4 ms·

I was forced to give up my beloved OnePlus 6 barely eighteen months after buying it when AT&T shut down 3G and moved to a whitelist scheme where any phone not a

I was forced to give up my beloved OnePlus 6 barely eighteen months after buying it when AT&T shut down 3G and moved to a whitelist scheme where any phone not allowed was forbidden. I'd just moved my family off Verizon for the same reason, too. Wireless "progress" has been anything but. The 3G shutdown created dead zones where before I had adequate data connectivity. Even today I keep the 5G functionality of my phone turned off because 4G gives a consistently more reliable connection and faster data rates.

andrewia 2y ago
FYI, the whitelist is enforced differently with MVNOs. I was able to prove a UK Xperia 5m2 was compatible and get it allowed on a prepaid MVNO.
- joecool1029 2y ago
  Easier to just avoid AT&T's network. I used to buy import xperia models for years and one day their system started to sweep for IMEI's not in their db. It's not a hassle I miss dealing with.
joecool1029 2y ago
> I'd just moved my family off Verizon for the same reason, too. You most certaintly did not leave for the same reason. AT&T is a special level of shitty with their device whitelisting. Verizon and T-Mobile do not whitelist. Verizon shut down their old CDMA network and you needed new devices. 3G WCDMA (which is what topic is discussing) was the last circuit centric standard, it actually sucked for footprint and was way more complex on the carrier end to deploy. It was so bad that when the iphone 3GS launched signal storming kept crashing out AT&T's 3G network. Haven't missed using 3G on T-Mobile but they actually still keep the 2G signal alive in their guard bands which is fun for running retro devices. > Even today I keep the 5G functionality of my phone turned off because 4G gives a consistently more reliable connection and faster data rates. Verizon and T-Mobile have enough resources on 5G now that breaking gigabit speeds is pretty common, without mmwave. I've run my primary net on wireless for most of the decade and it's improved every year as new bands get deployed. First year of 5G was not great, now it's fast and most of the spectrum is on it. However, the vonr/volte 4G/5G sip profile situation is really shit even without asshole operators doing whitelisting, it's a problem for emergency calls and probably one of the reasons t-mobile kept their 2G on air still, just as a CYA.
- BenjiWiebe 2y ago
  Verizon maybe doesn't whitelist, but they sure act like they do. An unlocked phone supporting Verizon's frequency bands might not get allowed to be used. Happened twice to my family members, switched them both to AT&T. In both cases I bought phones advertising Verizon support, and double-checked that the frequency bands were supported. In one case, the phone worked for a while with moving the Verizon SIM into it from the old phone (except for SMS). When I mentioned that to Verizon, they said I shouldn't do that, and it would be disabled randomly after Verizon systems noticed it was an unsupported phone.
  - joecool1029 2y ago
    > Verizon maybe doesn't whitelist, but they sure act like they do. They don't. There's one thing they do that's annoying as hell though. esim technically only needs a EID to activate, but most carriers use a database of EID to IMEI pairings, since the IMEI is much shorter to read out. Verizon will not let an esim device they don't know or recognize the IMEI of to activate. For me that means they refuse to activate my esim.me in a oneplus 11 which is an otherwise cleared device on their network with a built-in esim. I have a removable esim called a euicc (from esim.me, there are cheaper versions now) and T-Mobile is currently the only US carrier that will activate using just a EID. I can then take the card out and even use back to 3G era devices, they don't care. (I have a K850i from 2007 I've done this with, it works on 2G currently since 3G turned off).
- causality0 2y ago
  At the time in 2018, AT&T would let you bring whatever device you wanted. They implemented whitelisting in the leadup to disabling 3G voice in February 2022. I believe sometime around March or May of 2021 was the last time you could activate a non-whitelisted device.
bitsandboots 2y ago
Right there with you. Had a lovely oneplus 5 that lived for years. Replaced its battery, wanted to keep it going forever because Android gets worse with every release so older is better. But then AT&T altered the deal. Had firmware that could do VoLTE, but AT&T doesnt care. Well I've got an xperia now that is on their whitelist and I'm doing the same strategy again but hey, if only we had an actually useful FCC and FTC to police anti-consumer, monopolistic actions. Too bad we elected for the exact opposite a week ago.

