[whatevermang]

3G is a legacy protocol. The handsets themselves are irrelevant. They're shutting down a legacy protocol and (for somewhat misguided reasons) blocking handsets because they can't access 000 anymore. Despite it having advantages over 4/5G, I do think it's progress (at least in terms of security).

A load of older IoT devices and POS terminals are likely not working anymore though. That's a harder problem to solve.

[numpad0]

- Australian carriers are blocking 4G phones based on whitelists, citing government mandate/ruling/whatever. Consequently many 4G phones are getting stuck in No Service state.

- Previously, phones that weren't whitelisted could connect to 4G for Internet, and disconnect & fall back to 3G for calls.

- Voice calling on 4G is finicky, and carriers don't like supporting random customer bought contraptions trying to do it.

- (you can whine all day about how calling is the sole defining feature for an object to be a "phone", doesn't change the fact that calling on 4G is a carrier-grade ever-beta duct tape hack).

dc: iiuc

[ecdavis]

> blocking handsets because they can't access 000 anymore

As the article explains, many handsets which can access 000 are being blocked.

My iPhone XR can't make calls anymore, for example.

[wobfan]

Did you read the article? No one disputes that 3G is no legacy network as of now. But it’s needed because the devices that are in widespread use are not able to do specific things on 4G/5G which includes emergency calls.

And while progress may be good, risking people’s lifes for it isn’t. You can be mad on the device vendors for not implementing the technology, the standard inventors for not defining the VoLTE standard well enough, the government for not having any foresight at all, the operators for being profit driven. But you cannot just ignore it and turn off 3G and risk people’s lifes. Apart from that it’s just pure idiotism to also ignore the half million people that are losing any mobile network.

Plan it better, or punish operators or vendors more, but not ignore their and your incompetence completely and just continue shutting down integral mobile network services.