Hello jamesm067,
I just received a reply from tmcco elsewhere on this forum, another Volla 22 purchaser who can make and receive calls. In his case, he swapped the SIM card from his old Alcatel Windows phone into the Volla and it was recognized and fully functioning. In fact, he just ordered another Volla for his wife.
His carrier? Ting Mobile, which is an MVNO through Verizon. The card I swapped out from my old HTC Windows phone is a Verizon card as well, and they jammed me straight up stating the phone is not compatible with their system. I’m from the SLC, UT area and 4G VoLTE/5G have been here for some time.
I think the reason that some users can access the same carrier’s network and others can’t is due to the roll-out of the 4G VoLTE/5G networks. Logically, heavily populated areas would be transitioned into the new systems earlier, whereas lesser populated areas will receive the upgrades later. They will no doubt also lose connectivity on December 31st if Verizon completely shuts down the 3G and 4G LTE networks nationally on schedule.
I too sent an email detailing my thoughts to Gregor Zawierucha in Customer Service/Support this afternoon, so I would not expect a reply until Monday at the earliest. I am anxiously awaiting Volla’s solution to this issue.
I am 99.9% certain that the missing 1700 MHz frequency band is the reason these phones don’t work here. The carriers are shutting down the older networks to free up those bandwidths for 4G VoLTE, and 5G which are bandwidth hogs.
I don’t know if the modem that Gigaset uses is firmware driven and the 1700 frequencies can be enabled, but that is my hope. I have found that other phone manufacturers have separate modems for the US, EU, and Africa, so maybe not.
All three are now heavily invested in Band 4 AWS (1710-1755MHz uplink and 2110-2155MHz downlink) and Band 66 EAWS (1710-1780MHz/2110-2200MHz). Since the Volla does not support 1700MHz, it can not work when those are the primary regional bands.
I have now tried all three carriers and cannot get service from any of them. Maybe the Volla 23 will be 5G?