[raino]

Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston among major T-Mobile markets having their AWS 3G/4G networks shut down this summer » TmoNews

BBOS phone owners are going to need to upgrade because BB phones of that era didn't come with the UMTS 1900 band (nor LTE bands.) Apparently Chicago, Louisville, and Indianapolis have already had their UMTS 1700 networks shut down.

Edit--forgot to highlight:

On the plus side, if you are impacted by this network shutdown, T-Mobile is offering you the chance to upgrade to a compatible phone for free.[...]If you have a BlackBerry, T-Mobile will let you upgrade to a BlackBerry Classic for free.

Edit to the edit:

[EDIT - It's worth noting that the BlackBerry Classic is only available as an upgrade for business (T-Mobile @Work) customers.

[Alberto8]

Raino, So only LTE in AWS from now on? I thought that AWS was only LTE.

Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston among major T-Mobile markets having their AWS 3G/4G networks shut down this summer » TmoNews

BBOS phone owners are going to need to upgrade because BB phones of that era didn't come with the UMTS 1900 band (nor LTE bands.) Apparently Chicago, Louisville, and Indianapolis have already had their UMTS 1700 networks shut down.

[raino]

Raino, So only LTE in AWS from now on?

In these places, yeah.

I thought that AWS was only LTE.

Oh no. They still have a lot of UMTS points of presence (PoPs) out there: 230 million+ as of last year, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Ultimately, it's all going to LTE though.

[gariac]

I could be that I'm running an old OS, but my phone drops to 4g when I make a phone call.

Posted via CB10

[modifier]

I could be that I'm running an old OS, but my phone drops to 4g when I make a phone call.

Unless you have VoLTE service in your area, dropping to 4G to make a call is perfectly normal for all carriers. LTE in most areas is data-only.

[CB10 / Q10]

[raino]

Plus TMO has not allowed any BB10 phone to do voLTE yet.

[barbarianthemadserb]

Wow, looks like the end of usage coming sooner than expected for my BB9900. Ug. My three BB9900's will soon be relegated to alarm activities and wifi only calls using a voip program called "Vmobile".
Oh well. My Classic will soon have the ultimate daily driver responsibilities job.

[Alberto8]

I was wondering about that. What will happen when T-Mob shuts down all UMTS? Right now, when I make a phone call, it drops to 4G or sometimes to GSM during the call. After the call, then it goes back to LTE. Its obvious T-Mobile is not allowing me to do voLTE. All the phones in our account are BB10 phones (passports, Z30's, Leaps) and even one iphone 5 and none have voLTE.

Plus TMO has not allowed any BB10 phone to do voLTE yet.

[raino]

Wow, looks like the end of usage coming sooner than expected for my BB9900. Ug. My three BB9900's will soon be relegated to alarm activities and wifi only calls using a voip program called "Vmobile".
Oh well. My Classic will soon have the ultimate daily driver responsibilities job.

Your 9900 would still work on 2G--this article just mentions the 1700 MHz 3G/'4G' network. Eventually the 2G network may be shut down as well--but that at best has happened in 50% of the intended places so far (TMO's "refarm all 2G to LTE by EOY 2015" goal.)

Are you in one of the markets listed in that TMONews article? If so, you could score a free Classic by trading in your 9900.

How nice of you TMO to not run another one of your BB defec(a)tion drives. "Trade in a 9900 for a newer BB10 phone." Was that really so hard?

I was wondering about that. What will happen when T-Mob shuts down all UMTS? Right now, when I make a phone call, it drops to 4G or sometimes to GSM during the call. After the call, then it goes back to LTE. Its obvious T-Mobile is not allowing me to do voLTE. All the phones in our account are BB10 phones (passports, Z30's, Leaps) and even one iphone 5 and none have voLTE.

Some of us BB10 phone owners will be insulated for a while because most of our phones also have the UMTS 1900 band. So that could be the '4G' the call could be made on. But of course this requires the person to be in a refarmed area.

But in terms of the bigger picture, in places they have a 2G network, they will refarm to LTE but can also apportion some spectrum to 2G or--as I've learned here on CB--actually run 2G and LTE off the same towers. And that's actual 2G--not that throttled down crap they put you on when you go over limited data; that's still LTE, just slowed down to a crawl. So for anyone who can't do voLTE: people who don't have LTE phones, or people who don't necessarily have TMO-specific LTE bands in their phones (like international visitors,) or TMO-approved voLTE handsets--they will at least have the ability to make calls/send texts. GSM 1900 is pretty much a universal band now. LTE b2, b4 are not.

