Tech Talk

It’s funny because I just found out that the local Optus tower houses Uniti Wireless :stuck_out_tongue: Tho, the latter is pretty expensive.

talk that Optus is going to switch the remaining 2100MHz spectrum they own (which is a further 20MHz) to full time Data only LTE further expanding their LTE Data only service.

That would leave 3G voice only with 900MHz (5MHz), now this would of been a issue around 2 to 3 years ago but with more and more customers having VoLTE and the advent of VoWiFi (re: broadband) still won’t be an issue for the most part (unless you don’t have a VoLTE device).

They are probably doing this as a way to hit TPG and its 4G LTE data only metro network.

1 Like

and you got to remember today’s generation only use data to communicate and maybe sms and never voice calls

From a 4G device view SMS/MMS would already be going over LTE and not over 3G2100/900 so not an issue and in any case the youth all love messaging apps and not traditional SMS/MMS for that service type.

Optus should be able to handle remaining voice and data traffic on 3G900 even though that is limited to 5MHz spectrum paired in the 900MHz band and a lot of customers have moved onto new devices that do VoLTE and they offer VoWiFi (broadband)

I think the penetration of VoLTE in devices would be a problem. I have a device (LG V20) less than 18 months old and while it supports 4GX, it doesn’t actually support VoLTE for some reason (though it does in US models).

That being said, I’m sure that 3G 900MHz would be able to carry all voice calls, but I think it would be at the expense of data services on 3G.

On the topic of Optus data services, I’m on Vividwireless and have noticed a bit of a drop in quality of service over the past month or two. There are some serious congestion issues on my tower which occur at peak times.

Telstra will be fine as their plan is to switch off 3G850 won’t start until mid 2020 so no need to worry about not having LTE VoLTE just yet and in any case 5G should be up and running by then.

Telstra have started to re-farm their former GSM 900 into LTE-B (Broadcast) and IoT (internet of things) services combined with some 2100MHz spectrum which they own (some of that is also former 3GIS).

Wouldn’t be many handsets left in operation that solely operate on 2100Mhz 3G, so can’t imagine it would be an issue. As mentioned elsewhere above, may mean data services suffer… but surely there wouldn’t be that many data services left utilising 3G only either.

Who here is holding out on a phone upgrade until 5G comes along next year?

For me, it’s not so much about 5G itself, but apparently manufacturers are holding back new features on their next generation headsets to launch with 5G, such as a fingerprint reader built into the screen, which has been rumoured for the Samsung Galaxy S10.

My 2016 Galaxy S7 is still going along very nicely for now anyway.

I don’t know the numbers but it could be as high as 15%, Optus would have to release info as to what the plans are as they did with 2G shut down, the actual population coverage of Optus 3G 2100 is only 80% and even then half of the spectrum they have (which is a total of 20MHz (40Mhz paired)
national wide) has already been switched over to LTE, the most likely result is that customers who are with Optus have dual band 3G900/2100 so phone calls would be going over 900 rather than 2100 as that is the primary netowork and has been since about 2012, Optus have been selling LTE service since 2013 and ramped up LTE once they were able to use their allocated 700/2600 spectrum in combination with there 2.3GHz spectrum LTE TDD service, as more and more of there base switch over to primary LTE devices and Optus pushing VoLTE and VoWiFi it will be less of an issue, I also recently read that the $2 Days prepaid unlimited 3G is being made into a $3 (50% Increase) so they are moving on that.

I’m happy using my current handset which is 5 year old LG G3 converted to Lineage OS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2), bought a genuine battery last year for it and still kicks ass, has 4G700 and 3G850 for Telstra, rooted and using network guru to lock LTE700/HSP+850, no issues other than a lack of RAM since it the 16GB HDD / 2GB RAM Telstra version but ussing ram manager app I can control what is dynamic and what is static RAM usage.

1 Like

My Moto G5 Plus is a VoLTE phone but Optus doesn’t support it for VoLTE.

can you try something please?

##4636## then enter phone information
you should see

VoLTE provisioned with a check marker, if its greyed out then so be it nothing can be done to change that as its not in the modem profile, but if you can switch it to on then do so then restart, you should now have VoLTE enabled

Also you can use the 3 dot menu and select IMS Service Status which will show you if you device IMS status.

Optus VoLTE status is enabled all over their LTE FDD network so 700/1800/2100/2600 frequencies.

During a commercial break in the Swans vs Bombers match, there was a Google Home Mini ad where Eddie Betts of the Crows was setting a timer for baking a cake. It set a timer on my Mini as that ad was playing.

Has this happened to anyone else?

1 Like

Quite a few stories of the Amazon Alexa and products actually ordering things based on things they hear on TV.

CEO & Managing Director of SBS has announced he is joining Telstra.

Scam alert

From ACMA:

OPTUS SCAM ALERT! Emails claiming to be from Optus are circulating. They want your credit card information for what is claimed to be an unpaid bill.

The ACMA has been receiving reports about emails with the subject line ‘We are unable to process your last payment’.

The fake emails are sophisticated and use a web address that looks like the real Optus website. The email contains a link to a fake ‘pay your bill’ page, which then asks for your credit card details.

The fake email and payment form are cunningly crafted to trick people. It’s important you check the legitimacy of email links to protect your personal information—use contact details you find through a legitimate source and not those contained in the suspicious message.

If you receive this scam email, delete it immediately.

image

2 Likes

Telstra 3G850 speed test

RSRP -95
Hurstvile NSW
LG G3 with Lineage OS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) locked network to band 5 850MHz

1 Like

I’ve tried that a couple of times on Optus on my Moto G5 Plus, which is a VoLTE phone, but after the restart it reverts to VoLTE switched off again. I changed a couple of other settings as well, but they also reverted to the previous settings after a restart.

If that trick works then the only reason why its switching not permitting VoLTE after restart is because the firmware the handset has does not try to look for VoLTE data, instead if looks for 3G Voice (and if that is Optus then it prioritizes 3G900 before 3G2100), I don’t know if this handset has a “hidden menu” of not other tha the Google hidden menu, if it does then maybe you can force VoLTE full time by activating it from the hidden menu, I was able to do that with a ZTE handset to lock in VoLTE for a friend of mine, but I stress it has a MTK chipset and not a qualcom one so it could be a hardware needing software to drive it thing.

At least you can access VoLTE, I can’t do that even though the LG G3 is very well capable of providing VoLTE even with Lineage OS 14.1 as it has the IMS profile but Telstra won’t allow it to work no matter what I try which is annoying, so I just leave my G3 locked into WCDMA 3G850 full time, works fine, sure it can be slow due to slow ping times but you have to accept that its a 4 year old mobile well beyond its used by date.

1 Like