Hello! I have bought a Fairphone 5 in October, and so far I have been very happy with it. I bought this phone to take with me on extended travelling, and there were no problems in various countries while using two soms; my own physical sim card (for mobile connection), as well as an eSIM (for data) being both active at the same time. However, I have arrived in Australia a couple of days ago, where it still worked fine on the first two days. However, upon leaving one of the bigger cities, I started to run into trouble:
I got a popup saying âSim 1 not allowedâ, and it seems both sims are not working. I rebooted my phone, and the Sims both seemed to work again, so I thought that was that. However, during the same day, the issue arose again a couple of times, which I solved again by rebooting. I tried to do this again this morning, but now the rebooting solution does not work anymore and I get the same popup immediately.
I have tried resetting the network settings and removing the physical sim card and putting it back in, which unfortunately did not help. When I deactivate the physical sim, the popup changes to " Sim card 2 not allowed" instead of referring to Sim card 1. I am guessing it is unlikely that it is an issue with the IMEI, since the problem is present for both sims. Therefore I think it may be a software problem instead. Does anyone have experience with this or know what I can do to solve this?
hello and welcome, i hope youâre enjoying your travels anyway.
Have a look on the thread đŠđș 3G network closure - Australia - #111 by Stefan1985; perhaps you are using the networks which are blocking FP unfortunately, sorry about that but I am sure there are some wiser people in this thread that could give you more insight
Thanks for sending me the link to the 3G network thread. This seems somewhat similar to Stefanâs thread, as for him the network also worked for a few days and then suddenly it stopped. However, my eSIM for Australia is linked to the Optus network (where Stefan seems to have switched to, we it should be working), rather than Telstra which was causing the issues. Furthermore, my physical sim from the Netherlands is also not working. So I am not too sure whatâs happening here. Anyway, happy to receive any suggestions anyone might have!
Most phones can do 4G network calling EXCEPT for Emergency 000 calls, for which they fall back to âclassic telephonyâ for calling and 3G for data.
The 3G network has been shut down in Australia for modernization purposes (the bandwith can now be used for 4G/5G).
If the phone cannot do a fallback to 3G for data, then the whole call (including telephony for voice) fails â the whole emergency call fails.
In order to be allowed on Australian mobile phone network, a device must specifically support 4G Calling during Emergency 000 calls (not just 4G Calling for regular calls). Smartphone manufacturers do not always note the availability of this specific ability on their data sheets.
Network providers/authorities do not want to test every phone individually for their capabilities (some regional models might actually support 4G calling for Emergency 000 calls), so if ANY regional variant of a phone does not support this, the entire type gets banned from the network.
A phone may be perfectly capable of making Emergency 000 calls over 4G, but if another regional variant of that type is not capable, the entire type will be blocked from functioning on Australian mobile phone networks (WiFi still works, obviously).
Ik think it was the issue explained above with the Australian networks. I am back in Europe and havenât had any issues since. Thanks everyone for responding to my question!
I am currently in Sydney with my Fairphone 5 and experiencing the same issue. But only when I try to use a local eSIM. If I want to use roaming and pay an extortionate ÂŁ8.65 per day my phone works just fine.
Iâm about to go into a store to see if swapping to a physical SIM makes any difference. But if it is an issue with the lack of 3G it seems like it wonât make any difference.
Is it only Telstra that shutdown their 3G network? Or have all telcos done this? The eSIM I tried is a Woolworthâs Everyday which uses Telstra network, would I be able to use my handset with Optus or Vodafone? Iâm with EE and I think they usually roam with Optus, could that be why my EE SIM still seems to work?
What makes this extra painful is that Australia seems to be allergic to public WiFi. Unlike Europe or the US where you can access public WiFi just about anywhere, Australia has little to no public WiFi. Australians donât like giving anything away for free. Cafe staff look at me like I have 3 heads if ask if they have WiFi. Instead, most Australians have mobile plans with high amounts of data. Itâs all upside down.
Given how often I travel back to Australia, I probably wouldnât have bought this phone if I had known it wouldnât work here.
The irony of Australia trying to modernise their systems and effectively taking us back to a time where not all handsets are compatible in every country. This is not the sort of irony I enjoy.
In the Telstra Network the Fairphone 5 is blocked at the moment. You can use their IMEI Check ( https://www.telstrawholesale.com.au/3G-Network-Closure-Blocked-Devices-Checker.html ). In the Optus Network the Fairphone should work without any problems you can use their IMEI Check too ( https://www.optus.com.au/support/checkdevice ). For the vodafone network i did not find any tool to check so it can be possible that the FP is blocked like in the Telstra network. This happens when politicans have a good idea without any technical knowledge (3G shutdown and force to block any device which canât use 000 VoLTE)âŠ