there (speculative): Any correlation with VoLTE / the 3G shutdown is coincidental and other people have experienced this problem previously (and they may or may not be using VoLTE) so maybe look for forum posts discussing that kind of sound problem.

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Sure. But my suspicions spike as things did work perfectly. I’ll check it out.

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Hi psychi. No call/receive/sound problems with my L5 in Oz. I’m on Vodafone and switched late 2023 / early 2024 to VoLTE/4G using the BM818 tool and everything worked straight off. Maybe irvinewade’s suggestion regarding other users’ problems prior to the 3G/4G changeover is worth pursuing. Best of luck.

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I’ll just offer my experience here with calls. Like one of the posts here I lost the ability for people to hear me. I buggerised around for hours as I’m not really across this phone yet. Ummm…the problem was that the microphone was turned off! I didn’t know what the symbol on the top bar was. Now I do.

The hardware switches turn off really easily when handling the phone in an out of my pocket or bag.

But, the moral is to check the switches. My L5 seems to work on 4G on both Telstra and Vodafone so far.

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Interesting about your de-Googled Xiaomi - what models are good for this, can you point us to some info?
I like to keep a less secure phone in addition to my more secure phone like the L5.
With a de-Google Xiaomi the CCP might spy on me but at least Google can’t.

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The Xiaomi doesn’t work anymore, that’s the point. It is a M10 lite. It was a great little phone that was running Lineage without a hiccup. Degoogled.com sell great phones and good to deal with.

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Is that because it genuinely is 3G only or because Telstra is just high-handedly blocking it? (I have heard reports that some Xiaomi phones that would otherwise work are now not working because Telstra is blocking them - and I suspect that that is what is happening here. I guess there’s an outside chance that it will work on one of the other two networks. Have you tried that?)

Is that model recent enough that the manufacturer / the vendor may be able to resurrect the phone by issuing a firmware update (if indeed there is any actual change needed on the phone before Telstra will accept it)?

Whether that is relevant to @SageOwl depends on what country he is in - as this whole mess is Australia-specific.

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This Xiaomi is 4G and VoLTE compatible. I checked all of that. I bought it from the Degoogled guys and Telstra, I read, have been blocking phones bought overseas. I read an article in the last couple of days about Telstra blocking Xiaomi in particular. Itvis also blocked by Vodafone so I’m buggered.

The phone is about two years old but was a dual sim beauty for work. I’m buying a pixel 7a which will let me have work and personal sims, this one with Graphene whereas the Xiaomi was Lineage.

Telstra should be nationalised as this has been a disaster. A bit like Qantas really (gratuitous slur for the hell of it!)

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