But I also expect them to do more of these "get a new, compatible handset for low/no cost" drives. All carriers do them when people are being affected by refarms. TMO's done it with Metro's CDMA customers, Sprint with Nextel's iDen customers, etc.

I'm not sure what they're going to do in refarmed UMTS 1900 markets--keep those towers HSPA+, HSPA+ and LTE, or 2G and LTE (essentially reversing the HSPA+ refarm.) Maybe low band spectrum will help make the decisions easy. UMTS 1900 is a pretty ubiquitous band as well--Q10 onwards, all models of all BB10 phones have had this band.

[gariac]

I was wondering about that. What will happen when T-Mob shuts down all UMTS? Right now, when I make a phone call, it drops to 4G or sometimes to GSM during the call. After the call, then it goes back to LTE. Its obvious T-Mobile is not allowing me to do voLTE. All the phones in our account are BB10 phones (passports, Z30's, Leaps) and even one iphone 5 and none have voLTE.

Is there some statement from Tmo about not allowing VoLTE on a Z10? Or better yet, had anyone with a Z10 claimed to have done a VoLTE call on Tmob?

I know the iphone 6 is supposed to have VoLTE. The iphone 5 doesn't even have HD voice because Apple doesn't feel like enabling it.




Posted via CB10

[cbvinh]

On the plus side, if you are impacted by this network shutdown, T-Mobile is offering you the chance to upgrade to a compatible phone for free.[...]If you have a BlackBerry, T-Mobile will let you upgrade to a BlackBerry Classic for free.

Wow, that's pretty generous! When Cingular shut down whatever band my little Nokia 8290 was using, ages ago, they were only willing to replace it with a large candy bar phone worth about $30!

[raino]

Wow, that's pretty generous! When Cingular shut down whatever band my little Nokia 8290 was using, ages ago, they were only willing to replace it with a large candy bar phone worth about $30!

How long ago was this? About six years ago, AT&T sent me a letter claiming they were shutting down some network around me and offered me a free 9300 because in their system, I had an older phone. I didn't. I had an unbranded Bold 9000, which would have been perfectly fine even if they were shutting down their 2G networks. Anyway...they tried charging me an ETF when I left, but there was no contract signed, and no EIP was in place. I had literally walked in a store and walked out with a free phone. And I went to TMO, because this was around the same time AT&T decided they were going to tack on a data plan to all smartphones regardless of customer preference and I didn't like that.

But it is pretty generous on TMO's part, especially given how tight they are on device pricing. That Alcatel phone they're giving everyone else is ~$150, but the Classic is easily twice as much. I'm sure some of these costs are built into network shutdowns, but a $300 phone for free is a generous offer.

[cbvinh]

How long ago was this?

Probably around 2004-2005. Cingluar was still Cingular, before rebranding to AT&T. The Nokia, I think, was $175 with a two year contract. The phone they were offering was one of their pay-as-you-go ones.

[raino]

Is there some statement from Tmo about not allowing VoLTE on a Z10? Or better yet, had anyone with a Z10 claimed to have done a VoLTE call on Tmob?

No statement really, just that nobody who has tried (in confirmed voLTE markets) has succeeded in placing a call over LTE (see your thread from last year.) VoLTE was enabled after the last update (10.2.1) from TMO was released.

[vladi]

Finally!!! 1700 was their necessary evil and I'm glad it's getting replaced

Posted via CB10

[raino]

Finally!!! 1700 was their necessary evil and I'm glad it's getting replaced

It's quite a big shift, if you think about it. Pre-BB10, there used to be two sets of phones made: one for the AWS carriers, and one for the non-AWS carriers (most of the world, including AT&T and Rogers/Bell/Telus.) TMO was the AWS flag-bearer, and with the AWS network being refarmed now, it's essentially switching sides.

Meanwhile the AWS Club keeps shrinking. Cincinnati Bell sold their mobile business to Verizon a couple of years ago, and now this.

[gariac]

No statement really, just that nobody who has tried (in confirmed voLTE markets) has succeeded in placing a call over LTE (see your thread from last year.) VoLTE was enabled after the last update (10.2.1) from TMO was released.

I guess I have to go into a Tmo store and ask if VoLTE is working and in what market.

So do we now think the other party doesn't have to have a VoLTE capable phone for a VoLTE call to go through?


Posted via CB10

[raino]

I guess I have to go into a Tmo store and ask if VoLTE is working and in what market.

Here is one official list of markets: https://support.t-mobile.com/communi...arkets-devices

Here are a couple of unofficial lists of sightings: (1),(2)

So do we now think the other party doesn't have to have a VoLTE capable phone for a VoLTE call to go through?

Correct. TMO's implementation doesn't require this. Verizon's does, and I think AT&T's does as well.

