Sailfish in the USA

Cool. Now volte needs to roll out to more devices.

2 Likes

Thank you. I don’t think if the importance of this find can be overstated. There have been multiple threads going on for months speculating about this very topic.

3 Likes

Just because a given phone has VoLTE service with stock doesn’t mean it will with a custom ROM.

Take the case of the Xperia 10+. Android 10 resulted in VoLTE working. Lineage indicated it was working on the banner and engineering menus but would drop to 3g/2g when a call was actually in progress. Sailfish didn’t use VoLTE at all.

You are 100% sure that it is fully functional and not dropping to 3g/2g while a call is in progress?

@ peterleinchen

Even my Sony X Compact using 4G with blau.de so i see no Problems here.

Jolla didn’t mention 5G at all, the talk was always explicitly about VoLTE. However, as X10III has 5G capabilities, one would assume… Well, y’all know what they say about assuming :wink: It would have been nice/cool, but as 3G is dying (fast), VoLTE sure must have the priority over 5G. (Okay, some areas are packed with 4G traffic, so in some cases 5G could actually be highly beneficial. Ask me why I know…)

I’m sure 5G will sorted out at some point!

3 Likes

Reporting on my experience, three days in with SFOS running on Xperia 10iii in USA:

  • 4G indicated throughout the call
  • No drops to 3G or 2G during or after calls
  • No dropping off networks between calls (this happened repeatedly to me on 10 and 10ii)
  • When 4G is active I can access websites during calls
  • Stronger and more consistent signal than 10ii, 10, and XA2

I tested with Android 11 before flashing SFOS with same results.

Note that a bug has been reported about Beta VoLTE dropping after toggling wifi; discussion of workarounds is here. It occurs regardless of country or carrier, so likely not due to a mismatch with US networks.

Edit: Works on both TMobile prepaid and postpaid accounts.

3 Likes

Ahm … the irony is it never mentioned 5G, so how do you come up to the conclusion that it supports 5G?
This is like if I am not mentioning a Mercedes but talk about VW you conclude I have Mercedes :smiley:

My experience with Jolla 4.4 on Xperia 10 III on ATT: there is no data link. no LTE / 4G period. The upper right shows 3G but the IP network is not reachable even on 3G.
3G calls are solid in and out. (apparently ATT still has a local tower serving 3G). but no data over SIM. The same Xperia 10III works solid with Android (both 11 and 12) and the same SIM/
Also noticed, that Connectivity – Cellular Network doesn’t have the following fields: to input MMSC value,
MCC and
MNC value
and APN type
and APN protocol
those fields are a must in order to have LTE working under Android. If I set to Choose networks manually, than I have an option to at least select the MNC (in my area can be 410 or 260) but There is still no place to type APN ( it should be: default, mms, supl, hipra,fota ) and APN protocol (Should be Dual) , and APN Roaming protocol (should be just IPV4).

next - will try to buy t-mobile SIM and of course will wait for Jolla 4.5 version to come and fix all the above. +))

3 Likes

Thanks for sharing this, @nemirova . I was hoping AT&T would give the 10 iii 5G functionality but I guess not. :-/

Update: AT&T just told me the phone was incompatible with their network. No signal on Android and can’t register on the network with Sailfish. YMMV.

Get a Tello sim. It’s cheap and they are on t-mobile network.

1 Like

Greetings. I am curious about your continued experience with the 10iii on TMO USA. Do you live in a metro area, suburban area, rural area? Do you drive much while on phone conversations? If so, do calls drop a lot? I live in Chicago suburbs, but drive for work all around the city and into the city. On 10 with 3G/2G calls, I have only a couple of spots where I predictably know my call will drop, and where I will get service again.

When the 10ii arrived, I tried a call from Joliet to St. Charles - a commute call I had regularly and never get a dropped call. On the 10ii, the call dropped 9 times. This was not unsurprising given that the 10 I still use (while I can) is the USA variant, whereas the 10ii and above, Sony chose not to create a US-variant, and thus leaves me/us with hardware that utilizes a fraction of the available frequencies/bands here.

With the 10iii there are few bands of compatibility here. I have two unopened 10ii phones, and two that my family members used and have SFOS on them. I am gathering data from your usage (and hopefully others who will post here) in the U.S. and deciding whether 10ii VoLTE will be available in time. If that won’t and 10iii is the only option, will I get so many dropped calls that it’s practically unusable, even though “technically” it’s usable?

Thank you for your reporting.

I also found the 10ii dropped calls, dropped off the network, lost coverage, switched bands… it was so unusable I shelved it after a few weeks. I tried out the 10 after that, and while it wasn’t quite as bad as 10ii I still found I missed a ton of calls and service was spotty. I was down to just using 2G in the end.

On 10iii all those issues are gone. I am receiving more calls, service doesn’t drop mid call or afterward, I experience fewer dead zones, it stays connected to 4G. I don’t live in an urban area and I know the dead zones around here well and the 10iii stays connected where others didn’t. While driving through a dead spot this morning my call stayed connected the whole time, and I even received a call the other day in a spot where my last two phones would never even have rung.

My only drawbacks so far are that I still cannot get MMS, and there is currently a bug with beta volte that produces discontinuous data connectivity. Other than that, for me this build is a major improvement over 10 and especially 10ii. YMMV so I’m keen to hear what you and others experience.

5 Likes

Thank you for your detailed response. As a result, I just placed my order for a 10iii. It is supposed to arrive Friday, so that means this weekend’s yard work and domestic duties will have to get done quickly so I can get to flashing my phone and transferring content.

I will gladly report back with my experiences in an effort to help others decide what is best for them.

4 Likes

Out of sheer curiousity, does MMS work for you? I’m on T-Mobile but their suggested APN settings don’t seem to work, same for the sim provided settings

Edit: I just read the previous post, and I am confused as to why MMS doesn’t work as well.

Short answer: I don’t know. MMS was nearly entirely broken for me on XA2 and has been unusable since I moved to the 10 series. I’ve tried tons of different settings and configurations and it never works. I thought from past posts that others had MMS trouble in the US too, and when we bring this up the Europeans seem unwilling to fix it as they can’t imagine anyone uses MMS anymore. Anyway I recently downloaded the MMS log tool and am hoping to figure this out. If anyone else has had success with MMS in the US (I’m on T-Mobile) I am all ears!

1 Like

MMS worked for me in the UK on the XA2 using EE (same as T-Mobile) but not with the settings provided by Jolla which were out of date. Changing them to more current ones googled from the web made MMS work fine. But … Moving to X10 III on the same SFOS release (4.4.0.64) and using the same carrier/SIM card from the XA2, and the same settings … MMS does not work at all :disappointed:.

1 Like

seeing that mms will be deactivated by providers end of this year, the effort to fix anything regarding them might be unworthy.

Can you please share a link to more info about this shutdown?

2 Likes

AT&T has been known to whitelist, which is probably the issue, your Xperia 10 III is not whitelisted for their network.

T-mobile only requires volte, anything will work if it has that.

1 Like