As mentioned, my wife has a Moto G9 which will be blocked tomorrow according to messages from Tele2. She was offered a new phone if she renewed her contract, so we visited a Tele2 store Thursday last, signed up for a Samsung and was told it would arrive tomorrow (Monday).
Yesterday I called 225 from her phone and got the message that the phone was OK for emergency calls via VoLTE!
So what happened? Does the 225 service identify the actual phone (via IMEI or whatever)? If so, why the earlier message that it would be blocked?
Or is the new Samsung (yet to arrive) registered as her phone so that the service believes that was what I was using? And if so, will her old phone continue to work tomorrow? And will emergency calls work?
I get the feeling that operators panic and don’t really know what they are doing.
This is me conjecturing but I think 225 is actually checking whether the call you are placing is done via 4G. So if that number said you’re fine, you’re actually fine. I might be wrong though, it might be using some other method.
In order to test, the 225 number must emulate the emergency number 112 (using the same band). If it just checks whether your phone is capable of “ordinary” VoLTE calls, you’ll get a false positive.
To add to the confusion: my wife’s Moto G9 continues to work today, not blocked at all, in spite of the messages she has received from Tele2.
Ideally I would like to call 112 from my wife’s phone and see if it works, but one can’t make such calls just for testing.
Sorry for being unclear. What I meant is: I am not certain of this, but my understanding was that 225 is emulating the emergency number, so if that call is via 4G then you’re fine. I am assuming that because it’s also a short number like 112, and also as you say, it would be pointless otherwise. But frankly, I don’t know, and I don’t know who can answer for certain.
Agreed. That noone seems to be able to give an informed answer is frustrating. In the PTS statement (see the link in my previous message) I read:
“PTS now requires Tre, Telenor, and Tele2 to immediately identify phones that cannot be used on the operator’s network to make emergency calls after 2G and 3G shutdown. Users of these phones must also be informed of the issue immediately.”
Can I trust the operators to properly identify these phones? Or are they just guessing (“A Fairphone? What’s that? We don’t know, so we’ll block it just to be on the safe side”)?
and Check IMS fields, what does it show? The below is according to AI (so I’m sceptical how correct this is) required.
Overall AI states the bands are not important (only in some rural areas), important is rather the IMS profile.
VoLTE Provisioned: Yes
IMS Registered: Yes
Emergency Support: Yes (guess that would be the key, being in Germany I dont have this at all).
Edit: I still think when FPs lists an operator as supported for VoLTE let them check and clarify, so get in contact with support.
This is also from AI, so def dont take this for granted, however that fact that their whitelist is the strictest is interesting in my eyes.
2. TELE2 – Emergency VoLTE Compatibility
Tele2 has one of the STRICTEST IMS whitelists in Sweden.
Fully supported
iPhone 6s → 16 Samsung (CSC NEE or HTS) Sony Xperia (Nordic models) Google Pixel 5 → 8 (but NOT 4) Fairphone 4 & 5
Partially supported
OnePlus 8–11
Xiaomi EU models (12/13 sometimes work, but emergency IMS unstable)
NOT supported
Poco/Redmi global & CN models
Oppo/Realme
Motorola G-series
All rugged Chinese brands
Pixel 4 (VoLTE glitch on Tele2; emergency attach fails)
Samsung US-market models
Tele2 is the operator where most imports fail emergency calls.
as said thats from AI and there are no official lists from operators it seems, thus AI will only see if they find any (anecdotal) evidence in Fora etc… so as this doesnt affect me, I will not dig into it deeper and reiterate a last time, if you neither want to take time to search the internet in detail
Checked my wife’s Moto G9 (not supported according to the AI information you found) and it says
IMS-registration: Registered
VoLTE provisioned: Yes
Voice over wifi: Not avaiable
Video calls: Not available
UT Interface: Not available
So presumably the UT interface is vital for emergency calls without 2G/3G access. Maybe FP3 and FP6 owners reading this could check their IMS status and see what it says?
“UT Interface is only required to change supplementary service settings (i.e. call forwarding) on a 4G/LTE only network. Devices without an “Available” UT Interface are reliant on 2G/3G networks to change call forwarding/busy settings.”
Tried googling for finding a link between UT Interface and emergency calls, but couldn’t find anything clear-cut and understandable (for me).
The webpage mentioned above also quotes a network expert claiming that "these issues are “Common Knowledge” in the industry and that “[…] there is nobody who feels responsible to fix this.”
