questions about the recent VoLTE and VoNR carrier overrides options

blind-confused

the description warns you that using this function "may cause unreliable service; use at your own risk". Does this mean that there might be a risk of not receiving calls at all? If yes, in what kind of situations can that happen?
if the other person has no VoLTE or VoNR support, will it automatically fallback to other services or whatever?
in case VoLTE and VoNR are not supported in my area, will enabling the setting cause my phone to constantly try to scan around for them, creating more traffic/bandwidth?

de0u

blind-confused The description warns you that using this function "may cause unreliable service; use at your own risk". Does this mean that there might be a risk of not receiving calls at all? If yes, in what kind of situations can that happen?

If the supported configuration for a carrier doesn't enable VoLTE, that could in theory be because the carrier has some support for VoLTE but it's not working well yet. In such a situation, forcing it on could result in missed calls.

blind-confused If the other person has no VoLTE or VoNR support, will it automatically fallback to other services or whatever?

The network should translate the call.

blind-confused In case VoLTE and VoNR are not supported in my area, will enabling the setting cause my phone to constantly try to scan around for them, creating more traffic/bandwidth?

VoLTE, probably not; VoNR, possibly?

Overall, VoLTE forcing is intended to fix a situation where the carrier actually requires VoLTE for calls but Google's official carrier configuration information doesn't show the carrier as supporting VoLTE -- and should arguably not be used in other situations. VoNR forcing in an area without VoNR coverage, or if a user's SIM card is subscribed to 4G but not 5G, is not likely to help.

These toggles weren't shipped as a way for people to turbocharge their interactions with their carriers; they were shipped to enable people to make calls when they wouldn't otherwise be able to, due to basically clerical errors.

GrapheneOS

de0u Forcing VoLTE or VoNR can enable people to disable 2G/3G and use 4G-only and provides higher quality voice calls if those weren't available without forcing it, but it was added as a very high priority due to some people requiring it to make calls at all due to 2G/3G being shut down. VoLTE is the only way to do calls for 4G and similarly with VoNR for 5G so it's a baseline requirement for basic functionality without 2G/3G.

blind-confused

de0u

de0u If the supported configuration for a carrier doesn't enable VoLTE, that could in theory be because the carrier has some support for VoLTE but it's not working well yet. In such a situation, forcing it on could result in missed calls.

🤔 it's weird that it wouldn't fallback to 2G/3G calls in that case, but thank you for the warning, I would rather ensure that I don't miss any calls.

de0u

GrapheneOS Forcing VoLTE or VoNR can enable people to disable 2G/3G and use 4G-only and provides higher quality voice calls if those weren't available without forcing it.

Thanks for the correction. Indeed there is a time window during which some users can use VoLTE forcing and forcibly disable 2G/3G calling. Then, probably fairly soon, many carriers still supporting 2G/3G calling will stop.

It's great that the GrapheneOS developers shipped this as the 2G/3G shutdown is gaining speed (source).

blind-confused

GrapheneOS it was added as a very high priority due to some people requiring it to make calls at all due to 2G/3G being shut down.

thanks for that, I myself live in a country where Pixels aren't sold officially (though they aren't banned either), so I assume our carriers won't have 4G/5G calls available on them by default. I might have to enable this toggle in the future, to be able to call at all.

blind-confused

GrapheneOS sorry that I'm replyin to an old thread, I just wanted to clarify somethin. Assumin my mobile carrier does provide good support for VoLTE and VoWiFi in my area of livin, and I force enable support for it in GrapheneOS, is there any scenario then, in which calls or SMS might be missed at all? Or will it always fallback to 2/3G, in case the person tryna call me doesn't have VoLTE or VoWiFi?
also, do mobile carriers need to support these functions per each specific phone model? Or do they just provide it for anyone regardless of phone model (Samsung, Oppo, etc.)?

de0u

blind-confused Assumin my mobile carrier does provide good support for VoLTE and VoWiFi in my area of livin, and I force enable support for it in GrapheneOS, is there any scenario then, in which calls or SMS might be missed at all?

Of course! Bad things can always happen.

If the carrier were genuinely confident about VoLTE and VoWiFi working well with the software stack on Pixels, they would likely enable it via the carrier configuration data advertised to Google, and the manual overrides would not be necessary. If the carrier has not done that, that suggests at least that significant testing has not been done.

blind-confused Or will it always fallback to 2/3G, in case the person tryna call me doesn't have VoLTE or VoWiFi?

I don't believe the capabilities of a peer device are relevant here. Carriers are used to bridging call formats for voice calls.

blind-confused

de0u If the carrier were genuinely confident about VoLTE and VoWiFi working well with the software stack on Pixels, they would likely enable it via the carrier configuration data advertised to Google, and the manual overrides would not be necessary. If the carrier has not done that, that suggests at least that significant testing has not been done.

🤔 tbh I'm not so sure how exactly things work here. I'm from Russia and my carrier is Beeline. Pixels were never officially sold here (though they're not banned either, Google just never sold em themselves here), so I'm not sure whether Beeline's VoLTE and VoWiFi works well with the software stack on Pixels. But their app does say that those 2 things are generally available, and my town is covered.

at the end of day, 2/3G are still present here for now, and my only goal was to just improve sound quality for voice calls whenever that is possible (cuz sometimes it's actually important for me to hear ppl better) by enablin VoLTE and VoWiFi. I assumed that both of them don't work ootb (I'm not sure?) cuz GrapheneOS' default carrier override settings just say: "No override (Default: Unavailable)". BUT I only want that improvement if I know that it doesn't involve risks of missed calls or SMS. Cuz at one point, I enabled the "LTE only" mode (it's from a different menu in the settings, but still) and tested it by callin to and from a family member's phone, and guess what, I did not receive their calls at all (no notification either), and whenever I tried callin em, the call just instantly stopped, didn't even start. I'm not too sure why, I'm not a tech person tbh. I assume it's cuz it needed 2/3G?

but yeah, point is, I only wanna enable VoLTE and VoWiFi if I know that it won't involve any risks or missed calls or SMS like that. That it won't disrupt anythin, or won't introduce chances of new errors, compared to how it was before enablin it.
I'm not sure whether VoLTE and VoWiFi are ever used without me enablin those settings

Johnnyloans

If you can risk enabling it, you should get a notification for a missed call and/or voicemail.

You can have a friend or family member call you after enabling it. Try it again over a time period if you want.

Or to see if you missed a call, you could compare your call log to your carriers call log.
If you can't see your call history via your carrier, contact them and ask for your call history via email.

de0u

blind-confused Perhaps somebody else with experience on that carrier will report, but otherwise I doubt anybody will be in a position to provide any strong assurances that no calls or messages can be missed. Experimentation might be useful.

blind-confused

ah nevermind, I just found that they can only guarantee VoLTE workin on a specific list of devices, and Pixels ain't there. It also needs to have a firmware that was developed to work with Beeline

TrustExecutor

Can this be the reason why some people experience unreliability in receiving calls on Pixels? There are multiple threads on this forum about it but no real solution or way to pinpoint the probem.