I have a FP3. The 3G networks are being shutdown in Sweden at the end of 2025. (Telia keeps 2G until 2027.) See Teknikskifte | PTS
Will my FP3 continue to be fully functional in Sweden after the network shutdown?
FP3’s connection type displays as “LTE”, which is supposedly something betewen 3G and 4G(?): 4G - Wikipedia . My network provider has warned me that my phone may stop working, but they don’t give much details, and they want to sell phones…
People were discussing this prior to the 3G closure in other countries. E.g. here: 🇦🇺 3G network closure - Australia where it seems people believed normal connectivity would work but it seems unclear if emergency calls would work. Apparently the 3G closure has happened in Australia already, but I can’t tell from the discussion how that worked for FP3 users. And I am not sure if 3G closures will work the same way in all countries (for example, maybe there is a country-specific angle to the emergency calls?)
So does anyone have any clearer information regarding if FP3 will continue to work or not?
According to Wikipedia (German language article), 3G has been shut down in Germany more than three years ago. I continue to use my own FP3+ (in Germany) without any issues, both for phone calls and mobile data.
If you have a Fairphone 3 or later, your phone supports 4G and Wi-Fi Calling. It’s important to check if your network operator supports these features before turning them on, or you may experience call and connectivity issues.
you need to ensure that VoLTE works with your provider. The emergency call topic in Australia was rather special in my eyes and I guess are different in Sweden?
To check if you have VoLTE working, enable in the settings, disable wifi if connected and call
*#*#4636#*#*
check under Phone Information and the 3 dots upper right the IMS-State
Technically this is correct, but as an indicator on smartphones “LTE” indicates 4G.
As @yvmuell said … if Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is provisioned for you by your provider and is working for you, then there’s not much to worry about, because calls and SMS will be handled via the 4G network this way.
If VoLTE would be a concern for you somehow, your provider should better be Telia then, so the phone could simply fall back to 2G for calls and SMS.
Thanks all for helpful answers! Unfortunately the info screen I see when calling *#*#4636#*#* says that Voice over LTE is not available.
Is this a limitation of the network provider (Tele2)? Does it mean I will not be able to make phone calls with my current provider but possibly if I switch to one of the other providers?
Either that, or a limitation of your plan with your provider, or just a misconfiguration on the provider side … you should contact your provider and ask.
If the provider can’t provision VoLTE in a working manner for you or keep 2G working, then yes.
Yes. They could either give you working VoLTE or working 2G. Ask them.
Thank you again. I now contacted the network provider. They claim that they have provisioned VoLTE for me, but according to them, my phone identifies itself as not having VoLTE enabled.
Could it be that I need to configure something on the phone to enable VoLTE on my side? I have configured Network type as LTE, and disabled wifi.
But the instructions don’t match what I see in the “Settings” UI. I verified that my phone has Android 13, but when I follow the following instructions…
On your Fairphone, go to Settings → Network & internet → SIMs.
Tap on the SIM you want to change settings for.
Tap 4G Calling or Wi-Fi Calling to turn on or off.
… steps 1 and 2 work, but in step 3, I don’t see any option for 4G Calling or Wi-Fi Calling. The options are in Swedish, but they translate to something like “Mobile data”, “Roaming”, “App data usage”, “Data warning and quota”, “Network type”, “Choose network automatically”, “Name of access points”. See attached screen.
Am I in the wrong menu? Sorry if I’m missing something obvious…
Thanks again, really encouraging to get so many helpful replies.
Tele2 support claim that my phone does not support VoLTE, that nevertheless they have provisioned VoLTE for it, and that if the phone diagnostics say that VoLTE is disabled, it is because of lack of support in the phone. I don’t know if there is any way i can verify those claims, but I suppose it contradicts what Fairphone say on their web page. So now I opened a support ticket against Fairphone too, which they say will be answered within 3 days. Will get back when I know more…
Summary: Apparently FP3 won’t support Tele2’s 4G network.
I was in contact with both Tele2 support and FP3 support:
Tele2 basically claim they have enabled everything they can, but that my phone does not support it.
FP first gave some troubleshooting instructions, which I followed that but did not make it work. In the follow-up, they said that they can no longer support compatibility with Tele2’s network: They had previously confirmed that it worked, but have not tested regularly, and now “a lot has changed with network technology”. They apologize and suggest to try other network providers and offer me a discount on FP5/FP6. They say they are working on ways to keep their network compatibility charts more updated.
So it appears that it won’t work and that FP takes the blame.
I tested with network provider Tre, with the same results.
Has anyone tested if FP3 can connect to Telia’s or Telenor’s 4G networks in Sweden?
