Nokia 105 unable to make or receive calls.

[SER3]

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?

[SER3]

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.

[Peter_W]

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

[Dalbreck3]

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

[Peter_W]

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

[Dalbreck3]

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

[SER3]

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.

[Dalbreck3]

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

[bristolian]

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@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.

[Dalbreck3]

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

[Dalbreck3]

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!