From: usenet@arnowelzel.de   
      
   Chris Green, 2026-02-12 09:38:   
      
   > Arno Welzel  wrote:   
   >> Chris Green, 2026-02-11 21:48:   
   >>   
   >>> This is suddenly becoming more impportant now that 3G is rapidly   
   >>> disappearing.  My 'no name' tablet used to work fine at home but now   
   >>> it doesn't.  We used to have good 3G coverage here, what we have now   
   >>> is mediocre 4G and my tablet can't do VoLTE with my provider anyway,   
   >>>   
   >>> Being a cheapskate and not being a big mobile/cell user I don't want   
   >>> to spend hundreds of pounds on a new device just to ba able to make   
   >>> phone calls.  My £99 10" tablet is excellent in every way except for   
   >>> its lack of VoLTE support on my (very cheap!) provider.   
   >>   
   >> At Amazon you find cheap 4G phones starting around £40. Of course these   
   >> are then only feature phones and not Android based devices. But for the   
   >> specific need to be able to do phone calls, that should be sufficient.   
   >>   
   > ... and they almost certainly won't do VoLTE or VoWiFi will they?   
   > They certainly aren't listed as such by any of the providers I've   
   > looked at?   
      
   Without VoLTE these phones wouldn't work at all in modern networks,   
   since GSM is switched off already in many countries and 4G/5G is the   
   only option left.   
      
   >>> So, is there any way of knowing if any generic, no name sort of tablet   
   >>> may have working VoLTE on any particular provider?   
   >>>   
   >>> It really is a rather messy can of worms isn't it?!   
   >>   
   >> No, just the transition to a new technology.   
   >>   
   > 3G just worked or didn't.  If you had a 3G phone (for the right region   
   > probably) it worked.  You didn't have to look in a list of what   
   > providers supported which phones to see if it would work for you.   
      
   Well, 3G was invented nearly 25 years ago.   
      
   Mobile network providers can not keep old standards running forever, if   
   they want to introduce newer technologies and re-use frequencies for   
   newer standards.   
      
   Now we have 4G and 5G and with a device which is 5 or 10 years old, you   
   should expect issues like this. We don't live in a world any longer,   
   were technical standards exist for 50 years or longer.   
      
   It's similar to ISDN - this was also phased out in most countries and   
   replaced by VoIP. The hardware needed for the infrastructure is just not   
   produced any longer, similar to 3G.   
      
      
   --   
   Arno Welzel   
   https://arnowelzel.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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