Back in the before times, there was choice.

In early 2010 I purchased a Nokia N900. Still to this day it's probably my favorite ever phone. Back in 2010 the N900 was a technical marvel. Nokia wasn't selling a phone, they were selling a technology proof of concept and letting their enthusiast users partake.

As a low volume, niche product there was no chance of finding the N900 in the Australian market, so I turned to the grey market. The unit I purchased arrived with a UK power plug for charging, and other than needing to add an AU to UK adapter it worked like magic. I'd done my homework: the N900 supported the 2G and 3G frequency bands that I required. All that I needed to do was to put my SIM card into the phone and I was up and running.

As is the way with technological progress things change. Unfortunately 12 years later things have not changed for the better. So what gives?

Progress' steady march

We begin our story with the transition between 3G, 4G and 5G services. With 3G, provided your phone could communicate on the correct frequency bands it would work with no fuss; data, phone calls, it all worked. Introduce 4G and everything is an IP network (this is great!), unfortunately voice traffic has now been moved to a service called VoLTE (Voice over LTE) and VoWIFI (yep, Voice over WiFi). This wouldn't be a problem except that access to these Vo* services is now explicitly tied to the firmware of your phone. Phone doesn't have the correct firmware blessed by a local carrier? Too bad, too sad. The problem becomes even more problematic with 5G. Don't have the correct firmware blessed by a local carrier? Forget about even connecting to the 5G network.

So far this may not sound too dramatic. If you have a device without a local carrier firmware (in other-words, a grey market device or one that you've brought with you from overseas) you're not permitted on the 5G network (perhaps not the end of the world) and your 4G device will downgrade to 3G to make or receive voice calls. Seems fair enough.

Except for one little problem..

3G networks are living on borrowed time

The 3G network is a dead man walking. Vodafone has signaled its 3G network to be shut down by December 2023, Telstra theirs by June 2024 and Optus yet to commit to a date (more details here).

The problem is that while these time-frames look to be 1 and 1.5 years away as at the time I'm writing this, the major telcos have already started "refarming" their 3G frequencies. This means shutting down some of their 3G coverage, and reusing it for 5G services. The reality of this move is that customers on grey market phones are already experiencing a reduction in their voice coverage, and these customers are also locked out of 5G connectivity so they're loosing coverage without gaining anything back.

And if you're looking to get your service from an MVNO make sure you

Read the fine print

because MVNOs are not created equal, and VoLTE / VoWIFI support is still not guaranteed. There's a very real risk that even with a completely current phone with an Australian firmware that has been fully "blessed" to work on our networks, you may STILL be locked out of full voice coverage and find yourself shuffled off to a 3G network that is being actively shrunk every time you want to talk to someone.

So at this point, the move to 4G and 5G technologies is being used as a vehicle to reduce choice in devices and choice in providers.

My own experience

This brings us to a story of 3 phones.

• A OnePlus 7T Pro;
• A Sony Xperia 1 III; and
• A Pixel 7 Pro.

The OnePlus 7T Pro had 2 years and 3 months in service, the Sony Xperia 1 III had 7 months in service, the Pixel 7 Pro is current. While each phone has been a progressive step-up from its predecessor, I really had no reason to upgrade.

• High speed CPU, 12GB of RAM and tons of fast storage. ✓
• Triple camera array, Wide, Ultra-wide and Telephoto. ✓
• Large, high refresh rate, high resolution OLED screen. ✓

With perhaps the exception of night time photography there has really been so little truly compelling change in the smartphone market over the past several years that I would have happily stuck with my 2019 era OnePlus if it was a practical option, so what gives?. Before I answer that question, let me throw something else into the mix... My favorite of the group would have to be the Xperia 1 III: SD card expansion, dedicated 2-step photo button, capacitive fingerprint reader, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a screen without curved glass. It's the perfect mix of everything that used to be great about phones. Yet I used it for the shortest time... now lets answer the question "what the hell gives?".

yeah, what gives?

The short answer is they were hobbled. The OnePlus isn't sold in Australia, it was a grey market import. That means no VoLTE, no VoWIFI. 4G still worked, 3G still worked. A (suspected) bugged firmware proved to be its undoing however as the constant need to change to 3G for phone calls rather than just stay in 4G and use VoLTE would cause the phone to drop completely off the mobile network if I was in transit (kind of a critical feature for a mobile phone). Stay still for 15 minutes and everything would work. So the OnePlus had its days numbered. It survived its 2+ years because 2 of those years were spent in lock-downs courtesy of covid restrictions.

The Sony Xperia 1 III is the phone I wanted to love, the phone I wanted to get another 2 years out of. Again the Sony isn't sold in Australia, it was a grey market import. That means no VoLTE, no VoWIFI, and in this case no 5G. 4G still worked, 3G still worked. But now I'm mobile, now I'm heading into in the City every now and then. And I can't reliably be contacted. Why? Because 3G reception is such garbage nowadays. When I was using the Xperia, my wife found most of the time she tried to call me, my phone would out of range. I'd pull my phone out of my pocket and see SMS messages telling me I have voicemail, but the phone never rang. The unfortunate reality is I found myself consistently in situations, be it moving about, in my home office or at work in the city, where 4G reception would be fine, WiFi reception would be exceptional but 3G reception was poor or non-existent.

The fact that VoLTE and VoWIFI features, required to make calls over 4G/5G and WiFi networks are locked behind specific firmware rather than available as a profile to download, or baked into a SIM card, or in any other way made available to be user programmed into their device has effectively killed to value and utility of grey market devices. In my case I really loved my OnePlus and my Sony; like the N900 of yesteryear they simply aren't sold in the Australian market, but through artificial limitations they've been rendered virtually useless.

As an aside: Earlier I mentioned a suspected bugged firmware impacting my old OnePlus 7T Pro (gee that name is a mouth-full). After my experience with the Xperia however I'm no longer sure if the issue I was experiencing was the bugged firmware and not just the further degradation of the 3G network.

What can you do?

At this point there isn't much you can do. I don't have a silver bullet solution to this problem. If you're keen you could try a custom firmware for your device that claims to get VoLTE working, but there are no guarantees with this kind of solution. In my case I went the easier path and purchased a Pixel. After my OnePlus and Sony's marvelous uninterrupted screens, I'm getting used to tolerating a hole-punch camera. Otherwise I'm VERY happy with the device. 5G, VoLTE and VoWIFI work. I can now be contacted reliably and night time photos are exceptional. Unfortunately like region locking of DVDs way back when, and streaming services limiting their catalogue based on geography we're yet again at the whim of market forces that are making restrictive and consumer unfriendly decisions.