[modifier]

Correct. TMO's implementation doesn't require this. Verizon's does, and I think AT&T's does as well.

Are you talking about VoLTE or HD Voice? VoLTE, by specification, doesn't require the target device to be digital where HDV does. Calling from VoLTE is essentially no different than calling from VoWiFi. Both are IMS. Conversely, HDV is purely a call quality feature, not a standard.

I'm not sure how AT&T and VZW could require the target to be IMS-based (ie: VoLTE or VoIP) for the originating handset to connect a call over LTE service. If that's the case then their upcoming VoWiFi service will be unnecessarily handicapped and require some rather intelligent packets to poll the target, request the target type (analog or digital), then relay this to the handset so it can decide whether or not to connect (in the case of wifi calling) or drop to legacy service to make the call (when calling off a tower) -- all of which would be presumably done before the first ring.

This would also make it impossible to shift away from legacy GSM since VoLTE for voice and LTE for data are the future path.

Somehow I don't see carriers requiring 100% digital for a handset to call over VoLTE. Of course, I could be way off here.

[CB10 / Q10]

[jelp2]

Is there some statement from Tmo about not allowing VoLTE on a Z10? Or better yet, had anyone with a Z10 claimed to have done a VoLTE call on Tmob?

I know the iphone 6 is supposed to have VoLTE. The iphone 5 doesn't even have HD voice because Apple doesn't feel like enabling it.




Posted via CB10

My wife's iPhone6 still drops to 4g when placing a call, is that an indication of no VoLTE??

[modifier]

My wife's iPhone6 still drops to 4g when placing a call, is that an indication of no VoLTE??

Correct. If your device supports it then it means the tower you're on isn't provisioned for VoLTE.

[CB10 / Q10]

[raino]

Are you talking about VoLTE or HD Voice?

voLTE, specifically. I think I was wrong about AT&T, but not Verizon: Verizon starts rolling out VoLTE, but on only 2 phones to start - FierceWireless

Regarding HDV, I recall reading that Verizon had bundled its roll out with voLTE...which means it's IMS based? Is TMO's too? The feature on TMO seems to be a lot more device-ambivalent--something like tower provisioning, versus device (correct me if I'm wrong.)

[vladi]

It's quite a big shift, if you think about it. Pre-BB10, there used to be two sets of phones made: one for the AWS carriers, and one for the non-AWS carriers (most of the world, including AT&T and Rogers/Bell/Telus.) TMO was the AWS flag-bearer, and with the AWS network being refarmed now, it's essentially switching sides.

Meanwhile the AWS Club keeps shrinking. Cincinnati Bell sold their mobile business to Verizon a couple of years ago, and now this.

I remember back in the day TMO wanted Euro 3G frequencies but couldn't acquire 2100 due to government usage or something. Then somehow they missed out on 1900, probably due to ATT and VZW saturation so in the end they settled for 1700

[gariac]

Correct. If your device supports it then it means the tower you're on isn't provisioned for VoLTE.

[CB10 / Q10]

If you do a Google image search on VoLTE, the Ericsson diagram should pop up. They show VoLTE being handset to handset. I suppose that doesn't mean that is the only way VoLTE works.

Posted via CB10

[modifier]

voLTE, specifically. I think I was wrong about AT&T, but not Verizon: Verizon starts rolling out VoLTE, but on only 2 phones to start - FierceWireless

Bizarre. This makes me question Verizon's rollout of VoWiFi and how they intend to connect an IMS handset to a landline. That's the rub. T-Mobile has no problem going IMS to wireline and vice-versa. I suspect AT&T will use the exact same model. Now I'm curious what VZW are doing different.

Regarding HDV, I recall reading that Verizon had bundled its roll out with voLTE...which means it's IMS based? Is TMO's too? The feature on TMO seems to be a lot more device-ambivalent--something like tower provisioning, versus device (correct me if I'm wrong.)

HDV is a digital-to-digital device feature. You can have it on GSM or LTE if the carrier supports it. It doesn't work with analog wireline phones as they can't handle the modulation. VoIP devices should in theory work but I'm not up on VoIP devices to know if they indeed support it.

If you do a Google image search on VoLTE, the Ericsson diagram should pop up. They show VoLTE being handset to handset. I suppose that doesn't mean that is the only way VoLTE works.

In a broader context it's not supposed to be handset-to-handset. IMS connections (ie: VoLTE and VoWiFi) are intended to talk to analog devices over the PSTN. How and why any carrier would restrict this to 100% IMS to IMS (or even IMS to/from VoIP) is an unknown. Doing so would be handicapping a rather robust feature. That's what's strange.