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.
That's the reason why every other fucking country still has either 3G or 2G activated. 4G is just a shitshow for making calls.
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.
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.
You'd think they'b be able to... I dunno... SMS them about the problem, instead of cutting the service they pay for?
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 The fact some manufacturers make phones that don't use 4g for this means their phones rely on outdated tech and standards and will be excluded.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.
Except they weren't non-compliant before and this is punishing the users, not the manufacturers. I don't even know what tech my phone uses for emergency services.
So? Technology moves forward. So of you have a phone no longer compliant you need to get a replacement.
These are not 20 year old phones. There's a reason these transitions are made gradually.
That’s not how telecommunications work at all. You always have backwards compatibility and you don’t need perfect latency or beam forming to make an emergency call. Don’t kid yourself it is solely to fuck with consumers and to make more money somehow.
Telcos in Australia have so far been the worst money grabbing vultures that I’ve ever seen. Like these motherfuckers would lock a PoE line to the MAC address of an networkadapter, so that you could use one machine and nothing more.
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.
Read the article. Optus is not bothering checking. Just closing stuff off.
I did read the article. Checking is not and should not be their responsibility.
The only legitimate way to check is to do actual, intensive, independent testing of every device in question, specific to your country's regulations. Spec sheets are not a valid approach to verifying that a device will work.
How do you think spec sheets work? Engineers rely on data a d there are industry standards. That is the whole point of documentation. Even little motors and resistors have documentation that is relied on. You really think this is not documented accurately?
You really think that Optus is intensely checking and verify every device they sell? They rely on the documentation! They are a retailer of phones.
The way that Aussies think is always interesting. I find a lot of people bend over backwards to justify the reasons for companies. Instead of standing up for customers these arguments seem to look like a shining example of "out of scope" decisions. I have seen in too many corporate meetings and decision makers.
Everywhere else on the planet, in order for a device to be cleared for sale, that specific model undergoes heavy testing for regulatory compliance by a government agency.
"The specs said it was fine" is literally never going to be a valid legal defense, and making that argument will get you laughed out of court. Either it's actually certified to be used as you're allowing it to be used, or you get the hammer dropped on you, as you should.
But this is Lemmy. If there's a choice between honesty and blaming capitalism, Lemmy users will always blame capitalism.
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.
Are Japan radio frequencies the same as Australia?
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.
It's not only the frequencies, but also the modulation and the protocol ("how devices talk to each other"). Your phone may support all needed frequencies and might still not be able to "talk" to the network.
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.
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/was the USA with their very different system.
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).
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.
I actually may have this problem eventually in the United States as well, because I'm running a OnePlus Nord N200 with lineage OS, and it does not seem to be capable of voice over LTE while running lineage OS, but will work fine with voice over LTE using the stock ROM, which I refuse to use. Right now I either have to be within range of Wi-Fi or if I place a call my phone falls back to the 2G network in order to place the call and then flips back to 5G when the call ends.
Edit: on T-Mobile. I do not believe it will work on AT&T at all, and I have not tested with Verizon, so I'm not sure.
Edit 2: I think voice over LTE could be made to work properly because I've seen other lineage OS devices that work fine with it. So it must be something with this specific ROM.
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.
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.
lol fuck every tourist in the ass sideways I guess.
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.
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.
That's the reason why every other fucking country still has either 3G or 2G activated. 4G is just a shitshow for making calls.
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.
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.
You'd think they'b be able to... I dunno... SMS them about the problem, instead of cutting the service they pay for?
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.
Except they weren't non-compliant before and this is punishing the users, not the manufacturers. I don't even know what tech my phone uses for emergency services.
So? Technology moves forward. So of you have a phone no longer compliant you need to get a replacement.
These are not 20 year old phones. There's a reason these transitions are made gradually.
That’s not how telecommunications work at all. You always have backwards compatibility and you don’t need perfect latency or beam forming to make an emergency call. Don’t kid yourself it is solely to fuck with consumers and to make more money somehow.
Telcos in Australia have so far been the worst money grabbing vultures that I’ve ever seen. Like these motherfuckers would lock a PoE line to the MAC address of an networkadapter, so that you could use one machine and nothing more.
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.
Read the article. Optus is not bothering checking. Just closing stuff off.
I did read the article. Checking is not and should not be their responsibility.
The only legitimate way to check is to do actual, intensive, independent testing of every device in question, specific to your country's regulations. Spec sheets are not a valid approach to verifying that a device will work.
How do you think spec sheets work? Engineers rely on data a d there are industry standards. That is the whole point of documentation. Even little motors and resistors have documentation that is relied on. You really think this is not documented accurately?
You really think that Optus is intensely checking and verify every device they sell? They rely on the documentation! They are a retailer of phones.
The way that Aussies think is always interesting. I find a lot of people bend over backwards to justify the reasons for companies. Instead of standing up for customers these arguments seem to look like a shining example of "out of scope" decisions. I have seen in too many corporate meetings and decision makers.
Everywhere else on the planet, in order for a device to be cleared for sale, that specific model undergoes heavy testing for regulatory compliance by a government agency.
"The specs said it was fine" is literally never going to be a valid legal defense, and making that argument will get you laughed out of court. Either it's actually certified to be used as you're allowing it to be used, or you get the hammer dropped on you, as you should.
But this is Lemmy. If there's a choice between honesty and blaming capitalism, Lemmy users will always blame capitalism.
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.
Are Japan radio frequencies the same as Australia?
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.
It's not only the frequencies, but also the modulation and the protocol ("how devices talk to each other"). Your phone may support all needed frequencies and might still not be able to "talk" to the network.
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/was the USA with their very different system.
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).
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.
I actually may have this problem eventually in the United States as well, because I'm running a OnePlus Nord N200 with lineage OS, and it does not seem to be capable of voice over LTE while running lineage OS, but will work fine with voice over LTE using the stock ROM, which I refuse to use. Right now I either have to be within range of Wi-Fi or if I place a call my phone falls back to the 2G network in order to place the call and then flips back to 5G when the call ends.
Edit: on T-Mobile. I do not believe it will work on AT&T at all, and I have not tested with Verizon, so I'm not sure.
Edit 2: I think voice over LTE could be made to work properly because I've seen other lineage OS devices that work fine with it. So it must be something with this specific ROM.
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.
What is that mental gymnastics? They are blocking customers in life and death situations from making emergency calls.
lol fuck every tourist in the ass sideways I guess.