Sailfish in the USA

The Xperia 10 Plus should have VoLTE support… Enabling it may be tricky though…

Is using a data only SIM card maybe an option to prevent the ban of old non-VoLTE phones? Then maybe the SFOS phone can be used as a pocket computer with built in 4G modem, and talking via s1p and some SIP provider should be possible…?

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That is largely what I’ve been doing for years (back in Symbian and Maemo days) when traveling abroad. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’m working on getting to be able to forward all 3G connectivity to a seperate 4G data SIM

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The Pinephone has VoLTE support in the modem, and there is an older version of Sailfish 3 for it. Will it be able to use VoLTE? Mobian wiki says it can do VoLTE on the Pinephone for this reason. Of course that route lacks Android support though…so it looks like I might eventually be moving to one of the Linux OSes with Anbox support.

For everyone wanting to know if you can buy a Sailfish X license using an US credit card:

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Indeed … I will need to get a Verizon SIM then! Good to know because I’ll be there very soon.

Or through PayPal. Just did it myself.

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You can use PayPal, that’s what I’ve always done.

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So, Germany does it now latest end of this year but (‘fortunately’ ?) will keep 2G open.

Nevertheless this limits the usage of a Sailfish device as a daily driver! :frowning:

oops, wrong thread should have gone to feature request - volte

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There’s a few things to unpack that make this far more complicated than it should be.

The simple stuff for the 2x GSM networks in the US:

  1. AT&T have this pdf of supported devices

  2. T-Mobile doesn’t have anything as comprehensive, I guess in part as they’re still to fully combine Sprint. However, this link allows you to check the IMEI of your phone and flags any phone that doesn’t support VoLTE:

Despite buying my Sailfish licence from the UK, this will affect me as I’m now in a US resident, so this will affect me as my XA2 won’t work as a phone in around 9-15 months time, regardless of the SIM inserted. T-Mobile flat don’t support my XA2, see the following screenshot.

Interestingly my old Nokia 830 is apparently supported on AT&T after this change, despite being a launched more than 3 years earlier. I guess that’s due to the XA2 not being a contract option on T-Mobile, or for that matter available at retail in the US (only the Xperia 1 & 5 are available on Amazon, the 10 II is the International version).

Where it gets messy is that the supported LTE bands are very different to Europe in the US. As Sony don’t sell phones that support Sailfish X in the US, importing one is the only option but that doesn’t necessarily help as the Xperia 10 series supports some different LTE bands to the network. The XA2 Dual-Sim I have supports 1-5,7-8,20,38, and AT&T has widespread use of bands 12&17 so if I’m in an area of the US where only band 17 is available, the phone won’t work at all.

The point is that I understand why Jolla don’t support Sailfish X sales in the US, as the phones that support it aren’t available to buy in the US without importing, and doing so doesn’t mean LTE will work. Thta doesn’t mean I’d like to see VoLTE support soon but I understand why it’s not a priority.

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In addition, a historical pain point has been group MMS. I am yet to find a good solution for this.

Some providers have web access/apps that can get around this issue. See my recent posts for example.

I use Google Fi, which has web access to sms/mms. If I get an sms, Sailfish messages handles it via the Messages application. If I get an MMS, the Messages application tells me that it couldn’t download the MMS, but I have 2 different workarounds via the web access to retrieve and/or send.

VoLTE is a growing concern for me though.

And SFOS did not implement VoLTE 'cause this protocol is only used in US and NOT in EU, Asia, Russia, etc?

It is only a matter of time. Jolla should have started implementing VoLTE a decade ago as it is superior in every way and the clear path ISPs were going to take worldwide.

Bandwidth is cheap and VoLTE can squeeze much more out of much less when compared to a traditional voice call. It is also far more cost effective to maintain 1 network instead of 3, and be able to reallocate the frequencies from 2/3G into 4G which can handle both voice and data.

If Jolla chooses to act like it doesn’t exist, it will kill the company eventually. 5G will be utilizing native data calls as well (currently it uses VoLTE to support voice since you can have concurrent 5G and LTE connections)

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Agreed. Here in the UK 2G/3G masts, frequencies, etc are already being re-purposed towards 4G/5G, so although the final 3G switch off date is fluid (sometime around end of 2022/23 … maybe) and 2G will remain around for longer to service legacy technologies that still use it (Smart meters, pagers, etc) the 2G signal is becoming weaker and more patchy across much of the country and 3G is disappearing completely in some places. This will make non-VoLTE phones much harder to use as in some places there will be no 3G and a much weaker or patchy 2G signal to fall back on. This situation will naturally drive users towards VoLTE capable phones - which of course is what the network providers want. Its actually quite a good way of getting people to move towards VoLTE of their own accord rather than generating negative publicity by forcing them to move due to a hard cliff-edge switch off.

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I think this may be of use: GitHub - KhushrajRathod/VoLTE-Fix: Fixes Qualcomm VoLTE on all GSI Treble Roms

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  • SFOS is officially coming to the US in early 2022 (and other markets)
  • VoLTE is in the works “… hoping to release support on some devices in early 2022”
    (edit: apparently VoLTE will come to the Xperia 10II first)

For details: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-21st-october-2021

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That’s great news. I suppose I can reinstall sailfish on my Xperia now.

Before entering new markets, Jolla should sort out the biggest issues they have withe the OS! The CONNECTIVITY! Sailfish OS is not usable at the Moment!! Since 4.1 it is pain in the a**!! It can even be dangerous to use it as daily driver! In this state of the OS this project will fail! A lot of additional work for nothing! Please Jolla wake up! Solve these problems first before adding net functionalitys, and then you are ready! Don’t show potential, show a WORKING OS!!!

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I agree Jolla need to sort out some of the functionality, however I don’t see the expansion into other markets as being a barrier to fixing these issues. In fact it may aid in the improvement of the OS. They will have a larger customer base which will bring more income but also bring more pressure to bear to fix the issues.

I think the US market will be less forgiving in this regard to the European market. The acceptance of Sailfish into these new markets will be much better if the OS has less bugs and Jolla owe it to themselves to get the OS into the best shape possible.

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What issues do you have specifically?

The perennial BT problems are obviously an issue, but this is not unique to SFOS devices