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    Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?

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      • M Offline
        madscientist42 @beyolf
        last edited by

        @beyolf said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

        @jgalaxy
        As far as I understand it, the problem is not ofono but that in order for VoLTE to work properly there a lot of IPC needed with the cellular module and that is proprietary so it's hard to figure out.

        It's more of a stack that does a SIP-ish type transaction. You need an additional 3GPP stack like Doubango to scoop up your voice signals, do call signalling, and deliver the other side's voice data to you.

        Some of the solutions use firmware in the comm module to do this (The IoT modules doing VoLTE) or you need a stack. Shrug. Doubango compiles inside my Yocto build environment as a recipe now, but I need to clean up the mess I have to get there. I'm kind of wondering where UBPorts is on this score so I can either lend a hand or to straighten out the problems I have (All ships rise in the tide...)

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        • B Offline
          beyolf @madscientist42
          last edited by beyolf

          @madscientist42

          Currently I am trying to figure out the proprietary part with the cellular module. Currently trying to make the cellular module register in the cellular network for VoLTE.

          If you are interested in more info you can contact me on telegram.

          Ubuntu Touch fan
          UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
          Device:
          Redmi note 9 pro

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          • B Offline
            blueque
            last edited by

            In Feb 2023, Marius Gripsgard was about to give talk on "VoLTE for FOSS" at Fossdem 2023. I have no idea if he gave the talk there. There's other information on their website no video nothing. The news was also shared on ubports blog.

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            • D Offline
              DPITTI @beyolf
              last edited by

              @beyolf Good morning to the hard-working Linux people. What is so difficult about the integration of VoLte for UT? Is it the fact that UT actually only runs piggybacked as a container on top of Hallium Android on some smartphone models? Do you have to rewrite the entire module from the cell phone? Then surely there can also be limitations with data processing and LTE? Why is there only information via Telegram, very cumbersome 😁 Anyway, good luck!

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              • B Offline
                beyolf @DPITTI
                last edited by beyolf

                @DPITTI

                I dont really understand your post... The problem with VoLTE is the same for every OS which uses halium and vendor blobs and it is figuring out how to setup the proprietary vendor blobs. So the problem with VoLTE is not related to the OS it self but that the vendor blobs are not open and a lot of reverse engineering has to be done. To make the matter even more complicated different vendors implement VoLTE support in different way, meaning that there is no standard VoLTE setup for the different vendor blobs , which makes it harder and more things to reverse engineer. This was explained multiple times in the forum and in the Q&A sessions and also in the telegram groups.

                Also why exactly are you pinging me?

                Ubuntu Touch fan
                UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
                Device:
                Redmi note 9 pro

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                • MoemM Offline
                  Moem @blueque
                  last edited by

                  @blueque said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

                  In Feb 2023, Marius Gripsgard was about to give talk on "VoLTE for FOSS" at Fossdem 2023. I have no idea if he gave the talk there.

                  He did not. He was not at FOSDEM, I seem to remember that he was ill and could not make it.

                  Is currently using an Op5t
                  Also owns an Op1, a BQ E4.5 and an Xperia X, as well as a BQ tablet and a Pinetab2. Please, someone... make it stop.

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                  • D Offline
                    DPITTI @beyolf
                    last edited by DPITTI

                    beyolf I'm just interested in how the whole thing works out of curiosity as a hobby. I have no idea how all the Linux stuff is packaged in the end. I'm not pinging you anymore, take the "@" off.

                    Because you don't need to ping me anymore, I haven't watched these Uport videos for a long time.

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                    • B Offline
                      beyolf @DPITTI
                      last edited by beyolf

                      @DPITTI

                      I do not have problem that you ping me. i simply dont understand why you pinged me thats why I ask.

                      I will try to explain simply how it works. Vendors which manufacture android phones, put their proprietary drivers and i vendor partition on the Flash memory of the device. We call this proprietary drivers "vendor blobs". Halium based OS as UT , Droidian and etc, use Halium as abstraction layer between the OS and the vendor blobs. What developers which work on halium do is reverse engineer how Android setup the vendor blobs and implement that in the halium project, then third party OSes (as UT , Droidian) use halium in order to provide different functionalities as telephony,wifi,camera,flashlight and etc.

                      If you want to gain deeper understanding on how exactly that is done and how halium works i would suggest to read the documentation.

                      In terms of VoLTE the IMS implementation is not standartized so the different vendors implement IMS functionality in different way in the vendor blobs. What we are trying to do now is reverse engineer how exactly Android communicate with the different vendor IMS drivers in order to setup the IMS functionality."

                      For telephony UT and other halium based OSes use ofono. Ofono have few different ways to communicate with the vendor blobs in order to provide telephony. The most recent method for achieving this is through binder (Android IPC). So ofono uses binder calls in order to communicate with the vendor cellular module. So what we are working on is understanding what binder IPC calls does Android do in order to setup the IMS for the different vendor blobs and implement that IPC calls in ofono. Sailfish OS already made IMS ofono extension for qcom based devices but this extension is proprietary and not open source.

                      As you can see from the explanation above the problem with VoLTE is not OS specific, but the problem is that the VoLTE vendor implementation is not standartized and for the different vendors a lot of tracing has to be done in order to understand how exactly android setup VoLTE and replicate that setup procedure in ofono for the different vendors.

                      Hope that brings some clarity on the subject.

