the definite VoLTE deadline date in the USA is now known
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@rondarius one correction for UBuntu LTS: Its supported for 5 years, which means that by now we have only 3 years left until we need to shift to 24.04
The idea is also to maybe move to STS versions again - a mobile phone distro on long term support means we always will have outdated packages of everything, and are constantly struggling in an ever-changing IT world.
Having an STS or even rolling release would be much better, also because upgrading constantly smaller parts of our OS is much easier than locking down everything every 3 years or so.
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Will be a sad day for UT...
VoLTE is as far as a galaxy away. This is still lightyears from a sustainable solution, as already some posters remarked, VoLTE support will come to a few chosen devices only, if ever. As long as that thing is not standardized its impossible for smaller projects to reverse-engineer that part, also as typically in Android the same vendor makes their stuff incompatible already with the next device (Not even talking about multiple vendors), and for every model we need again to dive into this.
The same applies to eSIM: We need to learn a lot from unofficial sources so to say how to implement the right protocols.
Until there is decent open hardware this will prevent any proliferation of open technology.
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@flohack Hum, that's depressing. In Sweden 2G and 3G will be shut down before 2025 at latest.
To me this sounds like the end for UT. At least in its current form... -
@flohack said in the definite VoLTE deadline date in the USA is now known:
Until there is decent open hardware this will prevent any proliferation of open technology.
What about the PP and PPP ?
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@keneda well they are good candidates, idk which modem is in the PPP, but they need to be made more usable with UT, thats also not easy.
But yes, probably good candidates (if they work with VoLTE in the US, idk, US is special for everything)
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A AppLee referenced this topic on
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@flohack PP and PPP share the same modem - quectel eg25g. It already does VoLTE on UT without any instruction from UT for it to do so. It even works with Verizon.
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@rocket2nfinity That sounds awesome - can somebody confirm for the EU?
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@messayisto Should not be a problem in EU with PP or PPP.
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@flohack I guess I am still confused about all of this. I have a Pixel 3a that is loaded with Android (My UT phone is a Nexus 5) and I am on T-Mobile. I received notification that my Nexus 5 would no longer work, but they said my other phones will be fine. (Wife has a pixel 3), so wouldn't UT still work on the 3a?
Nexus 5 - UT OTA 21
Pixel 3a - UT 2023-W13 -
@geekbone Well, it will, but in UT voice calls can not be handled over LTE nor WiFi yet.
So if 3G is cut, you won't be able to make nor receive phone calls. -
@geekbone VoLTE has the beauty that most things for calls, sms/mms that were handled by the modem before will now be handled by a telephony stack in the Android container PLUS we need our own service on top of it to handle all that mess. We decompiled a few Java classes and that API is north of 150-200 single calls that all need attention and handling.
Its more like a reimplementation of signalling and call handling in upper layers. Definitely a project of a few resource-years (head-years) for UT, and not even then its clear if it would ever work (only on a few devices that use a more open IMS stack).
Thats an overview picture, only the leftmost part is relevant but still...
IMS means its prepared for multimedia data, so every call can contain also video, verious codecs etc. Its much, much, much more than just a POTS voice call
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@flohack Indeed, the IR.92 official document is composed of 76 pages.
Tried to read to understand the basics, but just gave up due to the complexity...https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads//IR.92-v16.0-1.pdf
There are 193 official documents related to VoLTE...
Maybe years of migraines and white hair are ahead us...
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@flohack Lol! I didn't follow all of that, but it did help. Thanks for taking the time to spell it out.
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@Flohack So Pinephones and other open hardware projects, even non affordables ones, are the best way for the futur of UT and cummunity.
Now the question is when it will become a priority to have at least one full supported ? After 20.04 ?
2015-2023 : Meizu MX4 now in legacy drawer by lack of pristine battery 😫
2023-***** : Nexus 5 (16.04 OTA 25) for daily use, slowly dying 🤕
2024-***** : Fairphone 5 waiting UT for freedom 😉
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For France, 2G and 3G coverage can be expected until 2030.
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@keneda The beauty of the Pinephone is that its IoT modem can handle VoLTE in the firmware, but this modem has other challenges as we know, and its questionable if that is a way forward for all user needs. We still have to solve stability and energy efficiency on this platform, and without the help of the Pinephone community and PINE64 this likely wont be easy.
I cannot say what we will do after 20.04 but this is still so huge that we do not start worrying today, sadly. 20.04 will keep us dramatically occupied, unless we find a way to share the work better with the community devs, a problem unsolvable it seems.
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@flohack said in the definite VoLTE deadline date in the USA is now known:
its questionable if that is a way forward for all user needs
As 3G will shut down in more and more countries, having VoLTE working wil be mandatory for more and more users.
And as you seem to say VoLTE will be years in dev time to work on halium devices... I see only one solution in meantime ^^As you may know already i'm not in trouble with 3G myself, but i know if i was and need it and no UT phone having VoLTE, i'd go back droid...
I cannot say what we will do after 20.04 but this is still so huge that we do not start worrying today, sadly. 20.04 will keep us dramatically occupied, unless we find a way to share the work better with the community devs, a problem unsolvable it seems.
You do your best with ressources you have at UBP and that's all matters.
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@flohack : I understand that the move to 20.04 is a number 1 priority, and that there are no volunteers with dev skills who can work on VoLTE support now. But VoLTE support seems to qualify for a shared number 1 prio. If UT doesn't offer VoLTE soon, at least part of its users will have to leave UT because of their network providers switching off 2 & 3G (and sooner or later this will be the case everywhere). I guess all alternative mobile OS'es are facing the same challenge and need to find a solution a.s.a.p. Wouldn't it be possible to set up a 'consortium of alternative mobile OS'es' to work on a solution (for VoLTE, and maybe e-sim and other challenges too) together? And if there are no volunteer devs, perhaps start a funding campaign to hire devs. I saw that Redhat also offers software solutions to providers to offer VoLTE. Maybe such a company would be a good partner? Also, a 'consortium' could perhaps persuade phone manufacturers to cooperate in development, because the combined OS'es together represent a bigger user group than they would alone.
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@alter
First of all sharing priorities is not really a thing when you don't have enough manpower.
Than the foundation HAS to go to 20.04 before anything else because the changes brought by 20.04 can change how to make other things work (e.g. VoLTE).Such a consortium exists (sort of) and that's the Ofono project:
http://www.ofono.org
Also you can read the plan for UBPorts there:
https://www.jeroenbaten.nl/UT-VoLTE-proposed-technical-architecture.pdfBe sure that everyone is aware of the urgency and of the consequences related to VoLTE
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@applee : Thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't aware of this.
