topic Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls. in Mobile Network discussions

Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:56:11 GMT

Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls. Incoming calls ring but no voice sound. Outgoing calls no ringing. Bars fall to 1. Does EE support non smart phones still or is it a handphone fault? At a loss what to do cannot make 150 call. Do not live near EE store. Cannot get live response or email on EE website. Can anyone advise?

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

bristolian — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:57:58 GMT

How long has this problem been evident - has this Nokia 105 been able to make or receive calls on EE's network previously?

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:01:25 GMT

Just last day problem started on EE network

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Chris_B — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:15:03 GMT

@SER3 Depending on what model 105 it is it might only support 2G and not 4G, there are two different 105 models.

While EE do support none smartphones after all a phone is a phone you might be limited to only using 2G.

Live chat is only available for contract customers and there is no email address for customer issues as emails are too slow to sort customer issues.

You can get none smartphones that support 4G and I think this might be the route you’ll need to go if your device is only a 2G phone.

You’ll get a better idea if you can put your sim in to a 4G phone even just to test. This will point to a device or sim issue if the problem is present on this other device. A replacement sim can be requested if needs be if the problem is also on the other device.

But it could simply be a network problem in your area and you can check that via THIS and clicking the check service status tab.

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

bristolian — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:27:32 GMT

@SER3 wrote:

Just last day problem started on EE network

So to clarify, this same phone has worked on EE's network before the last day or two? Is that in the same location as you're trying to use it now? Or a different one?

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:45:43 GMT

Thank you for your reply.
Yes I think I need to buy a 4G supported version. May be device as it is
old.
Checked network - no problem. However work is in the village laying fibre.
I do have contract for Mifi on same account.
Want to stay dumb! EE do not offer Nokia dumb on contract or without.

Many thanks

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:47:43 GMT

Yes only noticed problem this morning. Yes same location.

Thank you

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

bristolian — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:54:49 GMT

FYI you have a short time after posting to edit, negating the need for multiple short replies.

If your phone worked previously in this same location, it's more likely to be a network issue than phone compatibility.

What menu options does your phone have, for network type? 2G, 4G, auto etc? Same question for 4G-calling/VoLTE?

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:01:43 GMT

Only network options are Automatic & manual. It is on Automatic.

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 11:12:49 GMT

In the last 48 hours, my Doro "non-smart" phone has no ringing tone for outgoing calls. However, it is ringing at the other end. The person answers, but I cannot hear them. It does the same when I receive an incoming call - the caller can hear me but I cannot hear them! By the way, the SMS system is still working. Basically, I cannot hear the other person at the end of an either outgoing or incoming call!

I also have a Samsung smartphone with an O2 enabled Sim card and make the following observations:

1. The O2 enabled simcard makes the Doro phone work perfectly for calls. So, it is not the phone at fault.

2. The EE enabled (Doro) simcard works perfectly for calls in the Smartphone. So, it's not the simcard either!

Therefore, it is quite clear that EE is not supporting my Doro "Non" smartphone. I can only assume that this is a glitch in the system? This is quite an urgent situation.

Gordon

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:57:43 GMT

Many thanks Gordon this is the same experience that I am having & the same
timescale so your conclusion is worrying. It is wrong if EE is not
supporting non smart phones - which many people prefer.

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Peter_W — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 11:22:46 GMT

Hey @SER3.

Welcome to the Community 😊

Based on the experience both you and @Dalbreck3 are highlighting here, my initial hunch would be an outage / degradation of the 2G service in your location.

As @Chris_B mentioned, these handsets typically only support 2G, so if this was affected but not 4G and 5G, this would explain why Smartphones aren't affected.

If you get in touch with our technical team, they'll be able to take a closer look into what could be impacting you here.

Peter

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 18:35:35 GMT

Thank you Peter and SER-3

Peter’s theory about the 2G outage seems to be correct. I was in Edinburgh this afternoon - 17 miles from where I live - and the phone was fine. When I got back home, it was back to not working again. So, it’s DEFINITELY an EE problem. I suppose I’ll have to phone them again and report back! Or does anyone know the best way of doing this. I guess that if I change to O2 that will work but I'd rather avoid the hassle. The O2 sim works in my Doro phone but, it is a different number and I'd rather keep it in my smartphone.

Gordon

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Peter_W — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 18:41:43 GMT

Thanks for the update here @Dalbreck3 😊

I'm glad to hear you noticed an improvement once you visited Edinburgh, and fingers crossed things should improve in your area soon.

