Telstra small cell 4g areas

Most travellers will have received text messages suggesting they are in a small cell area if they are with Telstra. I have never noticed the situation you are referring to but I have a Telstra supplied phone on a plan so guess I am immune.
I am no lawyer bit if the condition is as you suspect and you can only access their network if you have one of their phones it sounds very close to "Third Line Forcing" or at least anti competitive conduct. The ACCC take a dim view of such practices and fines are hefty. It is hard to imagine that a large coy could expose themselves to that but from memory it wouldn't be the first time a telco stuffed up in that area.

Hi teryt,

I am not 100% sure, but I think it has a lot to due with the age of your phone, and what SIM card you have. It is my understanding (I am sure those in the know will correct me if I am wrong) that some older phones do not have the firmware to use 4G only networks. Also, depending on who you purchased the prepaid SIM card from (Boost Mobile etc), they also do not access the full Telstra network.

Certainly for the most comprehensive coverage, Telstra is the way to go.

Macca.

The people you met were probably using the Telstra Wi-Fi call function, All phones purchased in the last few years should have this ability (my iPhone 6 does). All that is happening is you are making a phone call over Wi-Fi via the internet and using a small amount of data instead of paying to make a traditional phone call.
Check the settings on your phone and turn Wi-Fi calling on and never pay for a phone call again, as long as you have the internet or some data.
I use it all the time at work as we have no phone service at all, but we've got internet so my phone works as normal. If you have an Iphone and this function is turned on it will say "telstra wifi call" on the top left of screen next to signal strength.
Hope this helps

Where there's a will !!

Apart from one of our party able to call out and receive calls some of the time the rest of us had to resort to this while camping at the Limmen river NT
All of us had iphones and are with Telstra .

We did resort to our sat phones when needed

It is simply the capabilities of your phone. Some are capable of Voice Over LTE, or VoLTE which you may have heard of as Voice Over IP or VOIP.

LTE is the protocol for 4g data networks so some phones have the capabilities and others don't.

If you have a handset that is capable of VoLTE, you should be able to make voice calls as well as use data while in a small cell area. If your handset is not VoLTE capable, then it will not be able to make voice calls.

My phone is 4g compatible. I have Telstra prepaid plan. What else is needed

I received several of those text messages on our last trip east.

I rang, texted, and emailed Telstra and said I don’t want ANY text messages from the unless they were telling me it was the End of the World.

It finally got through to them and now I don’t get those messages.

This might clear things up.
https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/mobiles-tablets/telstra-wi-fi-calling/wi-fi-calling-frequently-asked-questions

You can find your phones capabilities and specifications on GSMarena.com.

GSMarena

Zippo's information is on the mark, particularly his last paragraph.

If you buy a phone off an Australian Telco, you are halfway there, because these phones are built for the Australian market, and are equipped with the bandwidths and technologies that we use here.

There are up to 10 or 20 different versions of phone, in any particular phone brand, and model number.
Each one is built to cover a certain market area or region. Not every country uses the same phone technology as us.

Then you have to have a phone with VoLTE technical capabilities, and your phone firmware up to date.
Then your Telco has to have VoLTE activated in the area where the small cell is.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, I bought it off eBay, and it's an unlocked Australian-specific model, and I'm with Telstra pre-paid.

The Note 4 was released in 2014, and it's a pretty capable 4G phone, but I can't make voice calls from Telstra small cell areas, because it doesn't have VoLTE capability - even though it has 4G LTE capabilities.

Cheers, Ron.

Just get a voip account with someone like Mynetfone and install the 3CX voip app and you'll be able to make a call through the app.

The handsets/networks that support voLTE ...

https://www.finder.com.au/what-is-volte

Activation may be necessary ...
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/telstravolte

Here is *authoritive* content - not guessing
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/telstravolte
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/mobile_phone_frequencies