geekhack
geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 07 August 2021, 03:44:54
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Just read on a mobile phone forum that ATT is blocking any non ATT branded devices and expect to have removed all of them by February 2022.
Not sure if anyone here uses their own phone on this network but if you were planning to, don't.
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This is a misunderstanding of what's going on, blocking non AT&T phones would violate fcc portability rules.
What is happening is that in January 3G is going away, FOR ALL CARRIERS, and all phones MUST have Voice Over LTE support (VOLTE). As a result AT&T (and other carriers) are telling people they need a new phone but it doesn't have to be an AT&T branded one just VOLTE capable but of course they will try and sell you one of theirs, they may even lie about it. This also means that if you are buying a used phone, it doesn't matter if it has a clean ESN or ICCID(?), if it lacks VOLTE do not buy it because it will be useless, most already are as some carriers (like AT&T) will already not activate them.
BTW, if you have an old non-VOLTE phone do NOT put your sim card in it!!
AT&T and subsidiaries (and probably other carriers) will give you a generic error message and then block your sim card requiring you to call in and reset your service. Why not just tell you the phone isn't capable of using the service or rejecting the call who knows. Instead you have to call in and explain what happened and then get them to reset your account, even if you put that sim back in a VOLTE phone. I recently did this and they reset it but then the next morning the system flagged me again and then another time before they even got it done talking to me. Took me 3 days to sort it out.
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Link to the end of the discussion (https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3404-att-wireless-us-is-expelling-the-pro-1-from-its-network/?tab=comments#comment-58502) which started at least last weekend in another thread I can't find - maybe tier II is still not high enough and is pedalling lies and he'll have more luck with level III? I've never dealt with AT&T so have no idea how useless or how many levels there are.
Edit: What is FCC? Assuming it's some kind of US based regulator it's possible the device in question is not recognised by them at all so banning it is probably recommended to "stop China".
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FCC is Federal Communcations Commission, it's our regulator.
Stores are often franchises and the people working them can be shady at best, some are suuuuper shady, they work on commission and will say pretty much anything. Using a coming change as a way to sell someone a new phone by twisting the info is precisely what I would expect them to do. Once they sell you a phone or service the store gets constant kickbacks so they are always trying to rope you into a new phone/sim or changing service. I tried searching up anything on this, even checked the usual haunts and found absolutely nothing, someone would have something on it if it was real as it would be a big hit to phone geeks. They likely also would have warned me when I had my sim trouble since I'm not on a branded phone. The timing also coincides with when the change is to take place.
My guess is while this person's phone is compatible the sim is an older sim, possibly sold in a phone without VOLTE (older sims also lack the necessary info for WIFI calling and stores are not even aware of that). The sim is tied to an older IMEI and the system is booting it regardless of what phone it's in today. That's what it kept happening to me, the system kept seeing my old phone and dumping my account, they had to purge the non-VOLTE phone from my records to get it to stop. I'm doubtful a store employee even be able to see that in the record.