andrewia 2y ago

FYI, the whitelist is enforced differently with MVNOs. I was able to prove a UK Xperia 5m2 was compatible and get it allowed on a prepaid MVNO.

joecool1029 2y ago
Easier to just avoid AT&T's network. I used to buy import xperia models for years and one day their system started to sweep for IMEI's not in their db. It's not a hassle I miss dealing with.

joecool1029 2y ago

> I'd just moved my family off Verizon for the same reason, too. You most certaintly did not leave for the same reason. AT&T is a special level of shitty with their device whitelisting. Verizon and T-Mobile do not whitelist. Verizon shut down their old CDMA network and you needed new devices. 3G WCDMA (which is what topic is discussing) was the last circuit centric standard, it actually sucked for footprint and was way more complex on the carrier end to deploy. It was so bad that when the iphone 3GS launched signal storming kept crashing out AT&T's 3G network. Haven't missed using 3G on T-Mobile but they actually still keep the 2G signal alive in their guard bands which is fun for running retro devices. > Even today I keep the 5G functionality of my phone turned off because 4G gives a consistently more reliable connection and faster data rates. Verizon and T-Mobile have enough resources on 5G now that breaking gigabit speeds is pretty common, without mmwave. I've run my primary net on wireless for most of the decade and it's improved every year as new bands get deployed. First year of 5G was not great, now it's fast and most of the spectrum is on it. However, the vonr/volte 4G/5G sip profile situation is really shit even without asshole operators doing whitelisting, it's a problem for emergency calls and probably one of the reasons t-mobile kept their 2G on air still, just as a CYA.

BenjiWiebe 2y ago
Verizon maybe doesn't whitelist, but they sure act like they do. An unlocked phone supporting Verizon's frequency bands might not get allowed to be used. Happened twice to my family members, switched them both to AT&T. In both cases I bought phones advertising Verizon support, and double-checked that the frequency bands were supported. In one case, the phone worked for a while with moving the Verizon SIM into it from the old phone (except for SMS). When I mentioned that to Verizon, they said I shouldn't do that, and it would be disabled randomly after Verizon systems noticed it was an unsupported phone.
- joecool1029 2y ago
  > Verizon maybe doesn't whitelist, but they sure act like they do. They don't. There's one thing they do that's annoying as hell though. esim technically only needs a EID to activate, but most carriers use a database of EID to IMEI pairings, since the IMEI is much shorter to read out. Verizon will not let an esim device they don't know or recognize the IMEI of to activate. For me that means they refuse to activate my esim.me in a oneplus 11 which is an otherwise cleared device on their network with a built-in esim. I have a removable esim called a euicc (from esim.me, there are cheaper versions now) and T-Mobile is currently the only US carrier that will activate using just a EID. I can then take the card out and even use back to 3G era devices, they don't care. (I have a K850i from 2007 I've done this with, it works on 2G currently since 3G turned off).
causality0 2y ago
At the time in 2018, AT&T would let you bring whatever device you wanted. They implemented whitelisting in the leadup to disabling 3G voice in February 2022. I believe sometime around March or May of 2021 was the last time you could activate a non-whitelisted device.

bitsandboots 2y ago

Right there with you. Had a lovely oneplus 5 that lived for years. Replaced its battery, wanted to keep it going forever because Android gets worse with every release so older is better. But then AT&T altered the deal. Had firmware that could do VoLTE, but AT&T doesnt care. Well I've got an xperia now that is on their whitelist and I'm doing the same strategy again but hey, if only we had an actually useful FCC and FTC to police anti-consumer, monopolistic actions. Too bad we elected for the exact opposite a week ago.