Seems like it cannot easily be found with the telephone info and the IMS outputs:
In that presentation, Rudolf van der Berg lists a few issues that are connected with VoLTE and emergency calls. Doing emergency calls seems to be a special case where some phones just fail because
they are not tested sufficiently,
for VoLTE you need to have an IP connection and obviously not all phones can do IPv4 and IPv6 but want to have one or the other which may be an issue if a similar issue exists on the network side,
phone vendor, chipset vendor and network may block VoLTE for whatever reasons which makes VoLTE by itself less reliable,
settings seem to differ a lot between networks and configuration is complex (too complex?),
…which is why some phones by themselves switch to <4G for emergency calls to circumvent any issues
After quickly reading about this I’m surprised to see that it’s not a clear “that’s the reason” thing but rather such a wild mixture of things that you cannot easily describe (and thus resolve).
Some experience from Comviq (Tele2). I have a Fairphone 6 and got the scary warning text a while ago.
Calling via 225: confirms that my phone can call over 4G, but then says that some phones will still not be able to do emergency calls over 4G. And that owners have such phones have received an SMS about it (which I did).
Comviq website: you can log in and check all of your phones and numbers. Mine confirms that I have Fairphone 6 and gives me all three “green lights”: SIM card, Surf via 4G and Call via 4G. It doesn’t say anything about emergency calls though, so I will have to contact customer service and ask.
If the FP6 (and maybe older models as well) will be blocked by Swedish network providers, it will be a terrible blow. OK, the Swedish market is fairly small, but I guess that the same will happen in other countries sooner or later.
Switching to Telia might be an option for Swedish FP owners, postponing the inevitable (?) till the end of 2027 (when they too will close down their 2G network).
I made that presentation a couple of years ago. It started with my Pixel 4a not having VoLTE on KPN the Netherlands. When I asked questions about it on LinkedIn I found out how broken the whole standardisation process is and how interoperability isn’t guaranteed. The Fairphone case has my attention now, because it shows that all good intentions about making a repairable phone that can last a long time are worthless if it can be bricked by telcos and regulators.
I hope this forum (and Fairphone staff) can help me identify the many issues that you face. Fairphone is the type of phone no policymaker or telco can be against. By telcos not disclosing their settings in the GSMA NSX and by the network vendors and handset makers not creating a globally interoperable standard for 4G and 5G calling they have made it next to impossible for an initiative such as Fairphone to thrive.
If you scroll down you’ll find a table with the heading “Status of European Network 2G/3G Shutdowns”.
I don’t know if the list is complete, but if so, then no operator in either Ireland, Spain, or Switzerland will offer 2G or 3G networks in 2026.
I have a FP6 in Sweden with 2 SIMs. This is the IMS status info on *#*#4636*#*#**:
Phone 0 - Tele2 (physical SIM)
IMS-registration: Not Registered
Voice over LTE: Available
Voice over wi-fi: Unavailable
Video calling: Unavailable
UT Interface: Unavailable
Phone 1 -Telenor (eSIM)
IMS-registration: Registered
Voice over LTE: Available
Voice over wi-fi: Unavailable
Video calling: Available
UT Interface: Available
So even more reason to ditch Tele2 it seems…. if the “Hi! now we have upgraded your account to the more expensive option since your version is shut down so that we can charge more money” that I get every other year wasn’t enough..
If I read that list correctly, there will be no 2G/3G networks working after 31.12.2025 in the following European countries:
Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland.
Interesting to see how this will affect FP owners come January.
As @Martin_Anderseck wrote in his post above, it’s a wild mixture of things involved (which of course will allow involved actors to pass the bucket elsewhere). Different countries might use different technologies for their PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points). Different operators might handle emergency calls differently. And finally it might be hardware (chipset) related.
Maybe “wild mixture” isn’t the best description. Maybe we should say “a complete and terrible mess”.
[Was passiert, wenn ich nach der 3G Abschaltung eine veraltete SIM-Karte oder Hardware verwende?](javascript: void(0))
Veraltete SIM-Karten und Geräte nutzen nach der 3G Abschaltung das 2G-Netz. Telefonieren und das Versenden von SMS sind weiterhin möglich. Internet- und Datenverbindungen sind hingegen nur noch stark eingeschränkt möglich und für die meisten Anwendungen nicht geeignet.
Well, the list that you linked to has just a dash in the 2G column for Austrian operators. That could signify either “No 2G available”, or “no information on shutdown available”. So apparently the latter. My mistake.
Oh yeah, sorry I could have phrased it better… But when there is only —– that means it is still operational. It’s a mess though, because there is not one uniform, up to date resource eg at the GSMA. So everyone is trying their best to get some data.
2. TELE2 – Emergency VoLTE Compatibility
Fully supported
Partially supported
NOT supported
with 2 SIMs. This is the IMS status info on *#*