In the past week or so my wife’s Android phone started taking a long time to dial any number. Anything from 30 seconds to a minute, and often failing to dial completely. Also, it seemed to be unable to pick up incoming calls.
She went to the Y!mobile shop to try to troubleshoot it, and, to our surprise, it worked fine at the shop. By walking around the neighborhood we found that the slow dialing problem only happens *in or near to our house.* The guy at the Y!mobile shop thought it might be related to the fact that they [stopped supporting 3G on April 15th.](https://www.ymobile.jp/biz/support/closed3g/)
Both my wife and I have sim-free Android phones. Hers is an Umidigi, mine is Oukitel, and my phone is fine.
So my current theory is that some difference in the 4G band support on these phones, and the end of 3G, means that my wife’s phone is now struggling to get a decent signal when in the vicinity of our house, for some mysterious reason. (I tried turning off the wi-fi in case that was somehow interfering. No difference)
My question for r/japanlife: Any users of sim-free Android phones having trouble dialing/receiving calls with Y!mobile since April 15th? Did you find any solution?
by CallPhysical
4 comments
I’m with SoftBank and they did the same thing. My 2016 smartphone didn’t have VoLTE calling so I had to buy a new one.
You may have internet/VoLTE calling disabled as standard, in which case you can turn it on in the settings menu. If you don’t see an option for that, it could be new phone time.
You should probably stop using unsupported phones (especially if they are non-Japan models without certification).
Y! Mobile, and by extension, SoftBank already uses some weird-ass bands that most international phones don’t support at all in the first place.
> Did you find any solution?
Move to Ishikawa
I totally agree with @peanutbutterchiken
You can easily buy a Japanese Pixel A version for 1円 during the campaign times. Those phones come unlocked out of the box and also support NFC filica for IC cards.
Google has their own promotions on their website with 12 months free installments. 😄😄😄