FACING 4G
It's a long weekend, this year for a king's non-birthday rather
than a queen's, so I'm staying off the roads as usual and pottering
about with my projects or reading too much stuff on the internet.
So far mainly the latter, and in fact I got a head start yesterday
because I realised that 3G mobile phone coverage with the largest
network, Telstra's, only has twelve months left before it's turned
off.
I got onto this early with my internet a year and a half ago, as
documented in bits of these posts:
gopher://aussies.space/0/%7efreet/phlog/2021-12-29Upgrades_and_Downgrades.txt
gopher://aussies.space/0/%7efreet/phlog/2022-02-27Getting_Nowhere_Faster.txt
Although mainly because I mis-remembered the turn-off date and
started early, it seems that was wise because the burst of reliable
4G signal didn't last and this year I've only been getting 4G
reception on a day or two every few weeks. No idea why it comes and
goes so much, although I have heard that the tower's antennas can
be directed to provide more signal in directions where there's more
demand, which could well mean away from me. I'm pretty sure I'll
have to build an antenna after all, and actually I'm thinking of
going all-out and using a big old satellite dish as the basis for
it, which is an approach that has been documented a bit on the
Whirlpool forums.
But also now I'm thinking about the replacement for my actual
mobile phone, which I keep turned off in the car, because I never
really got into the game of mobile telephony. I pulled apart the
spare for my current Samsung A411 and wrote about it in this post
(and I did get it back together again too):
gopher://aussies.space/0/%7efreet/phlog/2022-07-06Jirka_Made_Me_Pull_my_Phone_Apart.txt
Being a 2008 model it of course doesn't know anything about 4G, and
in fact even that wouldn't be enough because there's yet another
layer of confusion now with phones that do 4G but not VoLTE which
is what I actually need for a phone that I just want to make calls
with after 3G is turned off. So yesterday I set to researching what
options are out there at minimum cost. The rest of this post is
partly just a summary for myself actually.
WHAT NOT TO BUY
Sellers on the web that are overseas or likely to be importing
things without much deep consideration are likely to offer things
that don't work properly in Australia. Mainly they just list
America and Europe as the two different universes, neither of which
imply any compatibility with Australian phone networks. The most
important thing is the frequencies - if a phone supports 3G and 4G,
but not any/many of the 4G frequencies used in Aus, then it's no
better than a 3G-only phone. For my purposes I'm mainly looking at
Telstra's frequencies because for taking it in the car I need to
have the best coverage I can get. 700MHz and 1800MHz seem to be the
key ones, with 700MHz probably the one I'll want most since it
should go furthest (hmm, this seems to have been a late addition
with earlier devices using 1800MHz, so that might be what's up with
my mobile broadband modem).
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/mobile_phone_frequencies
As noted, make sure phones aren't just 4G/LTE, but VoLTE.
Annoyingly manufacturers seem not to be putting VoLTE on their
specifications lists. Nokia puts it on the boxes for phones but not
on their website. Argh!
Avoid smartphones. I want a keypad and ideally a 'dumb' OS that I
can ignore like on my 15yo Samsung. Some 'feature phones' do run
Android, but a few manufacturers (Nokia, ZTE) still maintain their
own dumbphone OSs.
Don't look for stuff that's on manufacturer's overseas websites
accidentally, there seem to be tons of models that are never made
for Australia.
WHAT I WANT TO BUY
Something with really good reception, unfortunately manufacturers
don't seem to publicise this even though I'm pretty sure it still
varies between models. The only metric is Telstra's "Blue Tick" for
rural handheld coverage, which is applied to some of the models
they sell based on claimed testing and was a feature of my current
Samsung. None of the consumer models seem to have pointy-out
antennas like that anymore though.
A second-hand phone that's had little or no use would be good, or
an model that's heavily discounted by the retailers.
WHAT CAN I BUY
-Samsung-
I can't get one I want from Samsung again, they seem to have
dropped 'feature phones'.
-Telstra-
Telstra do still sell 'feature phones' as rebranded ZTE (Chinese
brand) phones, although for some reason their website doesn't want
to show them to me in their products lists. Brand names are
"EasyCall" (for elderly people, expensive), "Lite" (cheap), "flip"
(flip-phone, like my old one, expensive).
Telstra phone versions with 4G VoLTE:
* Lite 2 & 3
https://ztemobiles.com.au/telstra-lite-2/
https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/prepaid-mobiles/lite-3
The Lite 3 is actually made by Alcatel (TCL), not ZTE
(Alcatel 3080T). Optus also sell this as their "X Lite 4G".