Keep us posted on what our tech guys advise too!
Peter

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 20:28:31 GMT

Hi Peter,

I spoke to a technical guy, based in Plymouth. Very nice, helpful guy. He confirmed that there is indeed a 2G outage in my area, which is being worked on - and has been since December!!! I told him that it was only yesterday that my phone stopped working and he said that they only turned it off completely yesterday. He offered 2 months free rental on the basis that it might "take some time yet to fix". He also mentioned that the EE objective is to stop supporting 2G phones within 2 years......as will all providers he thought. I set in train the process to leave EE but, on reflection, it was less hassle to buy the Doro 2800 for £59 (£39 with my 2 month reduction) which looks identical to my existing phone but is 4G.

Thanks for all your help. I was glad to get to the bottom of this having spent the best part of last night faffing about with the device and sim cards etc!!

I'm not sure that this helps SER3 but he may well have the same issue in his area. The way to get the technical folk is https://rapid2.ee.co.uk/callback/home/cbq-13/01ab4134ce87223b4611c392769ce5cf. and select "Call me now". The guy phoned me in about 2 minutes.

Gordon

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

SER3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 20:51:39 GMT

Thank you Dalbreck3 & Peter

Wondering how to get technical support as I do not have a working phone. Was going to buy a 4G version of Nokia 105 from Argos but spec said nano sim (my sim is micro) & GSM which may not be an improvement? I seem to be getting nowhere. Looks like I will have to go to EE Shop to get it sorted out. In the meanwhile getting used to having no phone - email on Mac & text on defunct phone.

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 20:58:35 GMT

The tech folk are https://rapid2.ee.co.uk/callback/home/cbq-13/01ab4134ce87223b4611c392769ce5cf

Click on "call me now". There is probably nothing wrong with your phone. The tech folk can see if there are any faults in your area. Your problem sounds identical to mine, which was all down to an EE transmitter 2G fault.

Gordon

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

bristolian — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 10:51:40 GMT

@Dalbreck3 wrote:

I spoke to a technical guy, based in Plymouth. He confirmed that there is indeed a 2G outage in my area, which is being worked on - and has been since December!!! I told him that it was only yesterday that my phone stopped working and he said that they only turned it off completely yesterday. ....He also mentioned that the EE objective is to stop supporting 2G phones within 2 years......

I'm sure the CS agent was well-intentioned here, but I fear a few bits may have got lost in translation between the technical notes in the fault ticket and the frontline CS bod you spoke to. This post will be necessarily long.

When 4G was first launched, it did not natively support voice calls and thus "CSFB" enabled fallback to 2G for voice calls. For the overwheming majority of current phones, "VoLTE" now allows voice calls over the 4G network which brings numerous advantages - but CSFB remains live for non-VoLTE phones such as yours.

It's a highly unusual set of circumstances here, and I'm slightly sceptical of the claim regarding 2G "only turned it off completely yesterday". The 2 year timeline that he's mentioned is pure speculation on their part - EE have not announced anything of the sort, this feels very symptomatic of a CS agent trying to say the right things but in actuality going rather off-script.

If there's an active fault case, that's at least encouraging. A 4G VoLTE phone already offers numerous improvements over a 2G-only experience, and that will only grow in time.

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 14:23:47 GMT

Hi Bristolian - I'm not sure whether your kind message actually helps or muddies the water.

Bizarrely, just 30 minutes ago, someone phoned me on the device in question, and it all now works. In the middle of that call, the 4G version of my old Doro was delivered by Amazon Prime - Yes......you couldn't make it up!!!!

I must say that I also found it odd that a fault (which without a doubt was there) had been going on since December with no impact on my phone and might continue for weeks. However, the Plymouth guy was just reading stuff off his computer and I have no reason at all to think he was making it up. My phone only stopped working on Thursday and, this afternoon - after all my phone calls and reports - it is working again at home as it did in Edinburgh.

Difficult who to believe in these situations. There WAS undoubtedly a fault but the "weeks to resolve" suggestion was just wrong!

Anyway, all is well now. I hope that SER-3 has had a similar positive outcome with his Nokia. The symptoms all seemed the same.

Thanks again to everyone who helped.

Gordon

Re: Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

Dalbreck3 — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 14:26:57 GMT

Bristolian - PS, I see from Google that ALL mobile phone providers have said that they will axe the 2G signal by 2033 at the latest. Admittedly, that is quite some time off!