                      Ubuntu Touch fan
                      UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
                      Device:
                      Redmi note 9 pro

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                      • D Offline
                        DPITTI @beyolf
                        last edited by

                        Yes, thanks, your explanation helps me a bit. So it is always a small partion where the drivers are located. Just like a PC manufacturer customizes its software, you do that. Vendor and so is clearly seen several times when flashing 🙂

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                        • K Offline
                          Kamikaze
                          last edited by

                          Hi,

                          This will become a problem in Australia soon too (and might already be an issue for some carriers here). The largest provider here, Telstra, is planning to switch off their 3G network in June 2024.

                          I'm not sure what the status is of a crowdfunding effort, but I would also donate, at least a small amount for VoLTE support.

                          Merry Christmas / Happy holidays!

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                          • kuailexsK Offline
                            kuailexs
                            last edited by kuailexs

                            Maybe, Can refer to the implementation of Sailfish OS.
                            Write a plugin instead of ofono-vendor-qti-radio-plugin.
                            On qcom based devices use vendor.qti.hardware.radio.ims

                            UB 16.04 on Xiaomi 4
                            UB 20.04 on Xiaomi 6

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                            • D Offline
                              DPITTI @kuailexs
                              last edited by

                              Hopefully all frequencies will also be supported. In Germany, LTE is supported from 700Megaherz to 3600Megaherz. 5G is already available, but I don't have the hardware to use it yet. If you don't always need special applications for devices, I don't think it's that difficult. With Waydroid you could get VoLte and VoWifi up and running with some devices. I'm just making assumptions here. With Xiaomi, for example, the whole modem and Bluetooth stuff somehow runs via a chip where the FM radio is also installed. Shailfish Os is Android again then you can also stay on Lineage Os.

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                              • B Offline
                                beyolf @kuailexs
                                last edited by beyolf

                                @kuailexs

                                Thank you for pointing this out but we are making tests with that plugin from about a month already. We don't want to use closed source plugin that's why we are just examining how the plugin works and trying to make a new open source one.

                                Ubuntu Touch fan
                                UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
                                Device:
                                Redmi note 9 pro

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                                • B Offline
                                  beyolf @DPITTI
                                  last edited by

                                  @DPITTI supported frequencies depend on the cellular module not on the OS

                                  Ubuntu Touch fan
                                  UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
                                  Device:
                                  Redmi note 9 pro

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                                  • D Offline
                                    DPITTI @beyolf
                                    last edited by

                                    Since I have not flashed for a long time to see the development of UT I am amazed. It seems a lot has happened in the development of UT. Are you still on Android 10 or already on Android 11 or 12 in preparation? I wish you good luck with porting.

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                                    • kuailexsK Offline
                                      kuailexs @beyolf
                                      last edited by

                                      @beyolf said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

                                      @kuailexs

                                      Thank you for pointing this out but we are making tests with that plugin from about a month already. We don't want to use closed source plugin that's why we are just examining how the plugin works and trying to make a new open source one.

                                      Have you figured out how the plugin works? How is the current progress?

                                      UB 16.04 on Xiaomi 4
                                      UB 20.04 on Xiaomi 6

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                                      • B Offline
                                        beyolf @kuailexs
                                        last edited by

                                        @kuailexs

                                        Hey excuse me for the late response. I didn't had the opportunity to work on UT recently, because of some real life stuff, but now I am trying to catch up. When I have some info to share I will post it here.

                                        Ubuntu Touch fan
                                        UT Focal port for miatoll contributor.
                                        Device:
                                        Redmi note 9 pro

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                                        • kuailexsK Offline
                                          kuailexs @beyolf
                                          last edited by kuailexs

                                          @beyolf said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

                                          @kuailexs

                                          Hey excuse me for the late response. I didn't had the opportunity to work on UT recently, because of some real life stuff, but now I am trying to catch up. When I have some info to share I will post it here.

                                          plug-in only does some status and action commands transparent transmission, there is no protocol related implementation, VoLTE protocol support is all in vendor.qti.hardware.radio.ims. Implementing this plug-in is relatively easy.

                                          UB 16.04 on Xiaomi 4
                                          UB 20.04 on Xiaomi 6

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                                          • J Offline
                                            JohnB @kuailexs
                                            last edited by

                                            I am new to the UBPorts community and been wanting to get a Linux phone for a while, it seems like there are a lot of people here who are willing to pay towards a crowdfunding effort to get volte added to Ubuntu touch. I found an active open source bounty website that supports multi-user bounties, and talked to them in their discord and I get the impression they'd be willing to set up a page for this if the Ubuntu touch community can provide a set of concrete bounty targets. Then whoever is interested can contribute to the bounties. I personally would contribute a small amount to a bounty. Does this seem interesting to people? If so, I will need help distilling the report into concrete bounty targets by someone with domain expertise. I think this is a setting where a lot of small bounties could add up to enough to get this implemented.

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                                            • F Offline
                                              fairose @JohnB
                                              last edited by

                                              @JohnB said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

                                              I found an active open source bounty website that supports multi-user bounties, and talked to them in their discord

                                              Thank you for that work!

                                              @JohnB said in Status of VoLTE (Voice over LTE 4G) implementation?:

                                              I think this is a setting where a lot of small bounties could add up

                                              I am not a programmer. Do you have an idea of how exactly these "small bountys" could look like?

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