* Flip 3 & 4
https://ztemobiles.com.au/telstra-flip-3/
https://ztemobiles.com.au/telstra-flip-4/
* EasyCall 5 (not sure about 4, not 3 or before)
https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/prepaid-mobiles/telstra-easycall-5
The Telstra Lite 2 had some bad consumer reviews describing a poor
keyboard design and hopeless UI. I'm not sure that ZTE are up to
the same standard as Samsung, and it's not like my Samsung one is
perfect. But 12 months ago the Lite 2 was being sold off by many
retailers for just $9, $50 off the regular price! If only I'd begun
looking back then it would have been easily worth a shot for that
price. Maybe keep an eye out for that happening again though (I
know it happens sometimes with mobile broadband modems too, so it's
not a one-off, they have to sell them before their bundled SIM
cards expire).
-Opel-
These are sold by Australia Post and other opportunistic retailers.
They're not that cheap and probably poor quality so I won't bother
looking into them.
-Nokia-
Good old Nokia seem to be the last major brand still holding the
torch for the 'feature phone'. Earlier this year they dumped a long
list of their first 4G feature phone models running their S30+ OS
and introduced a couple of new ones (105 4G and 110 4G).
Unfortunately the old ones don't seem to be around on the
second-hand market, and their re-use of old model numbers makes
them hard to pick out - I even found one seller on Ebay advertising
a 3G model as the later 4G model.
Old models are found by looking at their website via the wayback
machine, and they're listed here albeit with some models that
weren't released in Australia (yet?):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B#Made_by_HMD
I've set up Ebay search alerts for all of these because they look
better than Telstra's ones, except for the question of reception in
weak coverage areas. Litterally nobody is selling any of the Nokia
4G models for under $70 on Ebay at the moment though, so it looks
like they might be hard to buy cheap.
== Rugged phones / Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) radios ==
These are designed for industrial environments, mainly for
employers who want to provide them to staff. They're designed to be
tough, or "rugged" seems to be the favoured term, and difficult for
staff to waste time with by installing games and apps. They all
seem to run Android unfortunately. PoC is a way of using the phone
network for communications like a two-way radio, replacing
conventional walkie-talkies without the issue of range. Telcos
offer special services to businesses that these 'phones' work with,
and it's basically like a continuous phone call where you push the
button on the side to talk. Some seem to use apps which might go
via the internet to a separate PTT (Push-To-Talk) service provider
instead of the telco. Some of these don't have a keypad, but others
do and they seem like they could be used as a regular phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push-to-talk#Mobile_phones
These are expensive in Australia, but there are hints that they
might have very good reception, mainly the fact that some have big
antennas, but they don't seem to actually _say_ they they have
better than normal reception, which is a pain. I'm mainly hoping
that someone's going to buy up a bunch of them from a business
that's upgrading and sell them cheaply on Ebay, but it doesn't seem
to be happening yet.
I've set Ebay search alerts for these but I'm not really very
hopeful.
-AGM-
This mob mainly sell rugged smart phones, but they have an M series
of feature phones. Their website doesn't talk about Australia, but
there are some Australian distributors who hopefully know what
they're selling. Much more expensive than the US prices on their
website though. No mention of reception range.
https://www.agmmobile.com/collections/m-series
-Inrico-
This mob make many models of those PoC radios, some with keypads
like a feature phone but all aimed at 2-way radio type
applications. Some do have big antennas though, so maybe good
reception? But I can't find any reference to this on their website.
You wouldn't want signal dropping out as people walk around large
buildings though, so I can imagine that they would try to optimise
reception. On the other hand they might just want to make them look
like walkie-talkies, and indeed some actually have a conventional
walkie talkie mode as well.
It's less than clear whether these actually can work like normal
phones, the walkie-talkie functionality requires a PTT app to be
installed.
There are a few other manufacturers, including cheap (compared to
AU prices) ones on Aliexpress, but those are the only manufacturers
who seem to have some (possibly deniable) presence in Australia.
CONCLUSION
For now I'm waiting to see whether a cheap deal pops up for one of
the Nokias, or maybe one of the rugged phones. Failing that I'll
probably go with one of Telstra's ZTE ones, especially if they get
super-discounted again.
Suggestions of other models available in Australia are welcome.
[email protected]
- The Free Thinker
