This isn’t regulatory. It’s Optus deciding that if they didn’t sell the handset or its foreign bought it is will be blocked. Because of reasons…
And don’t ask questions because software is hard, and telecom is too technical for the plebs.
It’s nothing but a blatant cash grab hidden in a thin veneer of technical babble because it’s tough for modern journalists to question engineering.
Just days ahead of the shutdown, Australia’s media regulator ACMA finalised a new “direction” (basically a rule) that meant telecom companies had to refuse service to all phones that relied on 3G for making emergency calls.
The idea was to prevent people from mistakenly believing that phones were fully working, only to realise they were unable to make emergency calls when the crucial moment came.
Australians with older 4G phones may also be caught out because of the way the phones are configured.
It is up to the telcos to work out which phones are affected, notify the owners, block their phones, and help make other arrangements such as low- or no-cost replacement phones.
However, as Telstra and Optus noted during a Senate inquiry into the shutdown, telecom companies are unable to tell which individual devices suffer from this problem unless have they sold them.
I’m not saying it’s not partly on the providers, but validating that a bunch of obscure phones that aren’t sold in your country meet new regulatory requirements is not as easy as you’re making it out to be.
If only those affected could call for an appointment to swap to those low or no cost phones.
The carrier doesn’t decide that.
I literally quoted the part that required carriers to block ineligible phones.
It’s not a bunch of a large number. It is a set number of phones from well known providers from a few countries.
Basically no one wanted to pay for one Business Analyst to read documentation and make phone calls to providers. For a program that has years and millions in it.
Or worse, cause it is out of scope
Or the worst, so they could sell the “buy from the provider” bullshit
Regulatory compliance of hardware is not, and should not be, the responsibility of the service provider. It’s the responsibility of the manufacturer to have their hardware certified basically everywhere.
Frankly, the rules shouldn’t even allow providers to make that determination. They should either be certified to meet the requirements by an independent agency, or have providers be prohibited from allowing them.
That’s the reason why every other fucking country still has either 3G or 2G activated. 4G is just a shitshow for making calls.
Where I live, 3G is going to be phased out, but 2G is staying seemingly indefinitely. Not only for the old phones, not only for all the dying villages that are not getting any upgraded equipment, but also for all the automation dependent on it. Apparently quite a few places did it like this.
Well, 2G and 3G are being shut off in the United States as well. I believe AT&T shut down their 2G network in 2017 and shut down their 3G network here recently. And T-Mobile in the United States shut down their 3G network in 2022. And while their 2G network is still currently running, it won’t be forever. I believe Verizon is also in the process of shutting down or has already shut down 2G and 3G as well.
They also refused to use the standard voice over LTE and refuse to let any thing that they didn’t sell try to connect to their voice over LTE even if it’s compatible. Leaving restricted Apple from enabling voice over LTE for iPhones not from Australia even though it’s just a software update that you need that doesn’t run on the firmware level.
So to let people know that they won’t have emergency service during an emergency, they prevent them from having ANY service now (24-hour notice). Even if telecom companies behaved perfectly (which they wouldn’t) the initial idea was already a problem.
Yes, the phones are non compliant and need to be barred. This is good. Everyone must be able to access emergency services in times of crisis. The fact some manufacturers make phones that don’t use 4g for this means their phones rely on outdated tech and standards and will be excluded.
Railing against this is just weird.
You’d think they’b be able to… I dunno… SMS them about the problem, instead of cutting the service they pay for?
If by radio you mean the music device, no. My jap import cannot pick up aus stations. If you mean radio frequencies for phones and others, hopefully someone else has the answer haha.
Sites like frequencycheck.com let you find out based on country, carrier or device
if they were bought overseas or via international resellers.
Classic blunder. Don’t forget to check mobile bands of radios you buy kids!
It’s not just the bands. You could have all of the needed bands and still be blocked (and you could me missing one and just get a warning).
Can confirm. My phone got kicked off when they started sunsetting 3G. They called me (on said phone with no service lol) and said I needed a new phone. I said “no I don’t, put me back on the network”. We went back and forth, then they forwarded me to the tech department
The tech says “you need a new phone”. I said “no I don’t, I have all but one of the new bands and others with my phone have already gone through this process with you guys”. He said “you can’t believe everything you read online”, I said “be that as it may, I looked at the specs for both my phone and your network, and it meets the requirements”
He starts telling me there’s nothing he can do on his end, I say he just has to find an override to stop blocking my phone. He says he doesn’t have any options like that, I promise him it’s there
After getting tired of going in circles, I say if he doesn’t know how to do it he needs to ask someone or pass me to a higher tier. Surprise surprise, my phone instantly shows bars and he tries to gloss over the whole thing
This exactly, as long as your phone has at least one frequency band of the provider, then it will at least connect to their network and allow you to access data. Calling seems to be a whole different thing, though, because it requires something with IMS.
This exactly, as long as your phone has at least one frequency band of the provider, then it will at least connect to their network and allow you to access data.
In the implementation in Australia, you actually will lose data access too if you’re blocked (wifi still works of course). That strikes me as kind of dumb, but I guess they don’t want to give the impression that it’s supported at all, since the whole thing is about emergency calling access.
They should have built a solution where the phones that haven’t been tested get cut off, but get an SMS telling them to activate the phone, call SOS once. For the first SOS call, they intercept it, check that the phone was able to make the call, then unblock the phone, and after that, allow SOS calls as normal.
That would require “actually doing work” though.
On one hand, I totally understand that if technical and regulatory issues prevent certain phones from being able to call emergency services, cutting those phones off is a matter of public safety. You don’t want people learning that their phones can’t call emergency services when a loved one is having a heart attack or something.
But this seems like a decision that is pretty toxic to tourism and international business. If I ever visit Australia, am I going to need to buy a phone when I get there? It doesn’t seem wise to make your cell network work all that differently from the rest of the world when cell phones are supposed to work seamlessly across borders.
This is a safety issue — a matter of life and death — so if there is any doubt, we are compelled by law to block to protect customers,
What is that mental gymnastics? They are blocking customers in life and death situations from making emergency calls.
