Starting January 19th Cricket will stop activating non-VoLTE phones

[greatgoogly]

Just got the pictured text from Cricket. Cricket will quit activating non-VoLTE phones starting next week. If you move your SIM after that to a non VoLTE phone your SIM card will be deactivated and you can't just switch it back to a VoLTE phone. Very nervous. I have a OnePlus 6 and my wife has a Nokia 6.1 both support VoLTE but AT&T/Cricket does not have them on their White List of VoLTE devices. AT&T/Cricket claims that BYOD devices that have VoLTE will be supported but the fact that we are going back to them only allowing Whitelisted phones is very concerning. I know why they are doing this (AT&T shutting down their 3G network in 2022), but my concern is either through incompetence or an attempt to generate phone sales many phones that actually support VoLTE will be booted.

[RodimusConvoy]

I JUST got this text myself.

I wonder what this means for folks (like myself) who refuse to get a Cricket branded phone...

I already decided my next phone will either be a Note 10 Plus or a Note 20 Ultra, so I should be ok?

[Fishx65]

This is kinda freaky for those of us using unlocked devices. I wonder how they'll handle phones like my unlocked Verizon Galaxy S9+. The S9+ is definitely VoltE capable but At&t won't allow that feature to work on their network.

[J Wireless]

I went to the byod checker to see what it would say about my OnePlus 7 Pro. Underneath the checker, in bold font is says that other carriers' 5G devices will not have access to 5G service on the Cricket network. It sounds like the old CDMA days when if they saw that you had a flashed phone, they would disable features like internet from work to try and make you buy a new phone. It also could be AT&T's way of trying to get people to pay more for the features they want there than to get it cheaper on Cricket.

[RodimusConvoy]

Ok, why aren't more people talking about this? I know this board is slow but this sounds like a mass purge waiting to happen on the 19th.

[Serial Port]

The thread title is incorrect. They will not stop activating VOLTE devices, I suspect it is only 3G devices.

[greatgoogly]

yeah, I noticed that after I posted it. Was obviously supposed to say "non-VoLTE". Unfortunately I can't neither edit or delete the post.

[Serial Port]

yeah, I noticed that after I posted it. Was obviously supposed to say "non-VoLTE". Unfortunately I can't neither edit or delete the post.

No worries, title edited to prevent confusion.

[hchen42]

I am looking to move on from Cricket anyway. The 5 lines for $100 have served us well, unfortunately, Cricket hasn't been competitive service/price wise.

[greatgoogly]

No worries, title edited to prevent confusion.

Thank you!

[joseg2016]

The thread title is incorrect. They will not stop activating VOLTE devices, I suspect it is only 3G devices.

The relevance seems to be regarding removing SIM card and putting it into a non-LTE device, and by that, causing the de-activation of the phone number account.

[Serial Port]

The relevance seems to be regarding removing SIM card and putting it into a non-LTE device, and by that, causing the de-activation of the phone number account.

I guess you didn't read the OP's reply in post #7 that confirmed my assumption.

[Hogan773]

So I should be fine with the Cricket-branded iPhone XR I just got for my wife though right?

[Serial Port]

So I should be fine with the Cricket-branded iPhone XR I just got for my wife though right?

Yes, that phone is fully compatible and will work just fine. No worries for you.

[KevinMCombes]

This situation has me incredibly frustrated, mainly because Cricket's communications are completely unclear and in some cases just wrong. I am a BYOD person, I like to buy unlocked phones, and sometimes phones that aren't exactly mainstream. Right now I'm on the unlocked Galaxy Z Fold2. This device (the unlocked model, in addition to the AT&T model) IS on AT&T/AT&T Prepaid's BYOD list, but it has never been provisioned for VoLTE on Cricket. I even tried getting the White SIM, which did enable VoLTE on some of my older phones, but not this one.

I have no idea what's going to happen to my service come Tuesday. I know that incompatible phones are supposed to be able to keep using the service for one year, but the communications they've put out make it sound like once your SIM goes into a VoLTE compatible phone, it cannot go back to an incompatible one. So now I am losing the ability to move my SIM between phones, which I like to do from time to time.

What's worse is that Cricket's article tells you to use the IMEI checker (including one broken link that omitted the colon after "https"), but the IMEI checker is clearly not updated. Others have tried putting in true 3G-only IMEIs in and they're being told the phones are compatible. There's also the list of compatible phones, which FINALLY indicates that some BYOD Android phones are compatible, but so far it's only AT&T sold-devices and the S8/9/10. We know through experimentation that many other unlocked phones have become VoLTE provisioned recently.

This is almost certainly going to make me leave Cricket. If I'm not going to be able to switch to whatever phone I like down the road, I'll move to a carrier who will let me do that.