Smarty and 4G VoLTE Help

trickydicky14

My wife has just moved to Smarty 30 day contract and been told she is now setup, but she has no service. She contacted Smarty and they are now saying it’s because her phone is not 4G VoLTE compatible. The phone is a Samsung Galaxy A16 purchased new a few weeks ago. Can this be true, it’s not as if its an old phone.

She was told all providers are moving away from 4G to 4G VoLTE so what on earth can she do and do you think Smarty are being honest about this, she is at her wits end with no phone for the past 4 days.

Monanore

I have an A16 and a smarty contract, working.  The A16 supports volte.  Go to settings - about phone - status information - sim card status.  mobile voice/ mobile data network type should show lte - it does on mine. I think it's the default.

It looks like yours may be toggled off - go to settings - connections - mobile networks - there's a volte toggle there.

Post how you get on, I'd like to know.

Also, I'd be interested in how you're getting on with contacting smarty, as there's no phone support ?

trickydicky14

Monanore said:

I have an A16 and a smarty contract, working.  The A16 supports volte.  Go to settings - about phone - status information - sim card status.  mobile voice/ mobile data network type should show lte - it does on mine. I think it's the default.

It looks like yours may be toggled off - go to settings - connections - mobile networks - there's a volte toggle there.

Post how you get on, I'd like to know.

Also, I'd be interested in how you're getting on with contacting smarty, as there's no phone support ?

Thanks for your response but can I ask, is your A16 4G or 5G because I 'think' it's only the 5G that supports VoLTE but I could be wrong. And all communication with Smarty has been via online chat which is a pain.

Monanore

4g. Definitely. This is very odd. Have you looked at the 2 settings I said, and are they the same as mine ?  If so there must be somethng else wrong.  I'm not an expert though, just happen to have the same as you. I also typed your problem into chatgpt and it suggested quite a few things.

flaneurs_lobster

I had similar with a pair of Samsung A52 phones, identical but different sources. Phone direct from Samsung worked fine with VoLTE/WiFi calling on all networks, phone from O2 would only work on O2.

It was down to the firmware installed for specific networks, maybe look at Settings, About Phone, Software information and look at 'Service provider software version'.

Try Googling the text string shown there (pain, can't cut'n'paste) might show if firmware is generic or specific.

Oh, there was no fix other than to run the phone on O2 (or return it, but I'd gotten a chunky discount so didn't).

PHK

@trickydicky14 even if the phone was not VoLTE compatible your wife would still see signal bars, data would work and the phone would drop to 2G to make calls. 

The fact that she has no service at all means something else is wrong. 

If you swap SIMs, does your working  SIM work in her phone? If it does then there’s a problem with her SIM. If it doesn’t then it’s either a problem with the phone or the settings or it’s reported stolen. 

Have you checked the settings advised above? It would also help if you said where the phone was purchased. 

Incidentally, VoLTE is nothing to do with 5G, other than the phone might need to drop to 4G to make a call over VoLTE. The equivalent for 5G is called VoNR. 

d123

PHK said:

@trickydicky14 even if the phone was not VoLTE compatible your wife would still see signal bars, data would work and the phone would drop to 2G to make calls. 

There is no 2G on Three (Smarty).

PHK

d123 said:

PHK said:

@trickydicky14 even if the phone was not VoLTE compatible your wife would still see signal bars, data would work and the phone would drop to 2G to make calls. 

There is no 2G on Three (Smarty).

Thanks that’s  true but the OP’s wife would still see 4G for data, (they’d have signal but no calls) so still needs to do the troubleshooting. 

trickydicky14

Thanks for all your help, issue now sorted.

flaneurs_lobster

trickydicky14 said:

Thanks for all your help, issue now sorted.

Be nice if you were able to share what the problem/fix was.

trickydicky14

flaneurs_lobster said:

trickydicky14 said:

Thanks for all your help, issue now sorted.

Be nice if you were able to share what the problem/fix was.

Well it’s a bit embarrassing to be honest. I did not know that my wife was attempting to set up the Smarty sim in her old moto phone which we found out is not VoLTE compatible. When she put the sim in her new phone which at the time had not been set up, it worked fine. What is a bit of a pain is Smarty issue a list of phones that are not compatible but when you speak to them they say a lot of phones are not on that list so they take no responsibility if a sim does not work in your phone!