There are SIP to cellular gateways which have historically been very popular in regions where landline to mobile calls cost money but mobile to mobile do not, but they mostly don't exist in the US market other than high-density devices mostly used by SMS spammers.
The only actual VoIP phone with a SIM card I'm aware of is the Yealink T74LTE which for a long time was exclusive to Verizon's business phone service but has recently become available for general purchase, those can support both SIM over LTE data and VoLTE (which is also basically SIP but over a prioritized channel).
> Will LTE continue to work when 6G rolls out in 3 years?
A significant change that came with LTE is the use of OFDM as the base of the air interface, which means that cellular providers no longer need to allocate large segments of spectrum to one protocol or another. Towers that were upgraded from 4G to 5G didn't need to disable 4G or consistently split their spectrum between the two they way they did when upgrading from 2G to 3G or 3G to 4G, they can dynamically allocate subchannels in each mode based on the immediate needs of their users.
It seems unlikely that whatever technologies come in the future will regress in this way, so there shouldn't be a need for a hard cutoff at any point and I'd expect LTE devices to keep working for many generations to come.
I don't think your conclusion is correct. 4G -> 5G will result in 5G networks completely consuming the 4G ones. T-Mobile has already been talking about shutting down LTE in a few years. The reason afaik that 4G and 5G are seemingly compatible right now is that most networks are in 5G NSA mode (non standalone) which means that LTE is actually used for negotiation and orchestration stuff, with 5G only used for the actual data pipe. I have been told that most of the benefit of 5G comes with 5G SA (standalone), but that requires not supporting the LTE stuff
It's not just spectrum, though. The core network is totally different than 5G SA or whatever 6G has. Maintaining all of that will eventually be considered not worth the trouble, and it'll be decommissioned. If anything decommissioning will be faster for LTE because unlike 2G/3G (which were needed because VoLTE support was flakely and had device whitelists) there isn't much point in keeping LTE around for legacy reasons.
They're (mostly) the same channels shared by all of them. It's not like an ethernet address (where everyone on the network speaks the same protocol and just ignores packets not for it), it's a radio frequency timeslice that's allocated to you, and you and your nearby tower can speak any radio modulation they want in that timeslice, even ones that other phones or other towers don't support.
However new technologies sometimes also bring new spectrum blocks like mmwave 5G.
they answered with AI and got flagged for being AI. You can turn on showdead in settings to see it but there's nothing of value in their comment really.
They could if they wanted to, I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t add it with this big new MBP generation.
Especially now that they have their own modem and wouldn’t need to pay whatever royalties Qualcomm would demand, which I’ve read are based on the device price and would get very high on a premium laptop.
There was a prototype macbook pro on ebay from 20 years ago with a 3G modem in it, the retail MBP from the time even has the space for a SIM card near the battery door. Presumably they decided against it for a good reason.
>Where 2G and 3G are switched off, calls need a module firmware with VoLTE and a carrier that allows it; ask the seller.
This is a huge caveat. OP, does your setup even support VoLTE? Otherwise this might become a brick in a few years as your carrier shuts down 2G/3G, as many carriers around the world have already done
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] threadThe only actual VoIP phone with a SIM card I'm aware of is the Yealink T74LTE which for a long time was exclusive to Verizon's business phone service but has recently become available for general purchase, those can support both SIM over LTE data and VoLTE (which is also basically SIP but over a prioritized channel).
A significant change that came with LTE is the use of OFDM as the base of the air interface, which means that cellular providers no longer need to allocate large segments of spectrum to one protocol or another. Towers that were upgraded from 4G to 5G didn't need to disable 4G or consistently split their spectrum between the two they way they did when upgrading from 2G to 3G or 3G to 4G, they can dynamically allocate subchannels in each mode based on the immediate needs of their users.
It seems unlikely that whatever technologies come in the future will regress in this way, so there shouldn't be a need for a hard cutoff at any point and I'd expect LTE devices to keep working for many generations to come.
Right, so if I'm still rocking 4G only while 'everyone' else in the area is using 6G with some other stragglers on 5G, ...
However new technologies sometimes also bring new spectrum blocks like mmwave 5G.
https://files.catbox.moe/nijoin.png
https://files.catbox.moe/suazr4.png
They sort of look sensible until you look closer and then the whole board is fever dream autorouting.
Especially now that they have their own modem and wouldn’t need to pay whatever royalties Qualcomm would demand, which I’ve read are based on the device price and would get very high on a premium laptop.
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-m...
This is a huge caveat. OP, does your setup even support VoLTE? Otherwise this might become a brick in a few years as your carrier shuts down 2G/3G, as many carriers around the world have already done